# Classical Music - Remarks in Passing.



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is a threat for thoughts that strike you, regarding classical music, which may or may not lead to a conversation (for the moment) with your fellow-members.

Today - the day after our Queen died - we were shopping in a supermarket when I suddenly noticed that there was some very nice classical music being played over the loud speakers instead of the usual jaunty pop. I think it was Mozart. Such a refreshing change - it was a moment before I twigged what the reason was.

It seems that 'classical music' from the classical era is the only safe, solemn or serious & *reliably non-objectionable* music that one can play in times of trouble.


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## Otis B. Driftwood (4 mo ago)

Ingélou said:


> It seems that 'classical music' from the classical era is the only safe, solemn or serious & *reliably non-objectionable* music that one can play in times of trouble.


Interesting point of view. I think one of the reasons for that is its constancy. Music that seems to have always been around, and always will be.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I think you hear classical era music played because the people charged with putting something on have no idea what else is out there. Their musical knowledge is shallow and dull. I can imagine TV programs being saturated with Elgar's Nimrod for the next 10 days.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

> It seems that 'classical music' from the classical era is the only safe, solemn or serious & *reliably non-objectionable* music


Which is why it is called Classical - "regarded as representing an exemplary standard."


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## Montarsolo (5 mo ago)

As a Dutch comedian once said: when I turn on the radio and I hear Bach I think; who died?


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> I think you hear classical era music played because the people charged with putting something on have no idea what else is out there. Their musical knowledge is shallow and dull. I can imagine TV programs being saturated with Elgar's Nimrod for the next 10 days.


I was shopping in the classical section of a record store in Downtown Phoenix, which has since closed. A homeless guy with alcohol on his breath walks in and says, "whoa...classical." He starts talking about how great Mozart is, and asked me if I liked Mozart. I said no. He said, "you don't like classical?' I said I love classical music, just not from Mozart's time period. He had no idea how to wrap his head around that. So he just kept saying how great Mozart is. He grabbed a record out of the Mozart section and handed it to me. I set it aside. When he finally left, I put the Mozart record back where it belongs. So the store proprietors wouldn't have to.


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## advokat (Aug 16, 2020)

About the background music in public places, Roger Scruton has the best quote:
"With the advent of the gramophone, the radio and now the iPod, music is no longer something that you must make for yourself, nor is it something that you sit down to listen to. It follows you about wherever you go, and you switch it on as a background. It is not so much listened to as overheard. The banal melodies and mechanical rhythms, the stock harmonies recycled in song after song, these things signify the eclipse of the musical ear. For many people music is no longer a language shaped by our deepest feelings, no longer a place of refuge from the tawdriness and distraction of everyday life, no longer an art in which gripping ideas are followed to their distant conclusions. It is simply a carpet of sound, designed to bring all thought and feeling down to its own level lest something serious might be felt or said.And there is no law against it. You are rightly prevented from polluting the air of a restaurant with smoke; but nothing prevents the owner from inflicting this far worse pollution on his customers — pollution that poisons not the body but the soul. Of course, you can ask for the music to be turned off. But you will be met by blank and even hostile stares. What kind of a weirdo is this, who wants to impose his will on everyone? Who is he to dictate the noise levels? Such is the usual response. Background music is the default position. It is no longer silence to which we return when we cease to speak, but the empty chatter of the music-box. Silence must be excluded at all cost, since it awakens you to the emptiness that looms on the edge of modern life, threatening to confront you with the dreadful truth, that you have nothing whatever to say. On the other hand, if we knew silence for what once it was, as the plastic material that is shaped by real music, then it would not frighten us at all." (The Tyranny of Pop")


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

advokat - thanks for the interesting & incisive quotation; there's a lot of truth in it and sometimes I really hate being surrounded by music that I don't want and haven't chosen. But to be honest, if they're playing some 'golden oldies' from the pop world of the 1960s, I can even start hanging round the shop just to listen to the end of some song that illuminated my teens. 

I think the worst thing about what Roger Scruton says is that it implies a sort of us-them situation with the people of distinction (like him) being trapped and misunderstood by ignorant boors - I'm exaggerating but he does seem to have a bit of a superiority complex.


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## advokat (Aug 16, 2020)

Ingélou said:


> I think the worst thing about what Roger Scruton says is that it implies a sort of us-them situation with the people of distinction (like him) being trapped and misunderstood by ignorant boors - I'm exaggerating but he does seem to have a bit of a superiority complex.


Of course, he did have a superiority complex. In his justification, one must say that it is awfully easy to obtain a superiority complex in the current atmosphere.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

advokat said:


> Of course, he did have a superiority complex. In his justification, one must say that *it is awfully easy to obtain a superiority complex in the current atmosphere*.


Brilliant 'bon mot'!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I remember Ravel's _Pavane for a Dead Princess_ being played on radio after the announcement of Princess Diana's death. I think it was not only poignant but also very apt, given the title and nature of the piece.

The subject of music being played in public spaces is an interesting one, and I remember it being discussed on this forum. The rare times I've heard classical in places like supermarkets or shopping malls, its tended to be on the ambient side (e.g. Satie's _Gymnopedies_). I think that a lot of people associate more stereotypical classical like Mozart or Vivaldi with ads or on hold music, and it may well deter rather than encourage them to stay and shop.

Classical has often been used to move people on, including deterring certain groups of people from loitering around railway stations and other spaces like carparks. Used in this way, it can amount to being nothing more than a temporary solution to more complex social problems (e.g. homelessness, youth). There's of course the notorious example of it being piped through speakers as people arrived at the Nazi concentration camps.

