Cultural Gateways: How Curiosity Begets Culture

The term "high culture" is usually used to describe works that society has traditionally regarded as having exceptional artistic or intellectual value. Classical music. Great literature. Fine art. Opera. Ballet.

By contrast, popular culture is generally taken to mean the films, television programmes, popular music, comics and entertainment consumed by a mass audience.

It's a distinction that has existed for well over a century.

I'm just not convinced it's a very useful one.

I believe it discourages some people from seeking out things they might genuinely enjoy if only they gave them a chance. Over the years I've had countless conversations with people who tell me they'd never attend a classical concert because it's "too highbrow" for them. They assume they won't understand it, won't belong there, or simply won't enjoy it.

I think that's a shame.

I believe all art should be accessible to anyone who wishes to experience it. The walls we've built between "high" and "popular" culture are artificial. I'd much rather knock them down until all that's left is simply culture.

I've never consciously separated Beethoven from Blade Runner, the Sex Pistols from Shakespeare, or Pulp Fiction from Picasso. To me, they're simply artists working in different media, using different forms to communicate ideas, emotions and stories.

"I like that... I wonder what that is? I wonder what else they've done?"

I didn't discover Igor Stravinsky in a concert hall or on a record.

I discovered The Rite of Spring through Fantasia. I watched Disney's animated dinosaurs long before I knew who Stravinsky was. Decades later I'll still happily buy a ticket to hear what has become my favourite piece of orchestral music performed live. I'll be hearing it again at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall this October for the umpteenth time.

In fact, I've been to the Philharmonic so often that I've developed a little game. I choose my seat depending on what I want to hear. If I want the violins to be more prominent, I'll sit to the left facing the stage. If I want a little more bass, I'll move over to the right. The orchestra almost takes on a stereophonic quality.

My favourite place, though, is high in the Upper Circle. Dead centre, back row. From there the sound seems to bloom perfectly throughout the hall. The acoustics in that building are stunning.

Beethoven entered my life through Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Carl Orff arrived courtesy of The Omen. Berlioz came through The Nice's Five Bridges album, which my brother owned and which I now still possess.

None of those experiences felt educational.

They were just things I enjoyed that, combined with my curiosity, led me to explore further.

Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George led me to Georges Seurat, as well as other Sondheim works. I particularly like Into The Woods. A musical became a gateway to one of the great painters of the nineteenth century. From Seurat came Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and the artists who surrounded him.

One work of art simply introduced me to another, then another, ad infinitum, so that I continue to discover today and, I hope, will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

As my curiosity grew, I collected the Marshall Cavendish Great Composers, Great Artists and Great Writers partworks. They weren't replacing the gateways that had sparked my interest; they were helping me walk further through the door, introducing me to a vast world of artists, composers and writers I knew little or nothing about.

I first encountered Rebecca through the Laurence Olivier film before eventually reading Daphne du Maurier's novel.

I also first encountered Wuthering Heights through the Olivier film. I enjoyed it enough to read the novel a few years later. Then I asked the question I'd asked so many times before.

What else did Emily Brontë write?

Oh. Nothing.

So what about her sisters?

I read Charlotte and Anne. Then I found myself reading about their tragically short lives, and mourning three remarkable writers whose talent far outlived the brief lives they were given.

All from old black and white Hollywood films.

My brother owned Led Zeppelin II and IV. I loved them, so I bought all the other LPs. Same with Sabbath, Cat Stevens and numerous other artists.

I discovered Guernica.

Who's this Picasso?

Who influenced him?

Who did he influence?

What's this Cubism anyway?

What happened at Guernica?

What was the Spanish Civil War?

Why were the Luftwaffe involved?

Before I'd realised it, one painting had led me into the history of twentieth-century Spain, the rise of fascism, modern art and one of the most powerful anti-war statements ever created. One of my outstanding ambitions is to witness Guernica for myself in Madrid.

Find a composer you enjoy? What else did they create?

The question never changes, only the subject.

Remember the classic Hovis advert in the 1970s? That led me to Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World. Then his other works.

That's why I've never been comfortable with the labels "high" and "low" culture.

They imply that some art is somehow more worthy than others.

I don't believe that's how most people discover the things they eventually come to love.

Culture isn't a ladder that we climb. It's a network.

Disney to Stravinsky.

Kubrick to Beethoven.

Bread to Dvořák.

Omen to Orff.

Sondheim to Seurat.

Every work of art has the potential to become another gateway.

The wonderful thing is that no one follows exactly the same route.

Ask a hundred people how they first encountered Shakespeare, Mozart, Van Gogh or Dickens and you'll probably hear a hundred different stories.

None of them are wrong. All are personal.

What matters isn't where the journey begins.

It is that the journey continues.

Some people won't approach classical music because they think they won't understand it, won't visit an art gallery because they feel they don't know enough, or won't read the classics because they believe they're "not that sort of person."

I think we've got it backwards.

You don't need to understand culture before you experience it.

You need one doorway.

One piece of music.

One novel.

One painting.

One film.

One song.

From there, curiosity does the rest.

Perhaps that's how culture has always travelled… one curious mind, one gateway and one discovery at a time.

All it takes is someone asking, “I like that... what's it called? What else have they done?”