Was there life before classical music?

I can only imagine what introduced me to good music. Certainly there was little to rejoice in postwar Britain. An austerity of the ration book that today’s youth cannot imagine was the cross we all had to carry. In our humble 1950s home, with its four-station box radio, children were told to shut up when John McCormack, the love duo to Madame Butterfly, or the prelude to La Traviata played.

I could see the merit in classical music, but I was seduced by country music and the Mersey Sound of the sixties when I reached my teens. Afterwards, I lost my appetite for music. Instead, I focused on other interests, but had a bent toward music and military bands. BBC 3 Radio was pompous, its musical offering jarring and heavy. Their self-opinionated music snobs treated us with contempt. BBC 2 condescended to provide a few hours of light classical music, mostly on Sunday nights, like Your 100 Best Tunes.

How do I define good music? From what we know is popular, not what we are told is popular. When entering a garage, my car had to undergo a technical inspection. One summer day, the windows were down and I seem to remember that La Boheme’s Love Duet was playing. What a conversation plug. It was like one of those classical music flashmobs that are so popular now. The staff and customers were delighted and their reaction was a real joy.

How I jumped for joy when in September 1992 I learned that a program dedicated to popular classical music was going to air. Classic FM was going to give people back their music. After all, classical music, composed mostly by lower-class musicians, is the art form of the working classes. I was hoping to bring back our soul music from the upright and snobbish ensemble. That morning I was like a child at Christmas when at 6 am the first track was played by Nick Bailey from the station. I’m not a huge fan of Handel’s Zadok the Priest, but that golden sunrise was certainly music to my ears. Classic FM expected 2.8 million listeners to be drawn to its alternative to tedious non-pop discord. At Christmas 4.3 million tuned in each week and Classic FM was Britain’s fourth most popular radio station. I felt vindicated.

The popular station collected more covers (almost) than Liverpool Football Club. It is now listed by 5.6 million people each week and in 2013, Classic FM was named UK Radio Brand of the Year at the Sony Awards.

Having retired to Spain, I can still tune in using my laptop and craftily entering my old UK postcode. Radio stations in Mediterranean Spain and stations in other countries ignore the demand for good music. However, we now live in a much smaller world in which all national boundaries for music lovers are down. Denying good music to a wealthy audience is a goal in its own right.