John Cage had a lot to say about recorded music being used to fill voids, which is one of the reasons why he didn't own a stereo system. He was critical of how canned music can detach people from their surroundings. What he said decades ago rings even truer today, with everyone being glued to their devices and constantly taking in all manner of media with barely a moment left to think, have a real conversation or look out the window.


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## Georgieva (7 mo ago)

I believe that classical music is a sort of universal language. People usually use it when there is no space for any words.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

progmatist said:


> I was shopping in the classical section of a record store in Downtown Phoenix, which has since closed. A homeless guy with alcohol on his breath walks in and says, "whoa...classical." He starts talking about how great Mozart is, and asked me if I liked Mozart. I said no. He said, "you don't like classical?' I said I love classical music, just not from Mozart's time period. He had no idea how to wrap his head around that. So he just kept saying how great Mozart is. He grabbed a record out of the Mozart section and handed it to me. I set it aside. When he finally left, I put the Mozart record back where it belongs. So the store proprietors wouldn't have to.


I liked how this anecdote concluded like a Grimm fairy tale. Lesson learned: Even though he didn't like Mozart, he was respectful of a dead artist and would still organize him.


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

progmatist said:


> I was shopping in the classical section of a record store in Downtown Phoenix, which has since closed. A homeless guy with alcohol on his breath walks in and says, "whoa...classical." He starts talking about how great Mozart is, and asked me if I liked Mozart. I said no. He said, "you don't like classical?' I said I love classical music, just not from Mozart's time period. He had no idea how to wrap his head around that. So he just kept saying how great Mozart is. He grabbed a record out of the Mozart section and handed it to me. I set it aside. When he finally left, I put the Mozart record back where it belongs. So the store proprietors wouldn't have to.


Is it so damn hard to be polite to a homeless person for 2 damn minutes? This whole encounter sounds so pretentious.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Obviously it would be fruitless. Mozartians are unaffected by plebian niceties.


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## Montarsolo (5 mo ago)

The homeless guy was right. Amadeus is great. You start with Mozart and you will end with Mozart.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

prlj said:


> Is it so damn hard to be polite to a homeless person for 2 damn minutes? This whole encounter sounds so pretentious.


I was referring more to those who claim to like classical, but know next to nothing about it cite Mozart, Beethoven.....and that's pretty much it. The fact he happened to be homeless was incidental.


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

progmatist said:


> I was referring more to those who claim to like classical, but know next to nothing about it cite Mozart, Beethoven.....and that's pretty much it. The fact he happened to be homeless was incidental.


But yet it was mentioned, as was "alcohol on his breath."

If those were incidental to your point, then they should have been left out of the description. 

(And as a side note, so what about alcohol? Are we to assume no one on this site enjoys Mahler with a nice whiskey?)


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

prlj said:


> But yet it was mentioned, as was "alcohol on his breath."
> 
> If those were incidental to your point, then they should have been left out of the description.
> 
> (And as a side note, so what about alcohol? Are we to assume no one on this site enjoys Mahler with a nice whiskey?)


If I had a problem with his being homeless or drunk, I would've ignored him altogether. Like the rest of the general public. I wouldn't have answered any of his questions. I treated him the way I would anyone else in a record store. Claiming to be a huge classical fan, but clearly knowing little or nothing about it. Had I been condescending, saying "Oh yes! Mozart is da bomb. Mozart is where it's at." That would've been treating him differently because he's homeless or drunk.


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

progmatist said:


> If I had a problem with his being homeless or drunk, I would've ignored him altogether. Like the rest of the general public. I wouldn't have answered any of his questions. I treated him the way I would anyone else in a record store. Claiming to be a huge classical fan, but clearly knowing little or nothing about it. Had I been condescending, saying "Oh yes! Mozart is da bomb. Mozart is where it's at." That would've been treating him differently because he's homeless or drunk.


Whatever helps you be at peace with this. 🤷‍♂️ I still read nothing but affluent smugness in the whole post. 

The biggest challenge to growing the audience for CM is the gatekeeping of the CM audience itself.


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

prlj said:


> Whatever helps you be at peace with this. 🤷‍♂️ I still read nothing but affluent smugness in the whole post.
> 
> The biggest challenge to growing the audience for CM is the gatekeeping of the CM audience itself.


You seem to me like one of those people that likes to be offended. Lots of them these days


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

golfer72 said:


> You seem to me like one of those people that likes to be offended. Lots of them these days


Quite the opposite - I'm one who actually wants to bring new people into this world, but my years of professional experience in CM only reveal that while music directors, musicians, staff, trustees, and donors all want to build audiences, it's the elitist attitude of the current audience that continues to drive newcomers away. It's dispiriting.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

prlj said:


> Quite the opposite - I'm one who actually wants to bring new people into this world, but my years of professional experience in CM only reveal that while music directors, musicians, staff, trustees, and donors all want to build audiences, it's the elitist attitude of the current audience that continues to drive newcomers away. It's dispiriting.


Or perhaps by stating I don't personally care for music from Mozart's time period, I'm making people aware there's more to explore. That in fact classical music spans many centuries from which to choose. If you don't like one stylistic period, try another.


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

progmatist said:


> Or perhaps by stating I don't personally care for music from Mozart's time period, I'm making people aware there's more to explore. That in fact classical music spans many centuries from which to choose. If you don't like one stylistic period, try another.


