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