The Dr. Gradus Guide to Classical Music

The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate. ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Instructions 🎧

Welcome, and grab your headphones! Use the right arrow key or tap the right side of the screen to continue.

Here is Radu Lupu playing the finale from the Schubert D Major sonata.

Part I. Intuition

“Turn up the music!” my 82-year-old piano teacher hollered as we raced down the highway, blasting Beethoven's Emperor concerto. “No one lets me drive this fast anymore,” she grinned from the passenger seat. I noticed my friend Mark, who drove as fast as he played the Beethoven, coax the car a little faster still.

I had been studying with Natalie for fourteen years, since I was four years old. The last few years, she would often have chemo the same day as our lessons, and even though she stayed so sharp I could rarely tell, I was not expecting this giddiness to see the pianist Radu Lupu play at SUNY Purchase.

It was my senior year of high school, and Natalie had decided it was time to take two of her students, Mark and me, to finally see a real piano recital. In 2007, before all the world's best and worst performances resided on YouTube, my world of classical music was limited to Natalie's own debut recording and a couple of my grandparents' CDs of the Greatest Hits—Glenn Gould playing Bach or Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky. I played these over and over, long before I learned of the mystique that surrounded them. Van was still just Natalie's old friend from her days at “The Juilliard” (which she always pronounced with a soft French “J”).

But the previous summer Natalie had given me a gift from her collection: a CD containing Schubert's “Big A minor” sonata that I was meant to learn, played by Radu Lupu. I barely registered Lupu's name—I was just listening to Schubert. So when Natalie told me who we were going to see, I recognized the name only because its Romanian syllables sounded exotic to my sheltered New England ears.

We climbed to the upper balcony, which felt like a mile from the stage—in hindsight this was the smallest hall Lupu would play that season. The pianist emerged, a bearlike figure in black, and was greeted by already-enthusiastic applause seemingly just for existing. He sat at an office chair placed in front of the piano and began to play without ceremony.

The program was just two pieces: the Schubert sonata in D and a book of Debussy Preludes. ^💬 It occurred to me that listening to Lupu's CD, there was a certain separateness between me and the life of the music; now I found myself sucked into Schubert's imagination—or was it Lupu's. Beneath Lupu's stern frame, his lungs breathed with the song of it, and his fingers stepped to the dance of it. I had never heard this particular sonata, and yet its arc felt inevitable, notes wending their way downstream. Eventually, the music tapered into half-phrases and ended humbly, as if the stream were still flowing but we just stopped watching. I was in awe, transported, and the audience's applause was generous, but without a heroic conclusion, the room wasn't brought to its feet.

Intermission was short, and I leaned forward as he began the Debussy—my favorite composer. But by the second of the twelve preludes, my attention wandered and I was wondering what movie my friends were picking out at Blockbuster that evening. I snapped back only when I recognized La Cathedrale Engloutie, which I knew from Natalie's debut recording. To my shame, I glanced down at the program and counted just two preludes remaining. It had all blurred together. How will I have something intelligent to say to Natalie? I panicked.

As the last prelude ended with two crisp chords, the crowd erupted. I clapped politely, feeling out of touch. From our perch in the balcony, Natalie shouted down to the stage, hands cupped like a 12-year-old at a ballgame, convinced the players would hear her from the field. “Encore! Play some Brahms!” She turned to me, “I hope he plays Brahms—I love his Brahms.” Persuaded by two curtain calls, he played his encore. It was more Debussy.

Years later, I would learn that Lupu was already considered one of the Great Pianists. His recordings of Schubert and Brahms would lead me to share Natalie's enthusiasm. But I never got to see him perform live again. When he passed away in 2022, I wished I had clapped louder that evening. But that night, walking back to the car, my heart jumped into my throat when Natalie asked the inevitable: “So, what did you think?”

Was it OK to say that the Debussy was too boring to hold my attention? What if Natalie loved it like the rest of the audience seemed to? Would that just mean I hadn't learned what she wanted to teach me, after all?

So I stayed silent and waited for Mark to speak first. “I loved the Schubert,” he said simply, “but I didn't think the Debussy was that good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, and then another one as Natalie agreed with him. “Yeah, the Schubert was amazing, but Debussy's not really his thing. I wish he had played Brahms,” she said. Now I chimed in with my agreement, elaborating loudly to make it as clear as possible that the opinion was in fact one I already held and not at all influenced by what they said.

The fact is, the moment the music passes through anyone's ears, it becomes their music, too. That night, I decided I'd have to start trusting my own experience. I'd call it a turning point, but it took years to actually turn.

Today, newcomers to classical music outnumber established audience members, and now I'm usually the one bringing first-time listeners to concerts, hoping that I can share even a fraction of Natalie's enthusiasm. After each one, I can't wait to ask, “So what did you think?” My heart still jumps, but now with anticipation—hoping they'll say “Best concert of my life! When can we do it again?” Or even just “I thought the Bach was boring.”

But more often than not, they hesitate, as I once did. “You tell me,” they say. “I don't know much about classical music.”

A concert has somehow become entertainment with prerequisites. This is a guide that wrestles with them. It is about first cultivating and trusting your intuition—and knowing when to reach for a bit of context. There will be some music I've loved for years and some music I'm just discovering. I hope you say it's the best thing you've read in your life… or even just “I thought that was boring.”