Again, though, that's not what you said. Whatever revisionist version of this you want to portray is up to you...but we all read what you initially wrote, and that is what I was responding to. 

If you offered him an alternative, you did not say so, nor even imply that you did.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Time to move on? I was rather hoping that this thread could be a place to put things that strike people about music - have a small conversation about it - and then someone introduces another topic.

My naïve idea (and naïveté is a trait of mine) was that we could start to know each other better as a result. 

One thing that did strike me, watching the service for our late Queen in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, is how beautiful the choir sounded when they sang part of the service with responses. I was surprised to see that they were all adult men and women, some of them grey-haired.

If it had been the radio, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish the women's voices from boys, but then, I'm not a trained listener.

Do you think there is a big difference, and is there a place for all-boys' choirs on musical grounds?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

We've just been watching the procession with the Queen's coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, for her lying in state. As the coffin was carried into Westminster Hall, there was the most glorious choral singing & I said to Taggart, 'It may be an Anglican setting, but it sounds just like Russian Orthodox harmonies.' Later, the BBC commentary said that it was Psalm 139 (I think) and that the arranger had modelled his setting on the Orthodox Office for the Dead. It was nice to be right (for a change) but it does strike me that Orthodox sacred music has a numinous quality like no other.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> One thing that did strike me, watching the service for our late Queen in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, is how beautiful the choir sounded when they sang part of the service with responses. I was surprised to see that they were all adult men and women, some of them grey-haired.
> 
> If it had been the radio, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish the women's voices from boys, but then, I'm not a trained listener.
> 
> Do you think there is a big difference, and is there a place for all-boys' choirs on musical grounds?


I've been in the choir of an Anglican church for eleven years, but my knowledge of boys' choirs (usually including young men) is only from recordings. Also I don't have any formal voice training. Anyway, a recording by the King's College Cambridge choir of the Fauré Requiem led by David Willcocks is well known, and it amazed me back in the 1970's. Commentators have noted a sound associated with Anglican boys' choirs where the soloists and choristers use a rounded tone with no vibrato. I love this sound; others don't. I've also heard recordings by European boys' choirs where the sound is more penetrating and not as "refined." And there are also recordings by mixed choirs. Different recordings of the Fauré and other much-recorded 19th-century choral works would be good choices for comparing the sounds of different types of choirs. I mention the 19th-century because the issue of Historically Informed Practice is less likely to be a major cause of differences in style and sound.

Boys' cathedral choirs may be associated with choir schools where there are high standards of music education overall, and enough rehearsal time. So they may sound better than adult choirs. Also, their training is an excellent background for advanced music study and music profession positions, whether in pop, classical, church, etc. Nevertheless I heard a few years ago that the choir school of Westminster Cathedral in London is moving towards being a top regular religious school.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> We've just been watching the procession with the Queen's coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, for her lying in state. As the coffin was carried into Westminster Hall, there was the most glorious choral singing & I said to Taggart, 'It may be an Anglican setting, but it sounds just like Russian Orthodox harmonies.' Later, the BBC commentary said that it was Psalm 139 (I think) and that the arranger had modelled his setting on the Orthodox Office for the Dead. It was nice to be right (for a change) but it does strike me that Orthodox sacred music has a numinous quality like no other.


It may be that the choir had low-voiced Russian-type basses whose rich tones affected the overall sound. Certainly that could strike me as other-worldly! And yes, the harmonies used by the arranger might differ in their modes (scales), chords, or chord progressions. I don't know much about Russian Orthodox sacred music, but do know that in the 19th century Orthodox music and Russian folk music were the two sources that made Russian classical music sound different than Western classical music. The excellent results then affected classical music everywhere.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I have a Mass of St John Chrysostom with that rich bass tone, but I think in the case of Psalm 139 sung at Westminster Hall it was more the sublime texture, the mass of different harmonies sung all together, that reminded me of Orthodox church music. It's a divine richness.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> I have a Mass of St John Chrysostom with that rich bass tone, but I think in the case of Psalm 139 sung at Westminster Hall it was more the rich texture, the mass of different harmonies sung all together, that reminded me of Orthodox church music. It's a divine richness.


I've watched it on YouTube and the setting of Psalm 139 sounds to me like standard harmonized Anglican chant. It's found commonly when the text is in couplets suitable for responsive singing. The harmony is in 4 parts (possibly with some doubling on this occasion) and the rhythm is flexible according the accents of the text; there's no time signature. It may well be that the Orthodox Church uses this kind of flexible-rhythm setting too. Certainly it's appropriate for solemn occasions, and loved by traditionalists. We've done it quite a bit in my choir. It takes practice; the challenge is to keep a sense of flow and go lightly on the accented notes, while still staying together! When it's done well it can be very moving, even if the text is quite long. I'm glad you like it and will mention it the next time we're into yet another round of "what kind of music do we do?"


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> I've watched it on YouTube and the setting of Psalm 139 sounds to me like standard harmonized Anglican chant. It's found commonly when the text is in couplets suitable for responsive singing. The harmony is in 4 parts (possibly with some doubling on this occasion) and the rhythm is flexible according the accents of the text; there's no time signature. It may well be that the Orthodox Church uses this kind of flexible-rhythm setting too. Certainly it's appropriate for solemn occasions, and loved by traditionalists. We've done it quite a bit in my choir. It takes practice; the challenge is to keep a sense of flow and go lightly on the accented notes, while still staying together! When it's done well it can be very moving, even if the text is quite long. I'm glad you like it and will mention it the next time we're into yet another round of "what kind of music do we do?"


