The fact that classical music can be perceived as sexy is pretty foreign to me, so when the NPR article was sent out I had a pretty good idea that I would be using that article to write my first blog post. Up until this point, classical music only made it to two types of playlists on my iPod: “Studying” and “Falling Asleep.” On those two fronts, it does its job very well. Even after reading Tom Huizenga’s take on classical music as sensual, I’m still not entirely convinced. I listened to every single track that he listed that was within our class timeframe, and I worked my way up from the bottom.

Let’s take Huizenga’s example of “Come Here” composed by Thomas Ades from the chamber opera Powder Her Face. My 17-year-old brother, who was in the next room and overheard me listening to it, ran in and demanded to know why I was listening to such creepy music. Need I say more? No sexy stamp for Ades.

Then I hit play on Sonata Erotica by Erwin Shulhoff. After reading the summary and seeing “He decided to match Grosz in music with his Sonata Erotica, a short piece scored for a single female vocalist whose task is to fake an orgasm…,” I was slightly apprehensive but charged forward. Perhaps this is sexier from a male perspective because in all honesty I felt incredibly awkward.

Up next:  Poem of Ecstasy by Alexander Scriabin. To say I was thrilled to discover there were no vocals on this one is an understatement. I can see how this can maybe be perceived as sensual. It’s got a slower, more seductive tempo in the beginning and then speeds up. Plus, in my own opinion I’ve always thought strings can make anything sexy if the arrangement is right.

Finally, I put on Strauss’s “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which was the most convincing example by far. The first minute is what sold me. Once again you’ve got strings kind of gliding along at a moderate to slow-ish tempo, which crescendo into a sort of climax that comes back down around the minute mark. The rest of the song wasn’t as sexy – the ending was a little too chaotic – but I get Huizenga’s point.

The whole experience prompted me to do a little digging of my own. Maybe Huizenga’s examples just weren’t the best choices. I decided to find some of my own. Check them out below.

1.  First discovery was from one of my absolute favorite movies, Black Swan. The whole movie is based around a dance company doing a modernized version of Swan Lake, which was originally composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky between 1875 and 1876. The music in this scene is not only beautiful, but I’m a little more convinced of it’s sex appeal. This might be due in part to the fact that it comes with a visual. However, the entire movie has sexual themes and is backed by compositions inspired by Swan Lake, so I have to assume that the director found something sexy in Swan Lake to choose it for the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsvtIzebNcw

2. Next I learned that one of my favorite classical compositions “Clair de Lune” composed by Claude Debussy in 1890, is on the soundtrack for the movie Atonement. I’ve never seen the movie, but I did some serious Youtubing and found this compilation of scenes set to the music. I think this is definitely one of the more romantic sounding pieces, but who says romance isn’t sexy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dMxzC36_BQ 

So to conclude, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince my boyfriend to add any classical music to the Valentine’s Day playlist, but by the end of this whole experience I can see the appeal.