10 Classical Music Facts That Sound Fake But Are True

 by Emily E. Hogstad  June 13th, 2026

Classical music history is often seen as dignified and serious – all powdered wigs, solemn portraits, and stuffy concert halls.

But scratch the surface, and the past turns out to be far stranger.

Behind some of the most revered composers in Western music are stories that sound like modern internet myths: fan hysteria bordering on mass delusion, obscene jokes set to immaculate counterpoint, creative breakdowns cured by hypnosis, murder plots abandoned at the last minute, and lifelong obsessions with things like trains and numerology.

Remarkably, these stories aren’t apocryphal. In many cases, they’re documented in letters, memoirs, contemporary reports, and firsthand accounts.

Here are ten classical composer facts that sound fake – but are completely true.

1. Franz Liszt caused celebrity hysteria.   

During the 1840s, Franz Liszt inspired a phenomenon that writer Heinrich Heine famously dubbed Lisztomania, which can be compared to the Beatlemania of the twentieth century.

Audiences screamed, fainted, and picked up his cigar stumps in the street.

Liszt concert cartoon

Lisztomania even had an impact on fashion: women wore cameos with his portrait, made his piano strings into bracelets, and collected his discarded gloves and handkerchiefs.

Thanks to his virtuosity, Liszt became an international celebrity decades before visual mass media, creating a template for the fame of musical superstars of the future.

2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a canon whose text is literally “lick me in the arse.”   

Mozart‘s scatological humour is well documented, and one of his canons bears the unforgettable title Leck mich im Arsch (K. 231) (“Lick me in the Arse”).

Barbara Krafft: W. A. Mozart, 1819 (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde)

Historians have surmised that it was a party piece for a group of friends to sing together.

The canon is harmonically correct, neatly constructed – and unapologetically vulgar.

After Mozart’s death, when his remaining work was being catalogued and published, the publisher changed the lyrics to “Let Us Be Glad!” The original text was rediscovered in 1991.

3. A full performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations can last 18 to 24 hours.  

Satie‘s Vexations consists of a short, eerie piano phrase with the instruction that it be repeated 840 times.

When taken at a slow, meditative tempo – as Satie may have intended – a complete performance can last nearly an entire day.

Erik Satie

The first full performance took place in 1963 and was organised by composer John Cage. It involved multiple pianists rotating in shifts, with audience members coming and going throughout the night.

That performance lasted for eighteen hours. One audience member heard the entire thing.

4. Johann Sebastian Bach once walked 250 miles just to hear an organist.

Bach – Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582 – Smits | Netherlands Bach Society   

In 1705, the 20-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach walked roughly 250 miles from the town of Arnstadt to the town of Lübeck to hear the legendary organist Dieterich Buxtehude.

Depiction of Dieterich Buxtehude in the painting “The Musical Party” 1674 by Johannes Voorhout

That year, Buxtehude was scheduled to lead weekly performances of his music during the Advent season. At least one performance included a 25-member violin section, a brass section, and multiple choirs, so it’s easy to see why Bach would be so interested in hearing it.

Bach was granted a short leave from his job to experience this event, but he overstayed it by several months, studying Buxtehude’s playing and compositional style.

The journey would have permanently shaped Bach’s approach to music, expanding his idea of what was possible.

5. Hector Berlioz, composer of the Symphonie fantastique, once planned a triple murder.   

After composing his famous Symphonie fantastique, based on his fixation with actress Harriet Smithson, Hector Berlioz turned around and fell in love with a virtuoso pianist named Camille Marie Moke, and the two became engaged.

Marie Pleyel

Around the same time, Berlioz won the prestigious Prix de Rome and, as part of his prize, travelled to Rome to live and compose.

One day, he got a letter letting him know that Moke had married a wealthy piano manufacturer instead of him.

Blinded by rage, he devised a detailed plan to murder Moke, her mother, and her husband before killing himself. He even acquired poison and a disguise (a maid’s costume).

Fortunately, the plan collapsed before it could be carried out. He wrote in his memoir that he didn’t follow through because he didn’t want to deprive the world of his music.

It’s one of the more disturbing pieces of trivia in the history of classical music.

6. Sergei Prokofiev died the same day as Stalin.

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 7 / Gergiev · London Symphony Orchestra  

Prokofiev died of a cerebral haemorrhage on March 5, 1953 – the exact same day as Joseph Stalin.