All I can say is that I grew up going to Anglican services, and to me the psalm sounded richer in texture and more mystical in feeling, so I was pleased when the BBC presenter said immediately afterwards that the arranger of the psalm had used as inspiration the Orthodox office for the dead.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

prlj said:


> Quite the opposite - I'm one who actually wants to bring new people into this world, but my years of professional experience in CM only reveal that while music directors, musicians, staff, trustees, and donors all want to build audiences, it's the elitist attitude of the current audience that continues to drive newcomers away. It's dispiriting.


I don't think this attitude drives people away. It does not drive me away. It does not bother me at all. I see it as a weakness in their own being. I truly do.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

A small though on classical music as the thread requests, I find that well designed album art or attractive women as album art makes me more apt to listen to a release. 

Anyone else notice this about themselves?

How album art in any manifestation seems to influence them?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

eljr said:


> A small though on classical music as the thread requests, I find that well designed album art or attractive women as album art makes me more apt to listen to a release.
> 
> Anyone else notice this about themselves?
> 
> How album art in any manifestation seems to influence them?


I think it does - not attractive women in my case, but blended colours, good art-work and so on. There are fashions in classical music - the composers, the types of music listened to, the ideas about how to perform, and art work is part of that. 
Some people will be able to screen those considerations out, though, I suppose.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> Some people will be able to screen those considerations out, though, I suppose.


In fact, none of us can "screen those considerations out'" although most of us think we can or worse yet, believe we do.


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## 4chamberedklavier (12 mo ago)

eljr said:


> I don't think this attitude drives people away. It does not drive me away. It does not bother me at all. I see it as a weakness in their own being. I truly do.


It should be a two-way street. Audiences shouldn't miss out on great music because of elitists, but that doesn't mean people in the classical scene are now free to be as elitist as they want.


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## Otis B. Driftwood (4 mo ago)

eljr said:


> A small though on classical music as the thread requests, I find that well designed album art or attractive women as album art makes me more apt to listen to a release.
> 
> Anyone else notice this about themselves?
> 
> How album art in any manifestation seems to influence them?


Yes. Although it doesn't really influence my decisions, album art is something I greatly appreciate when it's done right. I think Hyperion is one of the best labels in this regard, most of their covers feature nice paintings.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> I think the worst thing about what Roger Scruton says is that it implies a sort of us-them situation with the people of distinction (like him) being trapped and misunderstood by ignorant boors - I'm exaggerating but he does seem to have a bit of a superiority complex.


I'm coming late to this - the conversation has moved on - but I want to defend Roger Scruton's remarks about the ubiquity of "muzak" and its equivalents. I see no "worst thing" in what Scruton is saying. I think that what he says is correct, that it should be said, and that he says it well.

People of distinction have always been "trapped and misunderstood by ignorant boors," and have had to devote time and effort - little or much, but always too much - to learning to live with as much of it as they can't remedy. Sometimes they speak up. Does this indicate a superiority complex? Should we just cede the world and keep quiet, especially now, when boorishness, in the form of trite and unwanted music, is blasted at us wherever we go and is no longer something we can easily walk away from? I find "public music" (not of the busker kind) a superb motivator in keeping me out of stores and eateries, and I've complained to store managers and walked out of restaurants without ordering rather than have to yell over someone's idea of background (or foreground) music.

But the noise invades our homes as well. Perhaps the worst thing about TV advertising is the designer music that accompanies most of it from start to finish in an effort to make its deceptive messages more persuasive to the suggestible and the gullible. The commercial world seems to believe that none of its enterprises can succeed on the basis of intrinsic merit, and that everything has to be "sold" by means of the nervous stimulus provided by music designed to appeal to a cognitively deficient - or cognitively corruptible - audience.

The attachment of bad music to virtually every human value and endeavor is nothing but a tool to acquire and hold power. Call it "stupefy and conquer."


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I see no "worst thing" in what Scruton is saying. I think that what he says is correct, that it should be said, and that he says it well.


Thanks for your post. I just started to imagine a retreat in a pastoral setting where a discussion group of knowledgeable people present prepared opinions on what they really think of selected musical compositions and recordings. They could say anything they like about the characteristics and artistic value of each work, but would have to avoid all personal attacks, gossip, disruptions, dominance tactics, self-serving, etc. After the initial round they would have discussions among the group and arrive at a report that notes both convergences and divergences of opinion. To me this would be paradise! -- it has never happened in my experience.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Roger Knox said:


> Thanks for your post. I just started to imagine a retreat in a pastoral setting where a discussion group of knowledgeable people present prepared opinions on what they really think of selected musical compositions and recordings. They could say anything they like about the characteristics and artistic value of each work, but would have to avoid all personal attacks, gossip, disruptions, dominance tactics, self-serving, etc. After the initial round they would have discussions among the group and arrive at a report that notes both convergences and divergences of opinion. To me this would be paradise! -- it has never happened in my experience.


