The Annoyance of Good Music

The Symphony in G minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is truly a very beautiful work. But are you really sure that, because of its undisputed beauty, you would be willing to listen to it at absolutely any moment? I wouldn’t. And I don’t think I am doing Mozart any injustice by saying this so plainly. I would say the same about any other beautiful piece of music by any other composer. In fact, even good and beautiful music can be bothersome; for example, precisely when we like it too much and are therefore not in the right frame of mind to cope with its emotional impact. A classic example is the case described by Marcel Proust: Mme Verdurin was sometimes so overwhelmed by the beauty of music that she developed a ferocious headache — a case of painful enjoyment, so to speak, and therefore something to experience with caution and moderation.

Quite different, instead, was the reaction of the manager of a restaurant where I once complained about the background music. The man was astonished and declared emphatically that it was… “classical music”! According to him, I should have liked it automatically — unless I wanted to be considered uncultured. How could one possibly dislike classical music! From this it would follow that at every moment, in every place, a beautiful musical piece must always be welcome. But that simply isn’t true: quantity can make a difference (“too much of a good thing...!”, as they say in English), and of course context, function, and occasion (external or inner) all matter.

Perhaps we ought to rethink the concept of a “masterpiece” and accept as such not so much the sound object endowed with certain qualitative and historical characteristics, but rather the performance (whether good or even modest) that best succeeds in making a particular moment and occasion in our life more meaningful, pleasant, or moving. Even an imperfect amateur performance of a frivolous piece can have great value (human and social) when it achieves its intended purpose — perhaps that of fostering conviviality and good cheer within a group of people (at the right moment, in the right place). A mood which, at that very same moment, an impeccable performance of Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie (perhaps in Franz Liszt’s arrangement of the Wanderer-Fantasie) might even dampen. Hence the importance of enshrining in the constitution of civilized states the right of every citizen to choose which music to listen to, when to listen to it, or not to listen at all.

After all, no ice-cream lover would want to eat it at just any moment — or, worse still, have it thrown at them, the way music is often poured over us at the entrance of a supermarket. With music, this happens frequently. All too often we are made to swallow it not unlike the poor geese that are force-fed to produce foie gras. It is forced bulimia. Technology plays a role in placing us in this uncomfortable condition. It is worth recalling, in this regard, that although centuries ago the philosopher Tommaso Campanella in his City of the Sun hoped that one day it would be possible to “preserve sounds”, as soon as this became a reality many immediately understood not only the advantages but also the serious dangers created by sound technologies.

The composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, for example, when he met Thomas Edison shortly after the invention of the phonograph, said: “I am astonished and frightened. Astonished by this wonderful power, and frightened at the thought of how much bad and unpleasant music will be preserved forever!” (Howard Goodall, Big Bangs: The Story of Five Discoveries that Changed Musical History, p. 188). Sir Arthur Sullivan was right to worry about bad music, but he could not foresee that sound technologies would eventually, in some cases, make us dislike — even the good kind!