Why Writing a First Symphony Terrified Even the Greatest Composers

 by Emily E. Hogstad  

Writing a first symphony has never been a casual undertaking.

Throughout the history of classical music, the symphony has stood as the ultimate achievement: a genre tied to ambition, talent, and legitimacy, leading to inevitable comparisons to the past. A failed symphony wasn’t just a private disappointment; it unfolded in front of critics, patrons, and rivals.

To compose a symphony is to step directly into the shadow of giants – and for many of history’s greatest composers, that shadow proved terrifying.

From Johannes Brahms wrestling for two decades with the burden of Beethoven’s legacy, to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky suffering physical collapse while finishing his Symphony No. 1, the “first symphony crisis” is a surprisingly common chapter in music history.

Some composers feared they wouldn’t – or couldn’t – measure up. Others feared national humiliation. One nearly lost his career entirely after a disastrous premiere.

Today, we’re looking at six composers who were deeply stressed about writing their first symphony – and what their struggles reveal about the pressure of entering the symphonic tradition.

Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphony No. 1   

Ironically, given the sway that his symphonies would have over future generations, Ludwig van Beethoven himself waited until he was nearly thirty to publish his first symphony.

He had already established himself in Vienna’s music world with piano sonatas and chamber works. But he also understood the heights that his predecessors, Mozart and Haydn, had brought the symphony to. Therefore, even Beethoven felt the weight of the composers who came before him.

Julius Schmid: Beethoven’s Walk in Nature

Beethoven’s first symphony had several striking elements. Its slow introduction and its opening dissonances grab a listener’s ear from the start.

From there, the work’s unexpected accents and sudden dynamic changes reveal him to be a composer willing to innovate and part with the traditions of the past.

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 1   

No one had a more infamous struggle while writing his first symphony than Johannes Brahms.

After his mentor, Robert Schumann, declared Brahms the future of music in 1853, when he was only twenty years old, Brahms felt crushed by expectations.

Johannes Brahms

He began sketching his first symphony soon after but, intimidated, abandoned several early attempts.

In 1872, he went so far as to tell a conductor friend, “I shall never write a symphony! You can’t have any idea what it’s like always to hear such a giant [i.e. Beethoven] marching behind you!”

However, after years of growth and artistic maturation, he finally finished his first symphony in 1876. The work’s gestation took over two decades.

Although Brahms’s symphony is recognised as a masterpiece today, it also never escaped that Beethovenian shadow. In fact, similarities between Beethoven’s final symphony and Brahms’s first garnered it the nickname “Beethoven’s Tenth.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 1   

While writing his first symphony, nicknamed “Winter Dreams”, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky struggled with poor health, dealing with insomnia, headaches, anxiety, and depression. The symptoms got so bad that he was afraid he was dying.

At one point, doctors told him to stop working entirely. He later wrote that he feared he would die before finishing it.

Unlike Brahms, his stress wasn’t only about living up to Beethoven’s legacy. It was also about proving that a Russian composer could master the Austro-Germanic tradition of symphonic writing, while still infusing the work with his Russian identity.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

At this time, a group of five nationalist composers, nicknamed the “Mighty Handful”, were rejecting European academic traditions and trying to establish a uniquely Russian school of music.

“Winter Dreams” was ultimately overshadowed by Tchaikovsky’s later symphonies, but its Russian character encouraged the blossoming of nationalism in Russian – and later Soviet – orchestral music.

Sergei Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 1  

The premiere of Rachmaninoff’s first symphony was an infamous disaster.

Storm clouds first appeared when elder composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov sat in on a rehearsal and told Rachmaninoff, “Forgive me, but I do not find this music at all agreeable.”

Conductor Alexander Glazunov under-rehearsed the orchestra and made a variety of cuts. He was also an alcoholic, and possibly drunk at the rehearsals and premiere.

