[mrbrowning]

I believe when articles like this one talk about "listening to Mozart," they are indeed referring to active listening, which taxes recall (with regards to things like ongoing restatements of a prominent motive) and working memory (with regards to things like key changes or thematic development). In my intuitive experience, it tends to be a task that requires a certain threshold of concentration to even happen at all, like juggling. As with juggling, you could probably learn to combine another activity with it, but the benefits seem like they would be tenuous.

[jonnathanson]

If that's the case, then fair point. But I've seen a lot of articles that talk about the ostensible benefits of simply having Mozart (etc.) on in the background. It was hard to get a sense of which approach this article was talking about when mentioning the subject.

Passive/ambient listening may have some benefit to a small baby, whose brain is much more plastic and is generally responsive to interesting stimuli. But for adults, a more active and taxing activity is probably in order. I agree with you that the loci of improvement are probably concentration and recall.