Grave of Sergei Prokofiev

The dictator’s death dominated Soviet media, leaving Prokofiev’s passing largely unnoticed. (In fact, one Soviet music periodical didn’t include a notice of his death until page 116; all preceding pages were devoted to Stalin.)

Prokofiev’s funeral only drew thirty mourners, including his sometimes-rival Dmitri Shostakovich.

Prokofiev’s ex-wife Lina – who was living in a Siberian gulag at the time – only heard about her husband’s death months later, via the radio.

7. Arnold Schoenberg was terrified of the number 13.

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht  

Schoenberg suffered from severe triskaidekaphobia (i.e., a fear of the number thirteen).

Throughout his life, he did things like avoiding hotels with 13 floors and altering the title of his opera from Moses und Aaron to Moses und Aron to avoid writing an opera with 13 letters.

His anxiety became worse as he aged. He was especially despondent when he turned 76, because seven plus six equals thirteen.

Arnold Schoenberg

That said, maybe his fear was justified. He died on 13 July 1951 – just 13 minutes before midnight – having reportedly spent the entire day in terror. He was 76.

8. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could memorise and recreate entire works after one hearing.

Miserere mei, Deus – Allegri – Tenebrae conducted by Nigel Short  

At age 14, Mozart attended a performance of priest and composer Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel: a piece whose score was closely guarded and forbidden to copy.

After hearing it once, Mozart wrote the entire work down from memory. He later returned to correct minor details.

The Vatican ultimately praised the feat rather than punishing him.

9. After the disastrous premiere of his first symphony, Sergei Rachmaninoff needed hypnosis to write again.  

The premiere of Rachmaninoff‘s First Symphony in 1897 was a catastrophe, partly due to a poorly rehearsed and inebriated conductor.

Kubey-Rembrandt Studios: Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1921

The failure plunged the composer into a deep depression and creative paralysis that lasted several years.

Rachmaninoff eventually underwent hypnotherapy, which helped restore his confidence, leading directly to the composition of his wildly successful Piano Concerto No. 2. Today, that concerto is one of the most popular ever written.

He even dedicated the score to his therapist in gratitude for the help.

10. Antonín Dvořák had a hyperfixation with trains.  

Antonín Dvořák was intensely fascinated by trains.

Antonín Dvořák, 1904

He memorised timetables, kept a journal of his train travels, spent hours at stations watching engines arrive and depart, and could identify individual trains by sight and sound.

He even once famously remarked that he would have given up all of his symphonies to have invented the locomotive.

Conclusion

Taken together, these stories reveal something essential about classical music history: it is far messier, funnier, darker, and more human than the myths suggest.

The same figures who wrote sacred masses, symphonies, and operatic tragedies were also capable of crude jokes, obsessive fixations, emotional collapses, and spectacular lapses in judgment.

History doesn’t need embellishment to be fascinating. Sometimes, the truth is already stranger than fiction.

Monuments of Sound - Classical Music’s Longest Piano Journeys

by Hermione Lai  

Buckle up for a musical marathon, as this blog will feature some of the longest piano pieces in the classical repertoire.

There are probably many reasons why composers craft such monumental work. It might be for a mix of artistic, philosophical, or even personal reasons. And there is always the possibility of a playful provocation or a satirical jab.

To be sure, the longest piano pieces in the classical repertoire are not for the faint of heart, and that includes performers and listeners. In the event, let’s get ready for some sprawling compositions that push the boundaries of what is possible on 88 keys.

I hope you will forgive me for only providing musical excerpts!

Erik Satie: Vexations

Suzanne Valadon’s portrait of Erik Satie

It was written down on a single page, accompanied by a note from Satie that reads, “In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”

That’s pretty cryptic, if you ask me, and some scholars view it as a satirical jap at the grandiosity of composers like Wagner. It has been called “the poor man’s Ring des Nibelungen.” However, it might also be connected to his brief and intense affair with painter Suzanne Valadon in 1893.

We might never know for sure, but the first performance by a group of pianists, including John Cage, lasted 18 hours and 40 minutes. At the end, one audience member famously shouted “Encore!”

Frederic Rzewski: The Road

Frederic Rzewski

Satie’s Vexations, as the name and the instructions imply, is a rather repetitive composition. However, there are plenty of non-repetitive works on offer, somewhat limited by available recordings.

How about a monumental cycle that spans over 10 hours in performance by the American composer Frederic Rzewski. The Road was composed between 1995 and 2003, and is an expansive and ambitious work for solo piano by a composer known for his politically charged compositions.

