Get the best out of your iPod


The World of Classical Music versus the World of the iPod

Have you ever had the feeling that the worldforeignness of it all, you pop on a CD with
Beethoven was 'talking' about in his musichis  music  playing?
just doesn't exist anymore? Have you ever
watched a movie that used Schubert as aClassical music fits badly into the Walkman
soundtrack and entertained the thought thatworld, and even worse into the iPod world.
Schubert didn't even know what a soundtrackFor one thing, the technology doesn't suit it
is? If you have, you will be able to relatevery well. Try listening to an opera on an
to the tension and incongruity betweeniPod, and you'll discover the software puts a
modernity and classical music that columnistgap between tracks, which is pretty annoying
Ivan Hewett describes in a recent article forif you're trying to enjoy the dramatic flow
the  Telegraph.of an opera scene. And just try searching for
your favourite Beethoven trio on iTunes,
Nor can it [classical music] be plucked fromwhich is designed to search for "song" and
cyberspace, because it doesn't come from"artist", and copes badly with keys and opus
there. It comes from a real space. OK, I knownumbers.
my recording of a Bach cantata was made in a
studio, but the fact that we can hear 30Perhaps that is why classical music is so
people all doing something togetherattractive; it opens a portal into the
immediately evokes the real, social space theidealized version of a world that is no
music  originally  took  place  in.longer to be found. When we listen to it, we
have the best of both worlds - a temporary
But that's not the space we live in now. Weescape into the beauty of the music, and a
prefer the solitary, nomadic space of trainsguaranteed return to the private mobility of
and airport lounges, which seem to be theour modern world, with all its challenges and
places we feel most at home. And we like theperks.
space of privacy and home, the one conjured
in  all  those  home  makeover  programmes.Classical music doesn't belong in this
private, mobile space. It was created in a
Have you ever daydreamed about driving Mozartspace that's vanishing - the public space of
around in a car, showing him the cities, thechurches, libraries, debating societies and
bridges, airplanes, skyscrapers etc., andconcerts. That's the real reason it's so hard
just when his mind was swimming with theto listen to it on a Walkman or an iPod.



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