Do kids get much exposure to classical music anymore? I worry about this.

We had a music appreciation class, when I was in eighth grade. We would listen to some of the classical classics. I was not familiar with quite a few of them, but often I would recognize a passage. Often because I had heard it while watching Warner Brothers cartoons.

I am concerned that classical might seem too slow and too long, in an era where everyone is in a hurry and short attention spans are an issue.

I have discovered a piece of classical music that is particularly evocative as well as brilliantly presented. Even kids with no background in classical and burdened with a limited ability to focus could be encouraged to listen to this:

Tchaikovsky‘s take on star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.

And particularly as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

I believe kids with no background in classical might find this interesting for several factors.

1. It’s often loud. Which is fine. I believe classical should usually be played loudly.

2. It is very dynamic. Soft, quiet, slow, fast. And it is often fast. Lots of 16th notes. Watch the strings, and particularly the violins. They are sawing for their lives. Lots of percussion, too. Timpani and cymbals, in particular.

3. It is tuneful. The Love Theme in particular, which begins at 8:58 when the woodwinds to a “run” up to the introduction of the tune.

4. The BBC records the symphony as if it were a full-contact sport, switching aggressively from one part of the orchestra to the next, following prominent passages. A kid could ignore the music and just look at the musicians, and they run the gamut here, from a harp to the English horn — which is neither English nor a horn. (Discuss)

5. If you are worried that Romeo and Juliet starts off a bit too quietly, and slowly, jump ahead to the 4:28 mark, where it begins to get loud.

6. The whole of it is meant to tell Shakespeare’s play in a musical settting, and telling kids “this is where two gangs are fighting” … and this is where Romeo and Juliet are talking … and when they are in love … and this is where (spoiler alert) they die, and this is a priest at their funeral. When it comes to “something aural telling us about something visual” this is a particularly fine example.

7. The conductor, a Russian named Valery Gergiev, does a wonderful job with the music … but he also has one of the worst comb-overs in modern music — as well as a particularly curious method of direction, with lots of quivering hands and fingers.

The key to appreciating classical music, and the wonder of 50-some people working as a team, is to get people to listen to it for the first time, and the key to that is making sure it is something dynamic and accessible and even visual — and the link to the YouTube video, up above, as well as here, is worth pursuing.