Even when music did start being regularly performed in designated spaces (opera houses, say), it was a decidedly relaxed affair. Churches and cathedrals, meanwhile, trained countless children – who by definition started out with little expertise – as boy choristers. Frederick the Great of Prussia was an accomplished flautist and composer – though hardly a professional musician. In courts, the duke, prince or other ruler often gathered musicians of varying abilities, sometimes including themselves, to perform. Indeed, for a long time the music that we now call classical was performed primarily by amateurs, who gathered in homes and other improvised performance spaces to sing and play together. What’s more, all kinds of Western music use the same system of musical notation.įor generations, classical music has been enjoyed by people of all stripes. Factory workers playing in the brass bands that used to be commonplace in Europe – watch the still-playing Grimethorpe Colliery Band rehearse Johann Sebastian Bach here – worked in their factories by day and played crotchets, quavers, minims, semiquavers and the occasional breve or demisemiquaver in their spare time. Generations of professional musicians and so-called simple folk have done exactly that. If you know your crotchets and quavers, you can make your way through a considerable amount of music. There are (in British English) crotchets and quavers, and indeed semi-quavers, minims a few other types of notes. But classical music is uniquely accessible to those with enormous expertise and those with none.Īnyone who has had even one or two music lessons knows that notes look different depending on their length. ‘This is music for everyone, not a select few who know their crotchets from their quavers!! That’s boring and naff!!’ he tweeted this month. Unfortunately, BBC broadcaster Clive Myrie – one of the BBC Proms’ presenters this summer –succumbed to this temptation. Ah, to dismiss classical music as elitist: it’s the cheapest trick in the book.
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