Musing #3: Prehistoric Mozart

If a caveman (or cavewoman) were to somehow magically come across an orchestra playing a symphony by Mozart, how might they react?

First-or-all, let’s take away the powdered wigs and extravagant apparel – in fact, let’s remove the musicians themselves. Those visuals would instigate their own impressions. Let’s imagine these cavemen just heard the music emanating from the sky. They’d hear it but would they hear it? Would they be enthralled? Edified? Perk up like plants in a scientific study or grunt and move away from the annoying sounds as if from a swarm of flies?

Fast forward to Mozart’s time. What if they were suddenly confronted by Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin or Metallica? (Playing at their most rocking and through their amps, of course.) Again, take away the visuals. Would Mozart & Co. shudder and run? Or might some start literally flipping their wigs with the first tentative headbanging motions in history? What would Mozart himself think of such sounds? Would his genius necessitate him to appreciate such alien music on its own terms?

What about music created 100 or more years from the present day? Sci-fi movies and stories try and present us with what that futuristic music might sound like, but I can’t help but feel that they haven’t got it right yet; that it’s going to be something that’s currently inconceivable to us. What if we could hear it now? Would many of us like it? Or is it likely to be as incomprehensible to us as Mozart to cavemen or hard rock to those in Mozart’s time?