I was browsing in Coliseum Books, a very fine and serious bookstore in New York, and I noticed that they sell a few CDs. Some were fascinating compilations from the All-Music Guide (African rap, for instance), and some were low-rent, like a two-CD collection of Sousa marches with nothing on the box to say who played them.
But the worst, the nadir, the rock bottom was something called Classical Music for the Reader, which claims to feature “specially selected triumphs in classical music appealing specifically to the dedicated reader.”
And so what does the music turn out to be? The same stuff you’d find on any classical greatest-hits CD, aimed at easy listening: Handel’s Largo (more respectably known as “Ombra mai fu”), the “Air on the G String,” Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” “Clair de lune,” the Largo from the New World Symphony, the “Meditation” from Thais. There’s nothing literary about this, nothing that’s involved with reading. I’d guess the company that did this simply took some other compilation they’d produced, and repackaged it with a bookstore-friendly title.
It’s really a shame, especially since a classical anthology honestly aimed at serious readers could be a delight. The music on it, I’d think, would have to be quiet, on the whole, to convey what it feels like to read. Some of it could be settings of literary texts (I’d avoid warhorses like the “Erl-King,” wonderful as it is, and go instead for Hugo Wolf and Fauré). Some could be music meant to evoke literary themes. And some, maybe the most interesting category, could be music that simply sounds literary, by which I mean thoughtful, intelligent, and a little offbeat, something like, maybe, an excerpt from Stravinsky’s Apollo.
This also would be a chance for classical music to reach out to an important audience. One of the saddest things in the classical music crisis is the desertion (so to speak) of artists and intellectuals, along with educated, thoughtful people of all kinds. You just don’t find scholars, scientists, painters, and choreographers in the classical concert hall. A few, sure — but these are classical music fans, who tend (at least in my experience) to enjoy classical music just as uncritically as lawyers and podiatrists. (No disrespect meant to these professions.) Classical music just doesn’t have an audience of artists and intellectuals, who listen artistically and intellectually. A CD aimed seriously at serious readers might be a small step toward fixing this problem.