The September edition of BBC Music Magazine has a witty article by American
author MT Anderson about listening to classical music in the car.

He writes,

   "Listening on the move has become a profound and basic part of how
   most of us now experience music.  Elements which composers never
   dreamed - a shifting landscape around us, the solitude of night-driving,
   pile-ups on slip roads - are now integral parts of the aesthetic
   experience of classical music as a whole."

   [...]

   "I have, I admit, gleaned a kind of kinky pleasure from listening
   to Delalande's 'Simphonies pour soupers du roi' (Symphonies for the
   Feasts of the King) while buying a burger at a drive-through McDonald's.
   The combination of Delalande and fast food is curiously affecting,
   like one of those Poussin paintings where, in the foreground, satyrs
   frolic, while the bloody sunset suggests the fall of distant
   civilisations."

The article reminded me of my best in-car moments - *musical*, that is. They
include Kapell's pile-driving Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto on the country
roads south-east of Boston MA, and Karajan's high-revs Beethoven 7th while
swerving along the coastal route between Adelaide and Melbourne Australia.

The article has two great illustrations. One shows composers in a
super-stretch white limo. Mozart and Tallis in the front seats, Boulez ("I
don't want to sit in the middle!") squeezed uncomfortably between Chopin and
Vaughan Williams, Debussy peeping out the sun-roof, and in the rearmost
swimming pool - a barechested John Adams.

A certain class of British driver sports a name banner across the top of his
car's windscreen. The banner names the driver and his latest paramour. So
you could spot a souped-up Ford Escort with (view in non-proportional font
like Courier)

-----------------------
>Gazza          Shaz |
-----------------------

emblazoned on the windscreen as it hurtles past.  The article's second
illustration shows the interior of a speeding Merc.  Seeing two names
across the top of the windscreen, I recognise:

-----------------------
>Gustav          Alma |
-----------------------

What classical music do *you* play on the road?

James Kearney
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