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Not surprisingly, the premiere went off the rails so badly that Rachmaninoff fled the concert hall while it was still ongoing. Critics were vicious.

After the failed performance, Rachmaninoff fell into a three-year depression that required hypnotherapy before he could compose again.

For years, the symphony’s score was deemed lost, and it was only reconstructed in 1945, after Rachmaninoff’s death. Today, the work is often reassessed as bold and structurally ambitious.

A few years after the catastrophic failure, Rachmaninoff came back with his second piano concerto, one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever written.

But his first symphony nearly ended his career before it began.

Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 1   

Jean Sibelius waited until his thirties to compose his first symphony, which was written between 1898 and 1899. It came after he heard Tchaikovsky’s final symphony performed in Helsinki in the mid-1890s.

He related to Tchaikovsky’s music, writing to his wife, “There is much in that man that I recognise in myself.”

Daniel Nyblin: Jean Sibelius, ca 1898–1900

Despite that, he was Finnish at a time of tension with Russia and rising nationalism, and he wanted his music to make statements about Finnish identity.

He was unsatisfied after the symphony’s premiere in the spring of 1899, and embarked on revisions in 1900.

Unfortunately for Sibelius, his mental block surrounding symphonies would surface again at the end of his career, after he’d written seven symphonies.

His eighth symphony was commissioned and even scheduled for performance, but he never finished the score. Before he died, he burned what he’d written.

The fate of that scrapped eighth symphony demonstrates how deeply Sibelius identified with the symphony as a measure of artistic legitimacy – and how reluctant he was to release a symphony he felt was less than perfect.

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 1   

Remarkably, Gustav Mahler – who would go on to become one of the foremost symphonists of his generation – was initially leery about presenting his first symphony as such.

In fact, at its 1889 premiere in Budapest, he didn’t even call it a symphony. Instead, he labelled it a “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts.”

Despite the hedging, critics were hostile. For years afterwards, Mahler dithered. He revised it repeatedly, cut a movement, rewrote the orchestration, and even provided a program to guide listeners through the work’s story (and then retracted it).

Gustav Mahler

Throughout his career, Mahler advocated for Beethoven’s music; he even arranged Beethoven’s symphonies for a larger, late-Romantic orchestra.

When it came to composition, Mahler metabolised Beethoven’s influence in his work, from using a choir in the final movement of his second symphony to employing an echo of the “fate theme” from Beethoven’s fifth in his own fifth symphony.

Mahler clearly understood the lineage behind the Austro-Germanic symphony and respected it. That was reflected in his work, from his first symphony – and beyond.

Conclusion

The first symphony is rarely just a beginning. It is a declaration to the musical world: I have something big and important to say.

For Brahms, that declaration took more than twenty years to make. For Tchaikovsky, the idea of doing so ruined his health. For Rachmaninoff, it triggered a crisis that nearly silenced him forever. Even Sibelius, Mahler, and Beethoven approached their first entries into the genre with caution, insecurity, and an acute awareness of the genre’s storied history.

The irony is striking: many of the composers who feared writing their first symphony ended up redefining the genre.

Maybe that’s the true test of a symphonist: the willingness to stand in the shadow of the past, be intimidated by it – and still write anyway.

Interview With Japanese Composer Naoko Ikeda

 by Fanny Po Sim Head  September 13th, 2023

When searching for repertoire for my students to perform at local festivals, I discovered the compositions of Naoko Ikeda, a talented Japanese composer and teacher. Her pieces are full of beautiful, flowing melodies that I thoroughly enjoy teaching and playing. In the interview, Naoko introduces herself and shares the inspiration behind all of her beautiful compositions.

Naoko Ikeda

Can you introduce yourself and tell us your musical background?

I was born in Sapporo city in the north of Japan and still live here. I am a piano teacher and have been publishing original piano works from Willis Music for about 20 years. I started taking singing lessons at the age of 4 and piano lessons at the age of 6 under the supervision of my music-loving parents. I became interested in composing when I encountered William Gillock’s Lyric Preludes in Romantic Style when I was in junior high school. His works are simple and have a beautiful sound, and various scenes come to mind. I thought it would be wonderful if I could make such a rich piece one day.

