Did you know that listening to classical music can enhance your eating and drinking? Georgia Mann serves up some tasty tunes to complement your Christmas fare

’Tis the season to eat, drink and make merry. I’ve long been fascinated by the relationship between music, food and drink. It turns out the science backs up my personal theory that feasting is better with the right musical accompaniment. Studies have shown that rock music correlates with increased consumption of alcohol, while classical music appears to reduce the intake of savoury foods. A phenomenon called “cross-modal correspondence” means that different sounds are associated with different tastes. For instance, higher-pitched sounds are associated with sweet and sour tastes; lower-pitched and dissonant ones with bitterness; and staccato sounds with crunchiness.

So, what’s the best musical accompaniment for each type of festive fare, you may ask. Well, here’s my Idler guide to musically enhancing your Christmas consumption…

Champagne
If there’s one piece of music you should have on while quaffing fizz it’s the “Brindisi” from Verdi’s La Traviata. A brindisi is a drinking song, one that encourages the knocking back of booze. In this specific duet and chorus combination it’s being sung in the opulent apartment of our ill-fated heroine Violetta Valéry. She and the man smitten by her, Alfredo Germont, sip champagne as they encourage each other to “drink from the sweet thrills that love arouses”. Catchy and joyful, it’s a tune that rises like bubbles in a glass, and falls like Moët down a champagne tower. Intriguingly, La Traviata was first performed in 1853, just at the moment when the French champagne industry went into overdrive. Madame Clicquot of the champagne house Veuve Cliquot developed the process of riddling, which got rid of leftover yeast in the champagne after it had been fermented. Veuve Cliquot tried to keep their riddling procedure secret, but soon all the champagne houses were at it. In 1854, the French national railway system linked the champagne capital of the world, Reims, with the rest of the country and France was soon producing 20 million bottles of champers a year.

Cocktails
When I think of cocktails I think of the Jazz Age. I imagine the likes of Ernest Hemingway and the cast of characters from F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby knocking back Gin Gimlets and Sidecars. Many a cocktail has its roots in Prohibition-era America. With alcohol officially banned in the States from 1920 to 1933, the bootlegged liquor that people turned to was so grim that the taste had to be enhanced/disguised by mixers – hence a proliferation of new cocktails. No composer better captures the sound of 1920s America than George Gershwin, and no one sings him better than Ella Fitzgerald. That’s the combination you need for cocktail consumption, but if you want a nod to the hedonism of 1920s Paris while sipping a French 75, may I recommend a composer who partied hard in the French capital at that time alongside Picasso, Diaghilev and Cocteau: Francis Poulenc. His ballet score Les Biches is all about cocktail-quaffing youngsters at a house party – just the thing to enhance a Christmas cocktail gathering.

Mince Pies
There’s something very medieval about a mince pie. The ingredients go back to the 13th century, when returning European crusaders brought back Middle Eastern recipes which used fruits, spices and meats. Mince pies were certainly more meaty in the past – in Tudor England “shred” pies were made from finely chopped meat, suet and dried fruit. For an authentic medieval listening (if not eating) experience while you enjoy your sweet mince pies this Christmas, I recommend the early music ensemble Joglaresa. They have an album called Sing We Yule on which you’ll find the 15th-century “Boar’s Head Carol”, and one of the best-known and most ancient Christmas tunes, “In Dulci Jubilo”, which is thought to have been created around 1328.

Turkey Time
Surely one of the most important elements of a Christmas feast is the preparation and cooking of the main dish. Whether you go for turkey, goose or nut-roast, getting the centrepiece of the meal ready often requires copious amounts of time in the kitchen. So, what to listen to while carrying out all that stuffing and trussing? Apparently Henry VIII was one of the first to have turkey served as his Christmas bird of choice, so I’d recommend a nod to him and his dynasty in the form of Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, an album from His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. They’re a group of virtuoso wind players who specialise in playing Renaissance and Baroque music in historically appropriate styles – and frankly all feasting should involve sagbutts.

Recovery
Christmas is a time of merriment, but it’s also a time of trying to recuperate from said merriment. If the combined effects of the aforementioned festive food and drinks leave you with a headache and nausea, I have just the cooling pianistic fare to counteract these discomforts: A Very Chilly Christmas by the pianist Chilly Gonzales. “Christmas is a time of very mixed intense emotion for me, and the existing canon often sounds like a forced smile,” said Chilly, who made the album during lockdown. “The songs [on it] make room for a more authentic interpretation of this very peculiar 2020 holiday season.” There’s everything from “Silent Night”, to Jarvis Cocker’s take on “In the Bleak Midwinter”. Ideal if your festive hangover is making you feel more minor than major key.

Georgia Mann presents Essential Classics on BBC Radio 3.

This article is from Idler #106.

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