Good music doesn’t always have to be beautiful

MARTYN L Scargill, who studied pianoforte under Dame Fanny Waterman, takes a very narrow view of music (Yorkshire Post, September 29).

At a concert he would hope to be “delighted by beautiful, intelligent and inspiring sounds”. Does good music always have to be beautiful? Great art in all forms evokes a profound experience in the reader, beholder and, yes, the listener which will not always be comfortable.

Your correspondent cites “lovely music from the 19th and 20th centuries”.

What does he make of the respected 20th century composers whose work is often marked by disturbing dissonance: or John Adams, whose “Short ride in a fast machine” is “a cacophonous din... thumped out 36 times or more” – phrases he uses to describe pop music.

Not all pop music is rubbish. Recently the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra thought it worth their while to take a 90-piece ensemble to the Magna Centre in Rotherham to back Sheffield singer, songwriter and guitarist Richard Hawley and his band. The experiment was well received by a packed audience comprising both young and old. I do not recognise a time when classical concerts were not attended predominantly by the old: nor an era where most children had a thorough grounding in Beethoven and Bach at school.

I grew into classical music and became a terrible musical snob; all the more because I had no musical talent. Having discovered good pop music late on, I regret the wasted years.