Top 5 Incredible Classical Music Facts

A veterinarian in Portugal conducted an experiment where he played various kinds music for cats during surgery and measured their physiological responses. he findings are still somewhat preliminary, but his results, which were published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, found that playing a classical composition from Barber made them more relaxed, while AC/DC’s Thunderstruck made them more stressed. Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn,” which seems like a twisted thing to play during surgery, produced intermediate results.

Here’s some information you can’t do much with, but probably wish you could. Researchers from the University of Sussex played two clips of music for women in various stages of their menstrual cycle. One composition was fairly simple, while the other was a more complex rendition of a similar melody. They found that when asked to imagine entering into a relationship with the composer of each clip, the fertile women were much more interested in the composer of the complex piece than the non-fertile women were. This lead the researchers to speculate that there may be some instinct at work that selects mating partners with intelligence and creativity in their genes.

An Italian study published in 2015 found that listening to a piano composition from Mozart known as K448 gave a boost in cognitive function, but listening to Beethoven’s Fur Elise did not. This isn’t the first time that that piece of Mozart’s has been studied. In fact, scientists have even dubbed the increase in brain function “The Mozart Effect.” Even though over the years many studies have refuted these findings, experiments like that Italian one nevertheless continue to demonstrate positive effects– some studies have even that found daily Mozart listening can reduce the incidence of epileptic seizures.

One South African vineyard has decided to play baroque and classical music to their grapes, all the way from the vines to the barrels. But will it have any effect? While it has been observed many times that classical music alters the way plants grow, scientists now believe it has more to do the way plants react to vibrations than sound, per se. So touching or blowing on your plants could have much the same result. So how will Handel and Bach make this red wine taste? I’m sure it will pair nicely with chicken from this Malaysian farm that plays classical music for all its birds.

Erik Satie ate only food that was white and carried a hammer in his pocket for protection. Anton Bruckner was obsessed with counting things, and on two separate occasions grabbed the skulls of famous composers– Schubert and Beethoven– out of their coffins. Mozart apparently had an obsession with farts and poop. He also loved to behave like a cat, sometimes even during rehearsals. We may tend to think of classical composers as being as stuck up and elitist as the royal courts they played in. But if we think of them as the rock stars of their time, the eccentric misunderstood geniuses of their day, then these quirks make just a bit more sense.

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