The composer envisioned it as “a novel for piano,” like a literary epic by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. The composition unfolds in 64 individual sections or “miles,” each representing a step along an imaginary journey.

Rzewski does offer some programmatic titles like “Stop the War,” and “A Walk in the Woods,” and he requires the performer to engage in unconventional actions, such as whistling, singing, shouting, stomping, and even delivering spoken commentary.

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji: Symphonic Variations

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

When dealing with the pursuit of dazzling difficulties of execution in works of mammoth dimension, the English-Parsi composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1894-1988) is in a league of his own.

His Symphonic Variations for Piano is a colossal solo piano work, estimated to last between 8.5 and 10.5 hours in performance, depending on tempo choices and breaks. It consists of 81 variations spread across three volumes, or “books,” each containing 27 variations, totalling 484 pages in its manuscript form.

The piece is based on an original theme, which Sorabji transforms through an astonishing array of styles, techniques, and moods. It ranges from lyrical and introspective to ferociously virtuosic and dense.

Variation No. 56 includes a free paraphrase from the finale of Chopin’s Sonata No. 2. It appears in long, accented tones as counterpoint to swift running passages. It’s a transformation rather than a transcription, as the texture grows to polychordal combinations at the climax.

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies

Sorabji’s 100 Transcendental Studies

Sorabji composed 90 hours of piano music during a 65-year period that began in 1917. His works are generally not well known because Sorabji banned public performances of his works from 1936 to 1976, citing his disillusionment with the musical world of his time and owing to his idiosyncratic personality.

His 100 Transcendental Studies date from 1940 to 1944, and they are the largest collection of concert etudes in the known repertoire. As the title suggests, they allude to Liszt’s famous set, but they also include influences from Scriabin, Busoni, and Godowsky.

The beginning of the cycle is a series of typical concert etudes that essentially explore a single technical or structural idea. Later in the set, Sorabji inserts pieces on a much larger scale.

Sorabji’s vast pianistic universe is compelling and strangely different from any other music before or after him. A performer who has tackled the complete set writes, “the 100 Transcendental Studies occupy a key position in the composer’s oeuvre.”

Alvin Curran: Inner Cities

Alvin Curran

The American experimental composer Alvin Curran composed his cycle of 14 pieces titled “Inner Cities” between 1993 and 2013. It all started with a single piece and evolved into one of the longest non-repetitive piano compositions ever written.

Total duration exceeds six hours when performed in full, and individual sections are often dedicated to friends and influences like Lou Harrison and Trisha Brown.

We also find a vast range of styles, from minimalism, romanticism, avant-garde improvisation, and even jazz-inflected moments. For sure, Curran creates a sprawling sonic landscape.

The composer describes them as “contradictory etudes,” exploring liberation and attachment. Each piece unfolds from a single idea, becoming an immersive experience. They are often performed in settings where audiences can come and go, reflecting Curran’s rejection of traditional concert norms.

La Monte Young: The Well-Tuned Piano 

La Monte Young is a minimalist and experimental composer, renowned for inventing innovative tuning systems and a hypnotic and expansive sound world.

He started his Well-Tuned Piano in 1964 and refined the work over the decades. It is an improvisatory solo piece performed in a tuning system devised by the composer.

La Monte Young

The piece typically lasts between 5 and 6 hours in performance, sometimes longer. It is divided into sections with evocative titles like “The Opening Chord ” and “The Magic Chord.” It’s less a fixed composition and more a living process.

The composer said, “it’s about tuning the nervous system to these pure intervals.”

Michael Finnissy: The History of Photography in Sound

Michael Finnissy’s The History of Photography in Sound

Let’s conclude this little survey with Michael Finnissy’s The History of Photography in Sound. It dates from between 1995 and 2001 and spans approximately 5.5 hours across 11 movements.

Each movement has a distinct title, like “North American Spirituals,” “Alkan-Paganini,” and “Etched Bright with Sunlight.” You can already tell that it reflects a vast tapestry of musical, cultural and personal references.

The piece isn’t a literal depiction of photography’s history but a metaphorical exploration of “photography in sound,” capturing moments, memories, and ideas through music. You certainly hear lots of quotations and allusions.

Summary

Classical Music’s longest piano journeys is a fascinating testament to human ambition, endurance, and the boundless possibilities of musical expression. They certainly push the boundaries of what a single performer can achieve.

