music

Clearly, those of us in the business of presenting classical music cannot take any listeners for granted, and in fact should welcome any kind of listening. And I don’t say that because it is economically good for us (though I’ll admit that it is). I say it because any approach to listening means that the listener is at some level appreciative of the music, and most of us are in this business because we are proselytizers. We believe in this music. We believe in its transformative power, its ability to fundamentally reach human beings on a level way beyond words. And therefore any listener, however he or she approaches the music, is something we cherish.

However, it is also our job to make clear that there is much more to this music than lush, rich sounds. And yet much of our industry has encouraged the “just let it wash over us” approach–almost presenting it or talking about it as high-quality background music. Classical music radio in much of the United States is perhaps the prime casualty of this kind of thinking…

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Henry Fogel
On the Record

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