In addition to Gillock’s work, what other sources of inspiration do you utilize when composing?

Melody is the most important thing for me. For example, if a melody comes to mind and you can feel the colors and scenery, you can use that as a trigger to continue writing the song. The music I’ve listened to so far (classical, jazz, popular songs, etc.), the books I’ve read, the movies, the paintings, the poems, the starry skies, and the landscapes of nature have made me do this. It inspires me and expands my imagination.  

Naoko Ikeda: Miyabi: Early Intermediate Level

Now that my work will be published in the United States, I would like to introduce to you a piece that has a Japanese sound and a feeling of culture in me. I would be very happy if you could feel the beauty. In Miyabi, which has a Japanese theme, I have devised Japanese koto scales in my way and mixed them with Western scales and chords to create a collection that is easy to get along with. In addition, I hope that it will be an opportunity to introduce Japan by incorporating the sounds of Gagaku and the rhythms of Japanese festivals.

Naoko Ikeda: Aya: 10 Introspective Pieces for Intermediate Piano Solo

“Aya” is a solo collection that was published last year. It contains 10 pieces written in a variety of styles, including Japanese works, that can be enjoyed by intermediate-level students.

Naoko Ikeda: Duets in Color – Book 1: Early to Mid-Intermediate Level

Naoko Ikeda: Duets in Color – Book 2: 12 Original Duets in Minor Keys

These are the duets’ collections that I wrote in 24 keys. The book is divided into two volumes, a major key, and a minor key, but C major and C minor, G major and G minor are composed as a set and have some common points such as the same melody and rhythm etc. I think it’s my masterpiece!

Many of your compositions are written for students. They are all beautifully written. Do you mean to write for students? What draws you to write music for students?   

Of course, in order to benefit the students, I try to incorporate technical elements into the works for the elementary level so that they can be enjoyed. This is a very rewarding job! As for the intermediate-level works, I compose them not only for the sake of my students but also for my friends and piano teachers to take a break and enjoy playing them. I would be happy if the students who played it could try out what kind of sound they wanted to play with what they envisioned from the piece, just like I did with Gillock’s work. As a composer, I’m looking forward to letting everyone hear a new side of the piece!

As a composer in Japan, what does your daily life look like? Do you have hobbies besides music?

Cool Chartreuse, a piano duet by Naoko Ikeda  

Like most of you, I am a piano teacher. Currently, I have lessons three days a week, and I also do workshops and lessons on my own work from time to time. Willis let me go at my own pace, so I started composing little by little, writing a few songs, putting together an idea for the collection, and starting discussions with the editor. My hobbies are listening to music, reading books, and looking at artworks…all of these things inspire me to compose music. I want to go on a trip soon, so I’m checking travel TV programs.

Did These Seven Great Composers Really Die of Syphilis?

 by Emily E. Hogstad  March 26th, 2026

During the nineteenth century, syphilis was rampant in Europe, and quite a few composers are believed to have had it.

The 2024 article “The Syphilis Pandemic Prior to Penicillin: Origin, Health Issues, Cultural Representation and Ethical Challenges” estimates that during the 1800s, approximately fifteen per cent of European men were infected. Plus, infections were more common in urban areas, where composers tended to live and work.

In a time before antibiotics, syphilis was more than a medical condition: it was often a death sentence. On top of that, the mercury and arsenic “cures” on offer were often just as toxic as the disease itself.

You can imagine how the mental and physical effects of infection and treatment impacted these artists’ lives and work.

Of course, diagnosing composers from centuries away with absolute certainty can be a fool’s errand. But today we’re using historians’ best judgment and looking at seven composers who either are confirmed to have had syphilis, or are widely believed to have had it…as well as how those infections shaped (and in some cases, ended) their careers.

Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)  

A native of Genoa, Italy, Niccolò Paganini was the greatest violinist of his generation…and maybe of all time.

He became famous for his demonic appearance and seemingly supernatural abilities.

However, although some people felt he was an otherworldly being, he was actually very human, and he struggled with bad health throughout his life.

Niccolò Paganini

Modern historians believe that he had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or Marfan Syndrome. Either would help explain his double-jointedness, which he put to good use while reinventing violin technique.

He was diagnosed with syphilis around 1822, when he was forty. His treatment included mercury therapy and opium. That in turn led to mercury poisoning and opiate addiction.

In 1828, when he was 46, he developed necrotising osteitis of the jaw that had to be operated on.

He also developed tuberculosis, which may have contributed to his dysphonia (loss of voice).

When Paganini met with composer Hector Berlioz in 1838, his voice was so inaudible that his young son had to put his ear next to Paganini’s mouth to hear his words, then translate for Berlioz.

He died in Nice in 1840.

We wrote about the turbulent final years of Paganini, including why he was denied a Catholic burial.

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)  

Donizetti was born in Bergamo, Italy, in 1797. He became one of the most popular opera composers of his generation.

Sometime in his teens or twenties, he came down with syphilis.

In 1828, at the age of thirty-one, he married his eighteen-year-old wife Virginia. She gave birth to three babies, but all died as infants, and the first one was deformed, suggesting he’d passed the disease on.

Portrait of Gaetano Donizetti by Francesco Coghetti

Virginia’s own health deteriorated, as well, and she died young in the summer of 1837. It may have been cholera, but it might also have been a syphilitic infection.

Donizetti eventually began exhibiting a host of alarming symptoms: fevers, headaches, paralysis, speechlessness, incontinence, and more.

He was only formally diagnosed in August 1845. His doctor believed he was no longer able to make sane decisions for himself, and so he was tricked and involuntarily confined in 1846.

It was a darkly ironic fate for someone who had written the most famous “mad scene” in operatic history.

He never lived on his own again and died in 1848.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)  

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797. He became infected with syphilis in late 1822, when he was in his mid-twenties.

He first noticed symptoms in early 1823, when he began suffering from particularly acute feelings of depression, as well as a red rash and hair loss.

As time passed, and as he got sicker and sicker, he began feeling increasingly doomed, and his compositions started turning darker.

Franz Schubert

His fourteenth string quartet from 1824, nicknamed Death and the Maiden, dates from this time.

In 1828, he saw a physician who told him that the end was near. He began suffering from headaches, joint pain, and fever, and became unable to keep down food.

During the final weeks of his life, he moved in with his brother, who took care of him until he died in November 1828 at the age of thirty-one.

Historians today are split about whether he died from typhoid fever, mercury poisoning, syphilis, or some combination of all three.

Read more about how his illness impacted the composition of the “Death and the Maiden” quartet.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)  

Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany, in 1810, and suffered from health issues throughout his life.

By his early twenties, he was wrestling with depressive episodes interspersed with manic ones. A later note he wrote about this time of his life reads, “In 1832, I contracted syphilis and was cured with arsenic.”

If the problem was syphilis, it had actually not been cured; it had only become latent. (This might explain why he apparently never passed it on to his wife, Clara.)

Robert Schumann

By his thirties, his symptoms were turning more physical, with his doctor in Dresden noting he was complaining of “insomnia, general weakness, auditory disturbances, tremors, and chills in the feet, to a whole range of phobias.”

In February 1854, he jumped off a bridge into the Rhine River. He was rescued and agreed to be sent away to a sanitarium. Unfortunately, his health continued to deteriorate there.

In the summer of 1856, he came down with pneumonia. His overtaxed immune system couldn’t fight the infection off, and he died that July.

