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(p.34) The first thing to forget about classical music is its name. "Classical
music" not only sounds faintly twee, it is also misleading and inaccurate.
Properly speaking the term refers only to that music written during the
so-called classical period, roughly the second half of the eighteenth century,
or Haydn and Mozart to you. In musical circles, it has a very specific
meaning, one that is generally not shared by the world at large.
Despite efforts to substitute "art music", "concert music", "serious music"
or, worst of all, "good music", "classical music" has attached itself like
a barnacle to the great body of musical art that ranges from the plainchant
of the Middle Ages and the polyphonic motets of the Renaissance up through
the neo-minimalism of today. What, really, do Josquin de Prés,
Bach, Schubert, Schoenberg and Steve Reich have in common?
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