| Have you ever had the feeling that the world | | | | foreignness of it all, you pop on a CD with |
| Beethoven was 'talking' about in his music | | | | his music playing? |
| just doesn't exist anymore? Have you ever | | | | |
| watched a movie that used Schubert as a | | | | Classical music fits badly into the Walkman |
| soundtrack and entertained the thought that | | | | world, and even worse into the iPod world. |
| Schubert didn't even know what a soundtrack | | | | For one thing, the technology doesn't suit it |
| is? If you have, you will be able to relate | | | | very well. Try listening to an opera on an |
| to the tension and incongruity between | | | | iPod, and you'll discover the software puts a |
| modernity and classical music that columnist | | | | gap between tracks, which is pretty annoying |
| Ivan Hewett describes in a recent article for | | | | if 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 from | | | | which 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 know | | | | numbers. |
| my recording of a Bach cantata was made in a | | | | |
| studio, but the fact that we can hear 30 | | | | Perhaps that is why classical music is so |
| people all doing something together | | | | attractive; it opens a portal into the |
| immediately evokes the real, social space the | | | | idealized 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. We | | | | escape into the beauty of the music, and a |
| prefer the solitary, nomadic space of trains | | | | guaranteed return to the private mobility of |
| and airport lounges, which seem to be the | | | | our modern world, with all its challenges and |
| places we feel most at home. And we like the | | | | perks. |
| 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 Mozart | | | | space that's vanishing - the public space of |
| around in a car, showing him the cities, the | | | | churches, libraries, debating societies and |
| bridges, airplanes, skyscrapers etc., and | | | | concerts. That's the real reason it's so hard |
| just when his mind was swimming with the | | | | to listen to it on a Walkman or an iPod. |