Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
All-too-easy
listening
The music industry sells classical
as soothing background music —
robbing a great art of its power.
By Jennifer Gersten
NOVEMBER 30, 2018
I
f classical music really sounded
the way it’s described in radio
ads, composers would have
fallen asleep while writing it. “You’ve
found an oasis — a place where you
can get away from all the craziness,”
intones WCLV, a station in Lorain,
Ohio, in a recent promotion. “Take
some time to relax.” “Calming and
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 1/9
04/12/2018 The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power. - The Washington Post
refreshing,” KBAQ, a Phoenix
station, declares. “Rise above it all,”
the District’s own WETA proclaims.
These stations regularly offer more
raucous selections than these
exhortations suggest, but they are
advertising themselves as musical
sanitariums. The San Francisco-
based station KDFC even offers a
daily “island of sanity,” including
slow pieces by Mozart, Debussy and
Bach, in the interest of tempering
rush hour woes.
Across streaming
Outlook • Perspective
services like
Jennifer Gersten, a doctoral student in
violin performance at Stony Brook University, YouTube and
is an editor at Guernica and the winner of Spotify, countless
the 2018 Rubin Prize for Music Criticism.
Follow @jenwgersten videos and
Illustration by Johanna Goodman for The playlists suggest a
Washington Post; Orchestra photos by Getty
Images quest for soporific
supremacy. On
YouTube, user
HALIDONMUSIC’s “8 HOURS
Classical Music for Sleeping” is a
favorite, with 3 million views. The
pieces on this playlist — Debussy’s
“Clair de lune” and Ravel’s “Pavane
pour une infante défunte” among
them — reward attention, but their
presentation implies they have all the
artistic heft of NyQuil. The album
“The Most Relaxing Classical Music
in the Universe” has inspired a legion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 2/9
04/12/2018 The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power. - The Washington Post
of imitators, including “The Ultimate
Most Relaxing Classical Music in the
Universe”; the two at least agree
about the inclusion of Beethoven’s
“Für Elise.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 5/9
04/12/2018 The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power. - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 7/9
04/12/2018 The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power. - The Washington Post
characteristics that might even seem
divine on the occasions that I am deft
enough to play it in tune. The fourth
movement, however, comes from a
vastly different sonic world, zipping
through a number of dynamic shifts
and surprising colors. No easy
characterization of this work suffices,
certainly not any offered by classical
music’s misguided promoters.
We should also be
Related
wary of the idea that
I’m a musician who can’t play
music anymore. I feel like I’m classical music is more
letting my heroes down.
spiritually elevated
I used to love playing violin. But than any other genre
mastering it broke my heart.
(“Rise above it all”), as
though angels had
smooched every score. Listening to
Bach is better for you than listening
to Ariana Grande, this thinking goes,
because Bach’s music is somehow
more intellectual, stimulating and
deserving of contemplation. This
attitude, too, fuels the drive to
oversimplify classical music — so it
seems less daunting. But if the
prevailing impression of classical is
that it is hard to comprehend, then
people are going to interact with it at
a remove. Too much energy is wasted
on futile attempts to convince people
that classical music is uniquely worth
our time, and not enough is spent on
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 8/9
04/12/2018 The music industry sells classical as soothing background music — robbing a great art of its power. - The Washington Post
encouraging people to come to the
music with few preconceptions and
feel it on their own terms: as
arousing, repulsive, lulling,
everything in between.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/30/feature/classical-music-is-sold-as-soothing-background-music-thats-a-probl… 9/9