Classical Music and TikTok

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Photo: LPO

The violin soloist was not wearing a formal dress, but a sweatshirt and jeans. The video was accompanied by a score, allowing viewers to follow the notes on the page and the notes she played side by side. The video has been viewed more than 2 million times.

Another popular orchestral video is a short excerpt of the orchestra rehearsing Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. The accompanying question is: Do you think the piece is overhyped?

The Other Side of Classical Music

Almost every major orchestra in the world has a TikTok account. And what these orchestras have in common is that their short videos that attract the public are randomly recorded during practice hours with amateur lenses.

When thinking about classical music, people often think of a solemn atmosphere, pensive-looking artists, dressed in elegant suits in black or white tones.

But on TikTok, audiences get to see the other side of the classical music world: artists who sometimes wear jeans and T-shirts, are also casual, and don't seem academic at all.

So suddenly the music of Mahler, Ravel, Dvokrak, which we normally have to sit up straight to listen to, we can now listen to in a more comfortable position and anywhere, while sitting in a cafe, while walking on the street.

The big obstacle for classical music in reaching the public is its length, but on TikTok, only the most impressive pieces are often cut out: Chopin's saddest melodies, the most majestic excerpts from a Mahler symphony, Grieg's whimsical fingerplays...

In another video, the London Philharmonic Orchestra rehearses the classic theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, prompting the audience to “stay for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.” The full musical score for the ballet can run up to 2 hours and 30 minutes. How many people have that much time for art? But everyone has 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Classical music comes out of theaters, cathedrals, and music listening rituals, and we can listen to it on TikTok.

To the heart of a man

Quite a few classical pieces have been received on TikTok in this way: they are isolated to take the best part as a teaser of a finished work, or as a small-capacity extract for listeners to try.

Excerpts from Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No. 2 in E-flat Major, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major Chapter 3... have been used as background music for their videos by hundreds of thousands, millions of users.

If you browse TikTok for a while, you will likely come across Mozart and Beethoven.

TikTok is also a platform for young classical artists to tell their stories. From a car video singing an aria from Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Nigerian-American singer Babatunde Akinboboye has become a phenomenon; or a young classical artist’s emotional videos of her daily life have helped make Esther Abrami one of the new “faces” of the violin.

Building on her reputation, Esther introduced to the general public not only composers who were already well-known, but also sometimes overlooked composers such as Teresa Carreno, a Venezuelan female composer who was known in her lifetime as the "lion of the piano".

Well, some people will say that such truncated content and behind-the-scenes videos are not the core of classical music, and may even be a misleading way of receiving it, causing people who know nothing about classical music to misunderstand that classical music is just that.

But just read a TikTok comment under a video excerpt of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, saying "Here's a promise: when I have enough money I will come to London for this concert" and the orchestra responded: "We look forward to seeing you", and we immediately believe that the worry is unnecessary.

Music always knows its way to a person's heart, no matter which path it takes.

HIEN TRANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nhac-co-dien-va-tiktok-20250525095309022.htm