Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value

Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value

Praised in The Economist as "heartfelt and finely reasoned...wise, perceptive and inspiring," Who Needs Classical Music? offers a fresh and balanced defense of the value of classical music in contemporary culture. Challenging the many cultural critics who contend that the division between "high" and "low" art is an artificial one, that Beethoven's Ninth and "Blue Suede Shoes" are equally valuable, Julian Johnson counters that music is more than just "a matter of taste." Music can provide entertainment or simply serve as background noise. Classical music, he suggests, is shaped by its claim to function as art. It is distinguished by a self-conscious attention to its own materials and their formal patterning. Far from being irrelevant today, Johnson argues, classical music continues to offer rich and engaging insights into our experience of modern life. The paperback edition includes a new preface from the author, bringing his argument up to date. Who Needs Classical Music? will stimulate readers to reflect on their own investment (or lack of it) in music and art of all kinds. "You will often cheer out loud! I did...more profound than can be communicated in a book review. I read this twice. Like all my favorite books, I will read it again and again. Nothing is more relevant to classical music devotees."-- American Record Guide "[A] heartfelt and finely reasoned appeal....wise, perceptive and inspiring book."-- The Economist "[A] soberly argued defense of classical tradition as uniquely valuable in its own right, and hence worth sustaining as a cultural option open to all. Who Needs Classical Music? is neither a last-ditch lament nor an aggressive counter-attack....Every page -at times, every sentence-is loaded with implications for further thought deserves the widest attention." -- BBC online "[A] sophisticated yet accessible defense of classical music's value."-- Choice Praised in The Economist as "heartfelt and finely reasoned. . .wise, perceptive and inspiring," Who Needs Classical Music? offers a fresh and balanced defense of the value of classical music in contemporary culture Julian Johnson is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was awarded the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association for "outstanding contributions to musicology."