A Classical Education

By Stephen O’Connor

A woman who I suppose was trying to impress upon me the extent of her minimalism once told me that she could live a perfectly happy life without a television or radio, without coffee and dessert, without wine, and without music. That final bit of self-abnegation struck me as a cross a little too heavy to carry along the stony path of life—an exaggeration, surely. Yes, we could all survive without music, but live a perfectly happy life? Imagine films with no scores, a shower in which no one sings, churches without choirs, silence in the mornings and empty stages in the evenings. The sense of loss would be palpable yet inexpressible by song, wind or string.

I came to be a fan of folk, rock, blues and a bit of jazz by the same path that most of my generation followed. Somewhere along the line, though, my ears were awakened to classical music. I can’t say when exactly, but I know that one formative influence was the late Robert J. Lurtsema and his Morning Pro Musica radio show on WGBH. Robert J. began every program with a few minutes of birdsong. I was reminded of Lurtsema’s intro when I read that the earliest musical instruments were bone flutes on which primitive humans probably tried to imitate the calls of birds around them, nature’s first music. Lurtsema’s birdsong introduction would eventually fade and morph into the rising notes of Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” What a grand evolution was there.

My older brother Rory and I sometimes did drywall jobs back in the eighties, a trade we learned from our father. Often, I’d have Morning Pro Musica on the radio as we taped and troweled. Someone asked the name of our company. We didn’t really have a company, but Rory answered, “Classical Drywall.” When Lurtsema, in his sonorous voice, signed off, we’d switch to WBCN and become Rock, or Sheetrock Drywall.

Throughout the years, classical music, particularly in the morning, became as essential to my equilibrium as coffee or reading the morning news. As I write this, Laura Carlo is playing Francesco Cavalli’s “Chiaccone Canzone,” a “Dance Song,” on her WCRB Morning Program. Robert J. Lurtsema will always be my favorite classical music host, but Laura Carlo is a worthy runner-up. Her voice, as well as the music, will reduce your blood pressure and your cortisol levels.

In 1992, I got a job teaching English and ESL at an urban technical high school, what used to be called a “vocational school.” I had read studies that indicated that students did better on math tests after listening to Bach for half an hour, that plants in greenhouses where classical music was played grew faster than in greenhouses where other music or no music was played, and even that cows listening to classical music gave more milk. Based on all of this and my own experience, I began to play classical music softly in my classroom. I told the students, “If at any time during the class, you feel distracted by the music, or you just don’t like it, feel free to go up and turn it off. You don’t need my permission.”

Sometimes, I’d turn the music off myself, particularly if there were clashing cymbals, or if the music was too soporific after lunch. I found that the atmosphere in the class improved in some intangible way. I have a memory of a December day; the students were busy writing something as I streamed George Winston’s LP, December.

“That’s kinda pretty, Mister,” someone said.

“Can’t you picture the snow falling?”

“Yeah.”

You may not believe this, but I’ll swear under oath that a few students asked me what station I had on in class because they wanted to listen to it at home. A Brazilian student once said, “Oh, Mister, listen! That’s a clarinet. I play the clarinet!” I was surprised, but not shocked; he excelled as a student.

Sometimes, students asked if they could listen to their own music on earbuds while they worked. I said no. The reason I gave was that the music I played softly in class had no lyrics, but if they were reading words on a page and there were other words in their ear, they’d be distracted. Beyond that, the music they listened to on their earbuds was what they listened to all the time. Part of education is expanding tastes and experiences. And then there were those studies suggesting a link between classical music and a lot of good things.

Flannery O’Connor (no relation, sadly) once wrote an essay called “Total Effect and the Eighth Grade.” She spoke about the necessity of teaching challenging books, books of literary value, to students. If those books were not to the student’s taste, she concluded, that was too bad. “Their tastes should not be consulted. Their tastes are being formed.” It may sound autocratic, but classrooms were never democracies, and I thank God that Mr. Burns made me read Emily Brontë, though I would have preferred to stick with Jack London and Thor Heyerdahl. Similarly, I believe that some students over the years have taken something positive or expansive away from having listened to classical music in my room.

I recall a student who came to my class after school to work on a project. He asked if he could listen to his own music on earphones. I told him that the school day was over and he was a free man. He could listen to whatever he liked. A while later, I walked over and asked, “Can I hear what you’re listening to out of curiosity?” He handed me the earphone, which I held up to my ear. Imagine my shock when I heard the uillean pipes. I could not have been more surprised if he was listening to French Renaissance music or Gregorian chants.

“You’re listening to the Irish pipes? You must be kidding me!”

It was the soundtrack to Titanic, which was a hit movie at the time. Some of those students were already more open-minded than I had given them credit for. Still, it seems to me that music is such a large part of our culture, of all cultures, that we should not hand its curation over to Universal, Sony and Warner and be content that our young people will hear only the music the industry chooses. I once heard a Professor Abercrombie of the Music Department at UMASS, Amherst, ask some students, “How do you not know Ella Fitzgerald? How is that possible? You went to school, I presume, and no one ever mentioned Ella Fitzgerald?”

When they put me in charge of schools, (a development that’s long overdue), there will be a three-year course called, “History, Music and Culture,” and I don’t just mean European history or classical composers though they will certainly be included. Such a course would also include the spiritual songs of enslaved Blacks, “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Pat Worked on the Railway,” the Delta Blues, Bluegrass, Folk, Appalachian, Jazz, Latin and ethnic music in general, Rock, and the music the students listen to today and how it reflects their history because music always reflects and sometimes helps to create the historical period. (They might even teach the teacher on that score). And, of course, Professor Abercrombie, they will hear from Ella Fitzgerald. Let’s make it a four-year course.