What an Elysian vision, perhaps rarely achieved in this world. But I must say that in recent months it has been very close to reality right here on our opera subforum, which is why I'm no longer seen very often elsewhere on TC. The present level of civility and pleasantness among lovers of so subjective a thing as human voices probably won't last forever - one never knows who will turn up with an axe to grind and a compulsion to lop off some heads - but for now those with a special interest in opera and singing can count on interesting discussion, respect for diversity of opinion, and good spirits. And thanks to your suggestion, I will boot up tomorrow morning imagining myself reclining on a flowery knoll in a sun-dappled grotto, surrounded by smiling fellow operaphiles dressed as nymphs and satyrs.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> ... Sometimes they speak up. Does this indicate a superiority complex? Should we just cede the world and keep quiet, especially now, when boorishness, in the form of trite and unwanted music, is blasted at us wherever we go and is no longer something we can easily walk away from?


Of course not! As I said, I agree with Scruton's point & have often (though not always) felt trapped by ambient music.
But in my view a more measured response is more effective, and treating someone who disagrees with you with courtesy rather than as an 'ignorant boor' is more likely to persuade others, and who knows, get something done about a public nuisance.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

eljr said:


> In fact, none of us can "screen those considerations out'" although most of us think we can or worse yet, believe we do.


I agree with you. Even if I am increasingly at odds with the zeitgeist, I can't help but be a woman of my time. 

But some will be less influenced than others by artwork on albums. 

That's what I should have said - I was in a cleft stick. On the one hand, I'm conscious that I am not a very skilled or knowledgeable listener, so wanted to defer to those who are and who might not be swayed (so much) by the artwork. 

But on the other hand, I didn't want to suggest that you, who made the point about being influenced, were not a skilled or knowledgeable listener. 

Colours and artwork have a great effect on me whatever I'm doing. For example, I just love the border above Quordle's puzzle, the dusky blue contrasted with garish green and yellow check.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> ...a more measured response is more effective, and treating someone who disagrees with you with courtesy rather than as an 'ignorant boor' is more likely to persuade others, and who knows, get something done about a public nuisance.


Measured responses are usually better than unmeasured ones, inarguably. But I'm sure neither kind will make the specified nuisance go away. I plan to continue grumbling harmlessly when I emerge from a store with a maddening earworm, and not worry about measuring it.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It could also be added that to be annoyed by "muzak" or not only background but fairly loud music in "public" spaces one does not have to be an avowed conservative or distinguished aesthete like the late Roger Scruton. Lots of people from all kinds of persuasions have hated it for decades but it seems to have become worse, if anything.


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## Ulalume!Ulalume! (6 mo ago)

Last week I took a walk through the cemetery and it always amuses me how the nicest part of town is reserved for the dead. Leaving it is a jarring experience similar to the feeling of leaving a darkened movie theatre in the afternoon and being confronted by brutal daylight. Oh the horror the horror! The noise, the fumes, the people! And oh the vulgarity, the cheapness, the crassness of the quotidian! A few days later the Queen died and people appeared to be genuinely shocked that an elderly lady in her late 90s had passed away, I thought immediately of the terror people felt at the beginning of COVID, it was as if the government had introduced the public to the concept of mortality and this was their first time hearing about it. And then I thought again of that lovely graveyard! I thought about how noble and dignified and beautiful the older stones were, mossy celtic crosses, explicitly Christian imagery with inscriptions quoting scripture on the topic of mortality and the promise and threat (!) of the afterlife. Heaven or hell! The stones from the early 20th century were plainer, still dignified but devoid of anything religious or grandiose, simply Rest in Peace! God had died it seemed with the First World War and I believe he'd be turning over in his grave if he saw some of the more recent inscriptions... pop lyrics! The general message was "this person had fun in life and we had fun with them." A great weight has been lifted off our shoulders but as a consequence we lost something that the gravity of religious life imbued us with in life and the prospect it offered us in the now-cancelled afterlife, the wisdom that all things must pass, that all material existence is transitory compared with what lies beyond it. This gravity lead to the creation of great, still-unsurpassed works of art, art that consciously dealt with these subjects. Now as was mentioned at the start of the thread, when a monarch dies we struggle to find contemporary music to fit the occasion, we have to return to those wise and dignified "oldies." It's not uncommon for people to look back on our past and sneer at our perceived barbarity or intellectual simplicity "ohhh can you believe they thought such-and-such," yet our ancestors were far more mature than we are when it came to important facts like the inevitability of death, they faced and acknowledged it every day whereas we conceal it from ourselves and cling to frivolity and delusions of permanence... I often hear married couples talk about buying their "forever home" and I can't help but feel there's great hubris in that! Anyway yeah yeah yeah what was I talking about, the lack of true gravity in most contemporary music and the fear of speaking of mortality... why isn't it due to the great all-encompassing void we've decided lies always under our feet ready to swallow us at any second?... who'd want to consider that! Quick turn on the radio and forget about it! Only with the solace and dignity of an afterlife can we dare speak of it and sing about it, and these qualities still embue modern songs that deal with the subject with a gravity otherwise lacking in our culture, a gravity I feel in Peter Bellamy's voice here as he sings Death is Not the End.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Measured responses are usually better than unmeasured ones, inarguably. But I'm sure neither kind will make the specified nuisance go away. I plan to continue grumbling harmlessly when I emerge from a store with a maddening earworm, and not worry about measuring it.


