Christopher Webber writes:

>How many so-called CM aficionados really listen to music?  ...  How many
>half-listeners use music - as we all do at times I fear (I've got "The
>Protecting Veil" going on pleasantly in the background as I write this) -
>as glorified aural wallpaper?

Except in the circumstances mentioned below, I personally find it extremely
difficult to be a "half-listener".  Whether it's Taverner from the first
Elizabethan era or Tavener from the second, either the music commands my
attention and I have to stop whatever else I'm doing and listen to it, or
the music is an unwelcome intrusion - depending on what the music is and
what else is going on at the time, of course.

I do, however, occasionally "use" music for various illicit, nefarious and
highly dubious private purposes.  When alone I might sing to it, or dance
to it, or conduct it, or all three.  Singing along to something like 'The
Rite of Spring' or 'The Mask of Time' at the top of my voice while driving
fast is one of life's great pleasures.

>It's easier to use Brahms than Britten for this sort of purpose

Britten is much better for my purposes than Brahms.  Did Brahms ever
give us a rollicking English sea-shanty to compare with "Old Joe has gone
fishing"? And how about "The Ploughboy"? Or "When as the rye reach to the
chin / And chop-cherry, chop-cherry ripe within"? This is "using" music as
accompaniment rather than as aural wallpaper - for the latter one can
always visit the shopping mall.

Alan Moss
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