On Namedropping

In his autobiography, Bad Boy of Music, George Antheil recalls Igor Stravinsky once quipping to him that “The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.” (It’s on page 39 of the scanned copy on the Internet Archive, for the curious.) It’s a sentiment that resonates deeply with me. The classical music world is full of people who want to put this art on a pedestal, to demand awe and reverence for these strange, fleeting noises. For my money, that robs this art of something vital, rendering it distant and unapproachable instead of letting it be something right here in front of you can engage with on your own terms.

Part of the project of this newsletter — indeed, part of the project of my entire artistic life — is to bring classical music down off those pedestals, to demystify it and share it in a way that invites curious listeners in to develop their own relationships with these sounds without imposing any kind of stuffy reverence. Today I’d like to take a step back and turn that demystifying stance on the art of writing about music itself.