A reply to Ingélou and Woodduck: Thank you for your inspiring and heartwarming messages, both for what you say and how you say it. Part of living in difficult times is the opportunity to experience people, places, and yes, artworks that open up a vista of a better life -- and to appreciate them more. TalkClassical is one of those places.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Ulalume!Ulalume! said:


> Last week I took a walk through the cemetery and it always amuses me how the nicest part of town is reserved for the dead. Leaving it is a jarring experience similar to the feeling of leaving a darkened movie theatre in the afternoon and being confronted by brutal daylight. Oh the horror the horror! The noise, the fumes, the people! And oh the vulgarity, the cheapness, the crassness of the quotidian! A few days later the Queen died and people appeared to be genuinely shocked that an elderly lady in her late 90s had passed away, I thought immediately of the terror people felt at the beginning of COVID, it was as if the government had introduced the public to the concept of mortality and this was their first time hearing about it. And then I thought again of that lovely graveyard! I thought about how noble and dignified and beautiful the older stones were, mossy celtic crosses, explicitly Christian imagery with inscriptions quoting scripture on the topic of mortality and the promise and threat (!) of the afterlife. Heaven or hell! The stones from the early 20th century were plainer, still dignified but devoid of anything religious or grandiose, simply Rest in Peace! God had died it seemed with the First World War and I believe he'd be turning over in his grave if he saw some of the more recent inscriptions... pop lyrics! The general message was "this person had fun in life and we had fun with them." A great weight has been lifted off our shoulders but as a consequence we lost something that the gravity of religious life imbued us with in life and the prospect it offered us in the now-cancelled afterlife, the wisdom that all things must pass, that all material existence is transitory compared with what lies beyond it. This gravity lead to the creation of great, still-unsurpassed works of art, art that consciously dealt with these subjects. Now as was mentioned at the start of the thread, when a monarch dies we struggle to find contemporary music to fit the occasion, we have to return to those wise and dignified "oldies." It's not uncommon for people to look back on our past and sneer at our perceived barbarity or intellectual simplicity "ohhh can you believe they thought such-and-such," yet our ancestors were far more mature than we are when it came to important facts like the inevitability of death, they faced and acknowledged it every day whereas we conceal it from ourselves and cling to frivolity and delusions of permanence... I often hear married couples talk about buying their "forever home" and I can't help but feel there's great hubris in that! Anyway yeah yeah yeah what was I talking about, the lack of true gravity in most contemporary music and the fear of speaking of mortality... why isn't it due to the great all-encompassing void we've decided lies always under our feet ready to swallow us at any second?... who'd want to consider that! Quick turn on the radio and forget about it! Only with the solace and dignity of an afterlife can we dare speak of it and sing about it, and these qualities still embue modern songs that deal with the subject with a gravity otherwise lacking in our culture, a gravity I feel in Peter Bellamy's voice here as he sings Death is Not the End.



Wonderful post.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Otis B. Driftwood said:


> Although it doesn't really influence my decisions


😊
Yes, I knew many would feel as such. 

I find it fascinating how different science shows us to be from what our self beliefs are.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

4chamberedklavier said:


> It should be a two-way street. Audiences shouldn't miss out on great music because of elitists, but that doesn't mean people in the classical scene are now free to be as elitist as they want.


If they feel good to parade as elite, let them be happy!
If people miss out as a result, that is their loss. Sad but that is on them.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> It could also be added that to be annoyed by "muzak" or not only background but fairly loud music in "public" spaces one does not have to be an avowed conservative or distinguished aesthete like the late Roger Scruton. Lots of people from all kinds of persuasions have hated it for decades but it seems to have become worse, if anything.


as someone else said, the first person I thought of with a similar statement on background and recorded music when I read that Scruton quote was John Cage, whose ethos was entirely foreign to someone like Scruton's.


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## Montarsolo (5 mo ago)

Ulalume!Ulalume! said:


> Last week I took a walk through the cemetery and it always amuses me how the nicest part of town is reserved for the dead. Leaving it is a jarring experience similar to the feeling of leaving a darkened movie theatre in the afternoon and being confronted by brutal daylight. Oh the horror the horror! The noise, the fumes, the people! And oh the vulgarity, the cheapness, the crassness of the quotidian! A few days later the Queen died and people appeared to be genuinely shocked that an elderly lady in her late 90s had passed away, I thought immediately of the terror people felt at the beginning of COVID, it was as if the government had introduced the public to the concept of mortality and this was their first time hearing about it. And then I thought again of that lovely graveyard! I thought about how noble and dignified and beautiful the older stones were, mossy celtic crosses, explicitly Christian imagery with inscriptions quoting scripture on the topic of mortality and the promise and threat (!) of the afterlife. Heaven or hell! The stones from the early 20th century were plainer, still dignified but devoid of anything religious or grandiose, simply Rest in Peace! God had died it seemed with the First World War and I believe he'd be turning over in his grave if he saw some of the more recent inscriptions... pop lyrics! The general message was "this person had fun in life and we had fun with them." A great weight has been lifted off our shoulders but as a consequence we lost something that the gravity of religious life imbued us with in life and the prospect it offered us in the now-cancelled afterlife, the wisdom that all things must pass, that all material existence is transitory compared with what lies beyond it. This gravity lead to the creation of great, still-unsurpassed works of art, art that consciously dealt with these subjects. Now as was mentioned at the start of the thread, when a monarch dies we struggle to find contemporary music to fit the occasion, we have to return to those wise and dignified "oldies." It's not uncommon for people to look back on our past and sneer at our perceived barbarity or intellectual simplicity "ohhh can you believe they thought such-and-such," yet our ancestors were far more mature than we are when it came to important facts like the inevitability of death, they faced and acknowledged it every day whereas we conceal it from ourselves and cling to frivolity and delusions of permanence... I often hear married couples talk about buying their "forever home" and I can't help but feel there's great hubris in that! Anyway yeah yeah yeah what was I talking about, the lack of true gravity in most contemporary music and the fear of speaking of mortality... why isn't it due to the great all-encompassing void we've decided lies always under our feet ready to swallow us at any second?... who'd want to consider that! Quick turn on the radio and forget about it! Only with the solace and dignity of an afterlife can we dare speak of it and sing about it, and these qualities still embue modern songs that deal with the subject with a gravity otherwise lacking in our culture, a gravity I feel in Peter Bellamy's voice here as he sings Death is Not the End.


