Possibly the most common complaint that one hears about classical music is that it’s boring. To many people, classical music is something that they hear occasionally in the dentist’s office or in the soundtrack to a dusty period film with a lot of corsets and talking. Flipping through radio stations, they hastily pass by the classical frequencies and move on to supposedly more exciting fare. Certain enthusiasts of classical music are likely to lament this behaviour with withering proclamations of society’s decline, but they are perhaps overreacting. The sneering youth have a point, classical music can be boring. If you’re listening to it wrong. Which is to say quietly.

Listening to Beethoven at half-volume on a pair of laptop speakers (as I am now, but I already like Beethoven, so my hypocrisy is acceptable, right?) betrays the intended presentation of the music, and undermines the experience of hearing it. The man liked his music loud, after all. It seems like a bit of an obvious point, but turning up the volume really does make such a difference. It’s easy to dismiss classical music as background filler and senior citizen fodder when you can barely hear it, but when it’s shaking your fillings out you might just see it in a new light.

Of course, generally speaking, all music sounds better louder. I think we can all agree that Led Zeppelin is a lot more fun to listen to when it’s coming out of wall of Marshalls instead of your roommate’s iPod speakers. But classical music seems to be especially prone to crippling via attenuation. For some reason, the experience relies more heavily on the presence and immediacy of the music, or at least that would seem to be the case for many people.

To those that say classical is boring, I say turn it up. Grab a pair of headphones, clamp them to your skull, and max out the volume on your stereo. Never mind the hearing damage. A cello concerto is usually a safe bet for some quality bone-rattling. I’d recommend Philip Glass’ Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, especially the third movement. It’s totally melodramatic and terrifying.

The youtube clip with the good quality sound seems to have embedding disabled. Check that one out here. The video below doesn’t have great sound, but there’s an interesting little interview piece at the beginning.