"They Gesture Toward The Heavens," Alex Ross Writes, "But They Speak The Language Of High-End Real Estate."

He once described classical-music concerts as "mass anal retention," and began his cult-hit 2004 essay "Listen to This" by blurting, "I hate 'classical music.'"

Ross hasn't turned against the music, but rather the "cult of mediocre elitism" that has strangled it for decades, from the unnecessary stiffness of concert-hall behavior to the absurd institutional ban on new music.

"The American middle-class carried the worship of the classics to a necrophiliac extreme."

Ross wants to call it simply "the music," like jazz lovers do. He wants to talk about it as if it were popular music, without the pretentious Italian words and the endless musicological descriptions that clog American mainstream classical-music criticism and contaminate the concert experience, starting with the program notes. "Yes, the music can be great and serious; but greatness and seriousness are not its defining characteristics," Ross writes. "It can also be stupid, vulgar, and insane."
The Stranger