During his illness and after his death, his wife, Clara, and his friends sorted through his music. One of the works they felt revealed his sickness was his violin concerto. It was suppressed until its rediscovery in the 1930s.  

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)  

Composer Bedřich Smetana married his wife, pianist Kateřina Kolářová, in August 1849.

They had four daughters between 1851 and 1855, but by 1856, three of them had died of either tuberculosis or scarlet fever, and Kateřina had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, too. She died in April 1859. He remarried the following year.

Unfortunately, his story wasn’t going to have a happy ending. A couple of years later, he began developing hearing issues, chief among them incapacitating tinnitus.

Although he went to see countless doctors and specialists, he grew more and more deaf over the following years.

Bedřich Smetana

Day-to-day life became excruciating. In January 1875, he wrote, “If my disease is incurable, then I should prefer to be liberated from this life.”

In his first string quartet, dating from 1876, he portrayed the experience of tinnitus by using long high notes in the violin.

A few years after he wrote the quartet, he began expressing fears that he was going mad.

In the early 1880s, his symptoms grew debilitating and included hallucinations and intermittent loss of speech.

By early 1884, he began acting out violently toward his family. In late April, he was committed to an asylum. He died there a few weeks later.

The official death certificate claimed that he’d died of dementia, but his family believed it had been syphilis.

Some twentieth-century doctors took issue with this diagnosis, or whether his hearing loss was due to a syphilitic infection, but it remains a leading theory.

An autopsy was done that revealed high amounts of mercury in his remains.

Read more about how Smetana incorporated autobiography into his first string quartet, including the simulation of tinnitus.

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)  

Composer Hugo Wolf was born in present-day Slovenia in 1860.

From the beginning, two things were clear: Wolf was incredibly musically talented, and he lacked discipline, at least in part due to his depressive mood swings.

He came down with syphilis young, in his late teens, and became preoccupied with writing lied on themes of sin and suffering.

He had a few ups and downs physically and mentally, but he hit a low point in late 1891, when a combination of his depression symptoms and syphilis symptoms kept him from composing.

Hugo Wolf in 1902

A few years later, in 1897, he began feeling his mind deteriorating. He tried to write an opera, but only managed sixty pages before he became too ill to write.

He attempted to drown himself in 1899 but survived, and he spent the last few years of his life in an asylum before dying in 1903.

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius was born to a British family in 1862.

As a young man, he traveled to Paris to befriend artists and soak in the bohemian lifestyle there. It is believed that his syphilitic infection originated during these years.

In 1903, at the age of 41, he married a wealthy painter named Jelka Rosen. He had a number of affairs during their marriage, but she never left him.

In 1910, syphilis symptoms began to manifest, chief among them headaches, back aches, and blurred vision.

Within a decade, he could no longer move except with a wheelchair; he was completely blind; and he was on morphine for pain.

Jelka tried her best to take care of him, but she needed help. The couple hired a composer, conductor, and pianist named Eric Fenby, who would serve as Delius’s helper as he navigated the end of his life, dealing with syphilis-related health issues.

Delius’s farewell to music and to life was his setting of some poetry from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in his Songs of Farewell.  

Conclusion

Syphilis diagnoses – and the stigma and shame surrounding them – profoundly impacted the work of many major composers…and therefore, obviously, left a mark on the history of music.

For many composers, the diagnosis impacted not only their health but also the tone, intensity, and subject matter of their work, from Schubert’s haunting reflections on mortality to Smetana’s anguished depiction of his resulting deafness.

While this music offers us a glimpse into the despair and struggle of a pre-antibiotics syphilis diagnosis, what can’t be seen as clearly is, of course, all of the additional music that the disease deprived us of.

It’s a sad truth that without the scourge of syphilis and its deadly treatments, classical music history would look very different today.

Superstar Pedagogy The Lang Lang Piano Method

by Georg Predota  June 14th, 2026

Sports fans wear the shirts of their idols, and classical music has never entirely escaped the cult of personality either. Few classical musicians in modern times, with the possible exception of Liberace, have embraced celebrity quite as enthusiastically as Lang Lang.

