No wonder we have a problem with classical music in this country.
The week started in celebration. The stats are in and it turns out that Radio 3’s breakfast show has enjoyed a rise of some 64,000 listeners — a not-to-be-sniffed-at11 per cent increase on last year. Meanwhile Classic FM’s listenership is also up significantly, including a startling 43 per cent rise in under-25s. Champagne (or perhaps something a little less effervescently elitist) all round.
Why are all these new people tuning in? Musical diversity, apparently. That and a preference for music over chat, for radio that offers an escape from the emphatic, combative everyday of John Humphrys and his ilk over on Radio 4. Escape. Retreat. These are the words that come up again and again with classical music — a general perception of the genre not as part of the world but a haven from it, something pleasant but other, unreal, like Disney, Playboy or Center Parcs.
That fantasy is, of course, part of the problem.
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