The compositional approaches are wonderfully diverse, and each of the featured pieces demands not just technical mastery but an almost superhuman stamina from the pianist and an equally committed listener.

There are still plenty of monumental pieces for solo piano that have not been recorded or performed. A number of Sorabji compositions exceeding 4 hours or more are still undiscovered.

I don’t know if “Beatus Vir” by Jacob Mashak, with a duration of 11 hours, has ever been recorded, but the 12.5 hours work by Maurice Verheul titled “Alida No. 16f—La conscience totale” is still practically unknown.

And there is a work simply titled “For Clive Barker” by Matthew Lee Knowles that has a supposed duration of 26 hours! What wonderful musical frontiers where imagination outpaces practicality.

We certainly have to marvel at the audacity of composers who dared to dream in such vast, uncharted temporal expanses.

The Orchestra in a Box: The Accordion

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

The accordion works on a bellows system. As the instrument is pulled apart and pushed together, air is forced passed reeds held in a frame. Other instruments like this include the concertina, the harmonica, and the bandoneon. The keyboards on both sides of the instrument each have a different function. The right side, the diskant, is for melody, and the left side buttons provide the accompaniment function. The playing mechanism can be either like a piano keyboard (piano accordion) or with buttons (button accordion). For both piano and button accordions, the left side is the same.

Piano Accordion (Startone 72 MKII)

The button accordion.

Chromatic Button Accordion (Hohner Mattia IV)

The instrument is held by two straps around the shoulders and is played in front of the body. For most accordions, the same pitch is played when you open or close the bellows, but some instruments will play different notes depending on the direction of the bellows’ motion.

The accordion is a 19th-century instrument invented in Germany by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann around 1822.

Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann

From Germany, the instrument went to Russia, with the earliest known ones being made in the 1830s. By the late 1840s, two Russian manufacturers were producing some 10,000 instruments a year. By 1828, the instrument was in England and in New York by the mid-1840s.

For classical music, it wasn’t until the 1960s that works for accordion and orchestra were being written, and Poland has been a particular center for this genre.

Bronisław Kazimierz Przybylski’s Concerto polacco was completed in 1973 and is one of the most popular of the accordion concertos. 

In Denmark, the composer Per Nørgård has been an important contributor to the genre. His 1964 work, Introduction and Toccata, developed from a first version in 1952 that accordionists agreed as being unplayable on current instruments. The 1964 revision captured the idiosyncratic methods needed for performances. 

Maltese composer Charles Camilleri (1931–2009) was also an accordion virtuoso and international performer. His 1968 Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra was originally intended as a didactic work for his students. The work includes both classical forms (a first movement sonata-allegro) and local references (the main subject of the first movement is close to a Maltese traditional melody). The final movement was intended to be not only a brilliant finish but also a nod to the 12-music of the time. 

Finnish composer Erkki-Sven Tüür (b. 1959) had to be urged for five years to consider the accordion as a solo instrument for a concerto. He had to change his thinking of the instrument as purely for folk dances to something that had an orchestral connection. In its upper register, the accordion can sound like the wind instruments, and in its middle register, is closer to the strings and the composer used these sounds in different combinations. 

For many people, it was the Tango Nuevo of Astor Piazzolla that brought the accordion (or in Piazzolla’s case, the bandoneon) to the performing stage.

The bandoneon is a middle instrument between the hand-sized concertina and a full accordion. It is named for its inventor, Heinrich Band, who intended it for religious or popular music accompaniment. It made its way to Argentina around 1870, where it became one of the distinctive sounds of tango music.

Astor Piazzolla

His Concerto for Bandoneon, Percussion, and String Orchestra of 1979 is very different from the European concertos we’ve heard above—it immediately incorporates the rhythm of tango and its melancholic alternation between major and minor, expressive solo lines and other emotive details.

The accordion has long been associated with France, be it from French accordionists on street corners or the accordionist Yvette Horner, who played her accordion along the route of the Tour du France in the 1950s and 1960s (and who was caricatured in Les Triplettes de Belleville).

Yvette Horner

A new work in the French tradition is Thibault Perrine’s Capriccio for Accordion and Orchestra. The work makes reference to the former music activities on the Place de la Bastille where musicians from the Auvergne encountered accordionists coming up from Italy. Together, they created a new dance music known as the musette and Perrine makes that the center of his work. 

The lack of repertoire has made transcriptions central to the performance of classical music by accordionists. Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1, originally for piano, takes on a different life with accordion, vocals, trombone, and three melodicas (another free-reed instrument that mixes the harmonica with a keyboard).

