Loving Shakespeare may be a charming trait, but loving Bach marks you out as a nerd. Why?

Pianist Susan Tomes writes about something that's always puzzled us...whenever anyone comments on classical music (on Cif), commenters trip over one another in a race to be the first to say: "Who cares?"

So it is with some nervousness that I mention a thought that's been going round and round in my head since watching two episodes of Phil Beadle's fascinating Channel 4 programme about teaching adult literacy. Can't Read, Can't Write is following a group of people who left school without learning to read or write. Phil is trying to teach them, with some spectacular successes.

Two of the class are women who are fired by the idea that they might one day read the classics. One has longed for years to read Shakespeare. Another is inspired by the thought of reading Louisa M Alcott's Little Women. These ambitions are repeatedly and favourably mentioned, and it's made clear that their veneration of these classic works is a crucial factor in their remarkable progress.

I couldn't help thinking how different it would be if the programme were about music instead of literature: Can't Play, Can't Read a Note. Suppose that two of the group had declared their chief wish was to play a late Beethoven piano sonata or to be able to hear a Haydn string quartet in their heads by reading the score. Such an ambition would very likely be ridiculed. Loving Shakespeare may be a charming trait, but loving Bach marks you out as a nerd.

I've asked myself why classics of literature and of music should be so differently regarded. And I feel I have an inkling. Only in music do the classics have to compete with a vast, loud, hugely commercial popular field. It shouts so loud that it is difficult for quieter or older music to make itself heard. Nothing comparable exists in plays or books. Yes, there may be texts, emails, magazines and newspapers of immense variety. But crucially, they are all silent. There is no way that a form of literature can actually shout louder than another or drown out another's voice.

The classics of music, which do not use amplification, are struggling to survive. Because of short-sighted cuts to music education in schools, many people are not even aware that the classics are there. A child might notice Little Women on the classroom bookshelf, but may never come across a Mozart opera. And what a waste! For these classic works can provide lifelong enrichment, just like the classics of literature.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/02/classicalmusicandopera