There is branded merchandise, the carefully scripted aura of fashion and luxury, and, of course, the flamboyant stage persona. Combined with an unhappy and traumatic childhood, and you’ve got a classical rags to riches story.

I have personally seen Lang Lang grinning from t-shirts, but many youngsters can now encounter his animated cartoon personality in the Lang Lang Piano Method.

To commemorate his birthday on 14 June, it is worth asking what this piano primer does for the piano community: does it give back, or does it simply borrow yet another page from the superstar playbook?  

Join the Superhero

The Lang Lang Piano Method, Preparatory Level (Faber Music)

First things first: I am not a piano teacher, and my personal instruction relied on established methods. I have also lived long enough to understand that things have changed, and that entire generations have never known a time without the internet or digital technology.

Lang Lang introduced his Piano Method as part of the “Lang Lang Piano Academy” with Faber Music in 2016. According to the pianist, it is designed to inspire the next generation of pianists by making the piano feel accessible rather than intimidating.

There are five levels, each with a printed or downloadable book, downloadable audio files, material for teachers, answer sheets, QR codes for quick access, and certificates of completion so you can join the “superhero world of Lang Lang.”

He believes that children should not be faced with nothing but scales and arpeggios, and that joy should always come before discipline. In this case, joy takes the form of a cartoon Lang Lang, whose own voice takes young pianists through each section.  

Education Vision

Lang Lang

There seems to be a cultural element behind it, as Lang Lang sees his method not as a tool to produce concert pianists, but as a way of exposing millions of children to music-making. “Learning an instrument can be a really important part of a child’s development and a great way to improve many things like concentration and focus.” (Faber Music, 2016)

This piano primer is one aspect of the “Lang Lang International Music Foundation,” founded in 2008. In the prospectus, we read: “We believe that all children should have access to music and music education, regardless of their background or circumstances.”

“At the Lang Lang International Music Foundation®, we strive to educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of music lovers and performers. By igniting a child’s passion for music, we are helping children worldwide aim for a better future.”   

A Teacher’s Legacy

Gary Graffman and Lang Lang

If we’re talking about superstar branding versus artistic philanthropy, we should also remember that Lang Lang received much of his musical training from his much-revered teacher, Gary Graffman, who recently passed away. Teaching Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, and other highly talented Asian youngsters, Graffman didn’t simply teach them to play the piano. Rather, he also instilled in them a sense of giving back to the community.

Graffman was a strong advocate of the arts and arts education, and a few years ago, he wrote something that now feels almost prophetic. “I’d like to add that this diminishment of ALL education in the USA over two generations might help to explain, and perhaps even partially excuse, the uninformed utterances emanating from the mouths of too many of our elected representatives, as well as their complete lack of knowledge or interest in anything to do with the arts.”

“In fact, it would not be at all surprising if many of those representatives who received our typical public education during the last four or five decades have hardly ever, if at all, chosen to visit an art museum or to attend an opera, the ballet or a symphony concert.” (Graffman, Slipped Disc, 2015)  

Inspiration Versus Instruction

Lang Lang with young piano students

I believe that the “Lang Lang Piano Academy” and the “Lang Lang International Music Foundation” are some of the clearest legacies of Gary Graffman’s teaching influence. The Lang Lang Piano Method is probably not the pedagogical blueprint to build Lang Lang clones, but if it inspires more young people to develop a lasting curiosity about music and the arts, we should probably welcome the contribution.

In the reviews by users, the series is called accessible, with specific praise for the Time for a Break audio sections, where Lang Lang plays music purely for its enjoyment value. Some teachers use the books to supplement their usual books, while some teachers are highly resistant to the online/downloadable nature of the project.

And if I personally never have to see Lang Lang perform again, it’s wonderful to see him engaging with young players. We can’t continue to let our classical audiences grey out the attendance; we need to get young students to feel the excitement of music.

