I’ve often heard people say, ‘I just don’t get classical music’ – a remark that has always puzzled me.
Can a tradition that spans a thousand years really offer nothing that can be enjoyed on a purely instinctive level, without prior knowledge or training? Here are just 15 of the many, many pieces of classical music for people who say that they don’t like classical music.
Don't like classical? Try these 15 wonderful works
1. Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2
You’ll love: stormy bravura, tender lyricism and emotions that go straight to the gut
Would Brief Encounter have become such a cinema classic without the help of this music? Who knows, but what is certain is that Rachmaninov had a knack for turning everyday human emotion into a tidal wave of earth-shattering force. Try listening to it when you’re in a self-indulgent frame of mind; it will make you feel like your life is a movie.
2. Mozart’s 'Queen of the Night' aria
You’ll love: electrifying coloratura, dramatic intensity and piercing high notes
The lyrics speak of vengeance, betrayal and fury. The vocal fireworks are dazzling – rapid, breathless, high-flying coloratura passages that seem almost superhuman. In short, there’s absolutely nothing boring about this high-stakes Mozart aria, which has turned up in films, adverts and popular media, delivering one of the most impressive moments in opera – just as long as the soprano manages to hit that high ‘F’.
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3. Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite
You’ll love: glittering orchestration, beautiful folk melodies and infernal rhythms
For anyone who thinks the 20th-century Russian composer Igor Stravinsky is just that bit too spiky, modern and forbidding, this is the piece to change your mind. With its vivid orchestral colours and sudden changes of mood, from gentle lullabies to thunderous climaxes, The Firebird Suite tells one of the most vivid and dramatic of musical narratives. And that Finale, starting so softly and ending in such a blaze of triumph, gets me every time.
4. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5
You’ll love: a dramatic odyssey of tension, struggle and ultimate victory
Most of us are familiar with the opening ‘Da Da Da Daaaaa’. But there’s good reason to keep listening: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 builds in dramatic tension and contrast in a way that feels almost like a story, taking the listener from darkness to triumph, so that you can connect without needing any musical background whatsoever. The result is enormously satisfying.
- Where did Beethoven finish in our ranking of the greatest composers of all time?
5. Handel’s Zadok the Priest
You’ll love: grandeur, majestic trumpets and triumphant jubilation
Frequently used at British coronations, Handel’s supremely uplifting Zadok the Priest is synonymous with majesty, triumph and timeless grandeur. Unlike some popular classics, it doesn’t go off with a bang. Instead, it begins with a gentle orchestral introduction that gradually builds up and intensifies until, finally, the choir bursts forth, like sunlight breaking through the clouds. When combined with a well-choreographed regal event, it’s pure theatre.
6. Pachelbel’s Canon
You’ll love: graceful variation and tranquil elegance
Yes, it has been played to death. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Pachelbel’s Canon is a ruddy good piece of music. What makes it so satisfying is its sheer elegance, built, as it is, from one melody that repeats and overlaps with itself, creating rich layers of harmony and texture from the simplest material. Or, perhaps I should say, the most seemingly simple material, because I can’t think of any composer, either before or since, who has managed to create a more approachable or moving composition out of a single melodic line.
7. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto
You’ll love: a Romantic tour de force full of lyricism, virtuosic fireworks and deep emotional contrasts
I used to rock out to this on my way home from school. And no, I’m not ashamed to admit it, because, in my opinion, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto has everything you could want from a great pop song, and more: excitement, rhythmic drive, catchy melodies, with the bonus of eye-watering virtuosity and barnstorming tutti sections where the entire orchestra goes at it hammer and tongs.
- This work finished high in our list of the greatest violin concertos of all time
8. Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10
You’ll love: this searing portrait of tyranny that moves from darkness to light
If you think classical music is only for the dentist’s waiting room, I’d love to see you give this a try. That’s because Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony – and its second movement in particular – is the stuff of mosh pits, with a ferocity and head-banging energy to rival anything you will hear in any musical genre. Written to decry the brutality of the Stalinist regime, it is an utterly gripping, brilliant piece of music and I can’t wait for the day that I do get to hear it in a dentist’s waiting room.
9. Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet
You’ll love: sweeping lyricism, cinematic detail and masterful orchestration
Leaving aside the fact that this work contains some of the most exquisite music of the 20th century, what makes the music to Prokofiev's ballet so wonderful is its sheer narrative detail: you can hear Tybalt stagger to the ground; you can hear Juliet plunging in the dagger. Listening to this ballet feels like watching a movie in your head, except that it is, in my opinion, even more gut-wrenching.
10. J.S Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
You’ll love: inventive instrumentation and textural ingenuity
Lively and colourful, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos are like bottled sunshine. Each concerto showcases different instruments in playful conversation, almost like some kind of musical game, or a jam session, while the sense of drive and intricate rhythmic patterns often feel contemporary, explaining why numerous modern composers have drawn direct inspiration from Bach. I challenge you to find anything more uplifting in any musical genre.
11. Grieg’s 'In the Hall of the Mountain King'
You’ll love: this vivid orchestral depiction of mounting tension and impending danger
Even if you think you don’t like classical music you can’t help but appreciate the masterful storytelling in Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain, which opens with a soft, grunting melody, then gradually builds up to a formidable climax. Summoning up images of Peer Gynt fleeing a band of trolls in the subterranean lair of the Mountain King, it is brilliantly cinematic – a quality that has earned this piece a place in countless films and cartoons.
12. Puccini’s 'O Soave Fanciulla'
You’ll love: lyrical melody, orchestral warmth and sheer romance
If I had to prescribe a piece for inducing goose pimples, then this may well be it. 'O Soave Fanciulla' ('O Sweet Girl') from La bohème, Puccini’s tale of ill-fated lovers is up there with the best of operatic tearjerkers and this moment, when Rodolfo and Mimi declare their love for each other in relatively forceful terms, is as romantic as it gets. It will either make you sob or want to kiss someone; I couldn’t possibly predict which.
13. Debussy’s 'Clair de lune'
You’ll love: luminous harmonies and flowing melodies
I know of someone who walked down the aisle to Debussy's little masterpiece, and I can see why: dreamy and ethereal, it is like a fairytale in music, so gossamer light that it feels barely tethered to the world. Its gentle melody is suggestive of moonlight reflected on water, while its free-flowing rhythm generates a sense of timelessness. In other words, it is simply gorgeous, and demands zero in terms of technical knowledge to be appreciated.
14. Smetana’s Má vlast
You’ll love: rich orchestration and evocative storytelling
Má vlast was the first piece of classical music I ever heard as a child, and I’m still convinced that it’s one of the best for classical music novices. That’s because Smetana's evocative tone poem is as much a piece of storytelling as a piece of music, painting scenes from Bohemian history and landscape in technicolour detail. What’s more, it is full of beautiful melodies, not least the main theme of Vltava, the work’s centrepiece, which is just as emblematic of Czech pride and culture as the national anthem.
15. Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending
You’ll love: this pastoral romance that captures the ethereal flight of the lark
Surely there can’t be anything more serene and celestial than Vaughan Williams’s violin-concerto-in-all-but-name, The Lark Ascending. This 1914 work, inspired by George Meredith's poem of the same name, is a perfect descriptor of a bird in flight: no other piece soars quite like this one. But it’s also an ode to a pastoral world – one that was soon to be caught up in the jaws of the First World War. As such, it is deeply poignant.
Pics Getty Images