It's a wonderful post indeed. As Kierkegaard said:

"Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Montarsolo said:


> It's a wonderful post indeed. As Kierkegaard said:
> 
> "Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment."


It's more than a little disturbing to imagine something that begins and ends thus having been _intended_ at all.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

fbjim said:


> as someone else said, the first person I thought of with a similar statement on background and recorded music when I read that Scruton quote was John Cage, whose ethos was entirely foreign to someone like Scruton's.


I read somewhere that Cage's original idea for 4'33" was when he had been confronted with Muzak in an office building. He thought to himself how nice it would be to have about 4 minutes (the average duration of a Muzak selection) of silence instead.


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## prlj (10 mo ago)

When Princess Diana died, which was truly a more shocking and untimely death, we only looked back as far as 1973 for solace, making "Candle in the Wind" an anthem of her passing. 

Pop music can have a place, too, as shown here.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Montarsolo said:


> It's a wonderful post indeed. As Kierkegaard said:
> 
> "Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment."


life is a funny thing. While reading this post, I heard splashing in the small lake in front of my door. I went out and a small rabbit was swimming trying to make the far bank. I've never seen rabbits swim, but this was an act of desperation. A fox was retreating through the weeds and into the trees where the little bunny came from. I must have scared him off

But things were far from over as the bunny was getting repeatedly attacked by something in the water. A large fish had taken notice. The rabbit went frantic and got itself clear. It made the far bank and I saw the dark outline of a big bass slide back out to the deep water.

so I imagine making the far bank was as close to "enjoyment" as that little rabbit got today


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

prlj said:


> Again, though, that's not what you said. Whatever revisionist version of this you want to portray is up to you...but we all read what you initially wrote, and that is what I was responding to.


I say many things on this forum regarding classical music I would never say to members of the general public. If I said to a random stranger I don't like classical era music because it's mechanical and formulaic, at best I would receive a puzzled look.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

progmatist said:


> I say many things on this forum regarding classical music I would never say to members of the general public. If I said to a random stranger I don't like classical era music because it's mechanical and formulaic, at best I would receive a puzzled look.


One thing we can be sure of on a classical music forum is that people will want to talk about music. But in most cases I'm still dealing with strangers, and sometimes I can't be sure that I'm not dealing with 'twin' strangers.

I wonder how many of us have talked to a real-life stranger about classical music? Possibly in the queue to a classical concert, or if some Mozart was coming over the tannoy?

No - I don't think I've ever spoken to a stranger about music of any sort.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Just a passing thought. We read of classical music being an elite taste. Do you personally know any keen classical music fans who are not educated to college level, or who are 'rough diamonds', working class or whatever. Is that more likely in one country more than another?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> Just a passing thought. We read of classical music being an elite taste. Do you personally know any keen classical music fans who are not educated to college level, or who are 'rough diamonds', working class or whatever. Is that more likely in one country more than another?


Aside from young people (such as myself) who were attracted to classical music, I've never been aware of meeting a devoted or knowledgeable classical music lover who wasn't college educated. I'm sure it's an extreme rarity in this country nowadays, and it seems likely to become rarer with the passage of time. I'm prepared, though, to believe it was commoner in earlier times when people didn't have constant access to popular media and were more likely to take music lessons and play the piano. Our piano bench was full of music of all sorts, including classical, and I assume it was enjoyed on some level. Now it's unusual to find a piano in a home.


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## Otis B. Driftwood (4 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> I'm prepared, though, to believe it was commoner in earlier times when people didn't have constant access to popular media and were more likely to take music lessons and play the piano. Our piano bench was full of music of all sorts, including classical, and I assume it was enjoyed on some level. Now it's unusual to find a piano in a home.


I think you hit the nail on the head there. Ironic that today instruments are more affordable than ever, and learning materials are freely available, yet fewer people seem interested in learning to play.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> Just a passing thought. We read of classical music being an elite taste. *Do you personally know any keen classical music fans who are not educated to college level, or who are 'rough diamonds', working class or whatever. Is that more likely in one country more than another?*


Me actually although not so much the "rough diamond", more the silver wrapping you'll find in a pack of ciggies. Born and bred in a rough area of Liverpool and with no family members interested in CM. I was into CM before I went to college and spent most of my time between practising, studying, bunking off school and trying to stay out of trouble. Mind you I was the only one at that time who crossed over from pop music out of my group of friends and lovable scallywags.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Ingélou said:


> Just a passing thought. We read of classical music being an elite taste. Do you personally know any keen classical music fans who are not educated to college level, or who are 'rough diamonds', working class or whatever. Is that more likely in one country more than another?


This will differ wildly from country to country; I am pretty sure there are/were far more lower/lower middle class classical music fans in Italy, Austria or Poland than in the US. In many European countries it is (or used to be) very normal, certainly thoroughly lower/"middle" middle class, not only (upper) middle class 
to love classical music (although obviously it used to be more obligatory for the latter).