As for its pedagogical effectiveness, I will leave that to professional piano teachers to decide.

Formalwear for Concerts and Operas?

 by Hanju Yang  April 21st, 2026

One of the defining features of the BBC Proms—long celebrated for its accessibility—has been its relaxed approach to dress. In the 21st century, however, this hardly feels distinctive anymore. In concert halls and opera houses alike, formal dress codes have largely disappeared, and the expectation of dressing up is gradually fading—both on stage and in the audience.

A few years ago, a teacher of mine confided to me how much she disliked seeing audience members turn up in hoodies and sneakers. To her, it felt—at least outwardly—like a lack of respect for the formally dressed musicians on stage. But when I saw Sheku Kanneh-Mason perform a concerto at the Royal Festival Hall in a floral shirt, coloured socks, and trainers—and still bring the house down—I found myself reconsidering the question: do we really need to dress formally for concerts anymore?   

What counts as “formal” has always been a moving target, shifting across time, place, and culture. As our lives change, so do our ideas about what different clothes are for—and how we wear them. The shirt, now a staple of formal dress, was once little more than an undergarment; aristocratic men, before the 19th century, thought nothing of wearing stockings and high heels. Today, turning up to a standard concert in full white tie might feel as oddly theatrical as wearing a powdered wig and breeches would have in the 20th century. And in European halls, I’ve often seen audiences in eye-catching traditional dress—surely just as dignified, and just as “formal,” in their own context.

For many people, dressing up—however impractical—is still a way of showing respect: for the performers, and for the art itself. In a sense, audience members and musicians alike accept the small discomforts of formalwear in order to present their best selves to one another, and to the music. Footage from the mid-20th century often shows audiences in uniform evening dress, especially at major festivals such as Bayreuth or Salzburg. Maybe it is this visual memory that has shaped a lasting idea, if not a stereotype, of what concert-going and opera-going are supposed to look like.

That idea still lingers, but its hold is loosening. Older audiences tend to feel more at ease in suits, dresses, and leather shoes—attire that, for many of them, once formed part of everyday life. For younger generations, however, the picture is quite different: while some arrive in business-like or designer outfits, most dress casually—especially at concerts by the crossover stars and other “big names.”

© Salzburger Festspiele, festival street Hofstallgasse / Andreas Kolarik

Practicality, of course, matters regardless of age. In the damp chill of autumn and winter, fleece jackets and padded vests are everywhere, and soft-soled shoes are often the most comfortable choice. I have, on many occasions, spotted the late Alfred Brendel in the audience—well into his nineties, always with his walking stick—wearing comfortable black leather sneakers beneath a loosely cut suit.

Do audiences today really need to dress formally? Is it still a necessary way of showing respect? Perhaps not—especially as “formalwear” drifts further from everyday life. The pianist Nicolai Lugansky, for example, always appears on stage in impeccable white tie; yet when I happened to see him in the same hall the following evening, he was an entirely unassuming figure in a jumper, casual trousers, black trainers, and a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. I have also seen people attend Bayreuth Festival and Salzburg Festival in T-shirts and slippers without being denied entry—perhaps even a more sensible choice than sitting through the stifling heat of the Festspielhaus, perspiring throughout.   

And yet, speaking for myself, I still like to dress up for concerts—especially when hearing artists I deeply admire. Every concert is an occasion: dressing differently from daily life makes it easier to enter a different state of mind. That, I believe, is true for performers and audiences alike. One need not dress up for the sake of glamour alone, but dress appropriately: bright colours may feel out of place in a Requiem, while lighter music need not be confined to black and white. Rather, one should dress in a way that truly suits the occasion—and even the repertoire.

But if there is one rule for concert dress code, I would say this: nothing that rustles. In moments of stillness, when musical tension hangs by a thread, the slightest crinkle of a down jacket can undo everything.