A cough is the basic sign of inattention. Musicians never, in my experience, cough when playing in public.

When recordings replaced concerts as the dominant mode of hearing music, our conception of the nature of performance and of music itself was altered.

A love of classical music is only partially a natural response to hearing the works performed, it also must come about by a decision to listen carefully, to pay close attention, a decision inevitably motivated by the cultural and social prestige of the art.

Except for recordings made by famous tenors, the emphasis in classical recording has for the most part recently been on the work, and even more on the composer-the performer being spotlighted as the composer's most accomplished representative.

I was fairly poor
but most of my money went
for wine and
classical music.
I loved to mix the two
together.

Classical music has become rarefied, like a maiden aunt that nobody wants to talk to.