In most countries the rate of people with "college education" (or similar) quadrupled (or so) between my parent's generation (born in the 1940s) and today's students. During the same time, pop music/culture rose from being a teenage subculture to THE main/only culture of almost everybody. So it's difficult to compare. 

I am not sure I know any classical fans of my generation (born in the early 1970s) or younger w/o college (or similar backgrounds, including university dropouts with odd careers) but I know/knew some of older generations although they usually were not "working class" but more typically lower level "white collar" e.g. office/retail jobs or civil servants.

Such local differences are probably why I am so puzzled at the eternal charges of "elitism" in anglophone fora. They seem implausible to me because classical music has NEVER been more accessible than it was today, that it smells like crude anti-intellectualism or reverse snobbery to me. For me the most probable cause that the cheap and easy access to CM (including all kinds of education, pandering, popularizing, painfully avoiding appearing elitist etc.) has not helped (to the contrary) is the ubiquity of pop music/culture. People are steeped in popular music and its patterns before they ever encounter classical. There is probably also more peer pressure than ever before. 

Additionally and again in complete opposition to the elitism charge, we have had 50-60 years of intentional and accidental devaluation of high culture; first by 1960s counterculture, now by similar movements (get rid of the cultural heritage of evil old white men or at least strike down their pallid plaster busts from the pianos etc.), so there is little to be gained in social standing by appreciating CM outside very special niches and there is little to be lost by being an uncultured boor because everyone is, including presidents and chancellors. There is probably more danger in appearing an artsy-fartsy elitist than a down to earth guy/gal who likes what everyone likes. 
So in my view the problem does not seem "elitism" but that "elites" (the rich, powerful, but maybe more importantly the sub-elite ca. top 10%) have mostly abandoned high culture, incl. CM as status marker, so the "strivers" from the lower strata have no societal incentive to bother with CM.
But I admit that these could really be local difference and what others here are claiming about US or UK is not wrong, although to me the opposite seems true in Germany/continental Europe.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> Just a passing thought. We read of classical music being an elite taste. Do you personally know any keen classical music fans who are not educated to college level, or who are 'rough diamonds', working class or whatever. Is that more likely in one country more than another?


I am one of the non college/university educated people of whom you speak Ingelou.
Coming from a mining community where my antecedents were coal miners I had little exposure to classical music excepting via a English teacher at school who had an interest in music of all kinds who connected ELP and Mussorgsky for me and off I went, slowly at first but here I am.
My grandmother did play piano and organ for the local church in a village in County Durham but was largely self taught and my parents loved musicals so somewhere there was a seed that developed.
However I do worry that there is still an inherent snobbery bubbling under the surface in many sections of the CM world.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

As I came to classical music later in life, I don't really have a lot of acquaintances who are 'into' it. My school-friends do include some fans, but they are university educated.

My brother-in-law is one of the few that I know who loves classical music but is not a college graduate or from a middle class background. His father and mother were working class people from Leeds, but he did go to grammar school, leaving after O-levels to work for British Rail - he's had a lifelong passion for trains. He ended with a good position but doesn't come from an elite background. Education was the key, but his father was a keen reader of Charles Dickens novels, so I think the point made above about older generations having more incentive to embrace 'high culture' is a very valid one. There are probably fewer readers of 'the classics' of English literature today too, even though there's more access to books.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

One utterly banal reason is that there were far fewer entertainment options even until recently. 
Sure, popular music via radio or recordings has been around even in the lower classes since the 1950s (even that's not very long ago) but TV came later and was so limited until the late 1980s or so when cable/satellite appeared. As a kid in the 1980s I was reading all the time and all kinds of stuff and I re-read some things several times because there was not enough, even in a small local library (of course also because I loved some books so much). No video games, not a lot on TV (and rather strict limitations from parents who were lower middle class), so it was basically reading (incl. nonfiction), board games, outdoor playing or sports.

Only three TV channels also meant that there was actually "light classical music" or even opera on a main TV channel. I mentioned this some time ago in the opera forum, Anneliese Rothenberger had her own show on German TV for a while although this was before I was interested in classical music. But I remember Hermann Prey singing "Abschied" (first song of Winterreise) as guest in a saturday night game show in the late 1980s! It seems like another millennium. 
As square and pretentious a lot of this might appear (and it did appear to me thus as a teenager who had come to appreciate "real classical music"), this "middlebrow" entertainment at least contained traces of high culture and the general stance was appreciative, not hostile. I think most of this has been lost (maybe there is a similarity with the economic development shrinking the middle class).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Changes in society and economy over the past 50 or so years notwithstanding, I think that Pierre Bourdieu's concepts like cultural capital, milieu and habitus are still relevant to how cultural power is passed on from generation to generation. I think its a matter of degree, but those who regularly consume highbrow culture are more likely to be older, wealthier and more educated than the rest of the population.

Regarding snobbery, the classical music industry has been trying to downplay it for some time, basically because its a huge turn off for most people. Snobbism (or sans nobilite) emerged during the 19th century, when the rising bourgeoisie copied the declining aristocracy. Its hard to take too seriously, and not just in relation to music (e.g. there are coffee, wine, travel snobs, etc.). Online, it most often tends to be manifested in misanthropic behaviour. Most of us who've been around here long enough have either given or received the snob card, or both (whether directly or indirectly).


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

I dont know ANYone who is into Classical music. Probably why im here LOL!


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