Where Music Is Just Music – Isn’t It?

Alex Ross ponders the attractions and liabilities of encounters with classical music. “The strange thing about the music in America today is that large numbers of people seem aware of it, curious about it, even mildly knowledgeable about it, but they do not go to concerts. The people who try to market orchestras have a name for these annoying phantoms: they are ‘culturally aware non-attenders,’ to quote a recent article in the magazine Symphony. I know the type; most of my friends are case studies.”