Melodica

Or some Bach for accordion and saxophone.

And Rameau keyboard music arranged for accordion.

Japanese accordionist Mie Miki has been very active in bringing not only Baroque keyboard music to the accordion but also vocal music, such as this Dowland work, arranged for viola and accordion.

As a new instrument to the classical stage, the accordion has had to fight for recognition as a serious instrument. Its versatility in sound, melding with elements of the orchestra, has been a benefit, and as composers begin to understand how many ways it can contribute to the orchestral sound world, its repertoire will grow. Rethink the accordion – it’s more than polkas and popular music. It has become a real voice of serious music.

Germaine Tailleferre

by Georg Predota, Interlude

“Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men”

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) was the sole female member of the intriguing group of young French composers eventually known as “Les Six.” Her association with “Les nouveaux jeunes” aside, Tailleferre was a prominent and prolific composer writing in a wide range of musical genres. Her memorable music for opera and ballet is augmented by piano concertos, symphonic works, solo piano pieces, music for small ensembles and well over 40 movie soundtracks. She left behind an extensive body of works representing almost 70 years of compositional engagement and over time forged a distinctive musical voice that valued clarity, spontaneity and charm. Tailleferre strongly believed that a composition would lack artistry if a listener couldn’t identify a composer’s style after three bars. “I write music because it amuses me,” Tailleferre suggested. “It’s not great music, I know, but it’s gay, light-hearted music which is sometimes compared with that of the “petits maîtres” of the 18th century. And that makes me very proud.”

Currently, Tailleferre is considered the “most important French woman composer of all time.” This appreciation, however, has only been forged during the 21st- century, and its cultural reinterpretation and revival of her music. Born Marcelle Taillefesse at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France, her early years were marked by persistent struggles against her father. He considered music an unworthy pursuit, and a “woman studying music” he once remarked, “was no better than her becoming a streetwalker.” She eventually changed her name to spite her father, but never forgave him for his inflexible attitude towards her artistic gifts. Embittered, “she is said to have regarded his demise in 1916 as something of a relief.” Despites her father’s strong opposition, she began her study of piano and solfege at the Paris Conservatory in 1912, and immediately won various prizes in counterpoint and harmony. Tailleferre quickly caught the eyes of her fellow students Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honneger. Upon the publication of her first string quartet in 1918, she was welcomed as a major talent into the private musical club that eventually blossomed into “Les Six.”

Les Six © s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com

Tailleferre rubbed shoulders with the greatest creative minds of her time. She was a close friend of Maurice Ravel and Erik Satie, a favorite of Jean Cocteau and acquainted with Aaron Copland. Her circle of friends included Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire, George Balanchine and Sergei Diaghilev, among numerous others. She once remarked that Picasso gave her the “best lesson in composition” she ever received as he told her to “constantly renew yourself; avoid using the recipes that you have already found.” Many of her most important works emerged during the 1920’s, including the First Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, the ballets Le marchand d’oiseaux and La nouvelle Cythère, which was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes. These highly successful and critically acclaimed compositions were followed by the Concerto for Two Pianos, Chorus, Saxophones, and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, the opera cycle Du style galant au style méchant, the operas Zoulaïna and Le marin de Bolivar, and La cantate de Narcisse, in collaboration with esteemed French poet Paul Valéry.

Wanting to breathe new life into her career, Tailleferre moved to New York in 1925. Leopold Stokowski, Willem Mengelberg, Serge Koussevitzky, and Alfred Cortot performed her compositions, and her short-lived marriage to the New Yorker magazine artist Ralph Barton further enhanced her celebrity status. Musically reinvigorated and her marriage in tatters she returned to France, but World War II brought her once again to the United States. The war years severely stifled her musical creativity and productivity, and affected a fundamental cultural and artistic dislocation. Upon her return to France in 1946 Tailleferre continued to compose orchestral works, ballet and chamber music. However, most of these works were published posthumously with a substantial number of her compositions still unknown today. She nevertheless continued to compose until a few weeks before her death in 1983, and her last work Concerto de la fidelité pour coloratura soprano et orchestra premiered at the Paris Opera in 1982. Her music never failed to give voice to an extended French artistic tradition, and the seductive grace and charm of her work are perhaps best summed up by Cocteau’s famous assessment of Tailleferre “as the musical equivalent to painter Marie Laurencin.”

Erik Satie ~ Once Upon A Time In Paris (Artwork by Edouard Leon Cortes)

Songs ~ Gymnopedies #1 ~ Gnossiennes #1,3,4,5 ~ Album ~ Satie: Works For Piano Solo And Piano Duet ~ Artist ~ Pianist: Anne Queffelec ~ with artwork by Edouard Leon Cortes Tracks: 0:00 Gymnopedies #1 3:32 Gnossiennes #1 6:52 Gnossiennes #3 9:33 Gnossiennes #4 11:52 Gnossiennes #5

The Best Classical Music To Listen To While Studying

by Emily E. Hogstad, Interlude

© us.123rf.com/

Whether you’re a newbie or a lifelong connoisseur, all classical music fans agree: some pieces work better as background music than others…especially when we’re studying! A Mahler symphony is powerful in the concert hall, but in the study hall, its grandiosity and mood changes might prove distracting.

So that begs the question: what are the best pieces of classical music to listen to when you hit the books? We all have our favorites, but here are eight of mine. Keep in mind that this is not a traditional list, and many of the pieces here push the boundaries of the traditional definition of “classical music.”

Soundtrack from “Koyaanisqatsi” by Philip Glass. Music written in the minimalist style appears several times on this list. Many people find minimalism’s trademark repeated rhythms, gradual tempo changes, and tonal language helpful to listen to while concentrating. All of these elements are on full display in Philip Glass’ soundtrack for the 1984 experimental film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. The music serves as the main aural feature of the film since there is no dialogue. Instead, the story is told through shots of landscapes, military installations, and cities, with Glass’ mesmerizing soundtrack playing for nearly the whole movie.

Sinfoniae Sacrae by Giovanni Gabrieli. Gabrieli was born in the 1550s and died in 1612. Despite the fact that he lived so long ago, there is something fresh and engaging about his compositional language, straddling eras between Renaissance and Baroque. The Sinfoniae Sacrae are rhythmic and upbeat, with just enough contrast to keep things interesting!

Soundtrack from “The Village” by James Newton Howard. “The Village” may not have been a huge box office success, but its haunting soundtrack is transporting, twisting through wistful moods like the view from a kaleidoscope. Superstar violinist Hilary Hahn is a featured soloist, lending the music some serious classical music credentials. 

© macleay.edu.au/

Phrygian Gates by John Adams. Phrygian Gates shares important hallmarks with the Glass soundtrack mentioned above. It was written in 1978-79 and features a rhythmic, shimmering solo piano musing away for almost half an hour. As the notes spin, they cycle through a variety of different keys, providing interest. The result is mesmerizing, and perfect for getting into a study groove.

Soundtrack from “The Fountain” by Clint Mansell. Like “The Village” soundtrack, the soundtrack from “The Fountain” may not be classical music strictly speaking, but it does feature well-respected performers from the classical music scene. Members of the Kronos Quartet, an American string quartet that specializes in new music, perform along with the band Mogwai. The result is an overwhelmingly melancholic score that is both dreamy and thought-provoking.

Trois Gymnopédies by Erik Satie. Composer Erik Satie began publishing these three short piano pieces in 1888. They are especially striking for how they balance deep emotion with stasis (a stasis created in large part by the recurring notes in the bass). It comes as no surprise that these deeply affecting pieces have been commandeered for use in modern pop culture, including appearances in movies, orchestral arrangements, and even a Janet Jackson track. They are both calming and inspiring: perfect for studying.

Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach. The story of the variations’ conception is legendary. Apparently Count Herman Karl von Keyserling, a diplomat to the Saxon court, had trouble sleeping. The count asked a musician in his service, a keyboard virtuoso by the name of Goldberg, to play harpsichord for him as he battled insomnia. Bach wrote a set of theme and variations for Goldberg to play during these nighttime concerts, and the “Goldberg Variations” were published in 1741. Even if you’re not trying to fall asleep, the Goldberg Variations provide one of the most beautiful backgrounds in all of music.

Anything by Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was many things: an abbess, a philosopher, a mystic, an author, and even a composer. Her music lacks tempo indicators and is monophonic (meaning that it contains only one melody line without accompanying chords). Accordingly, her works sound exceptionally flowing and otherworldly, especially to a modern ear. It is perfect music to explore while studying.

Those are the first eight pieces that come to mind. However, one of the (many!) great things about classical music is that it’s a genre that spans continents and millenia. Eight pieces are just a single drop in an ocean of awesomeness. So dive in yourself and find the pieces that work for you!