The idea that serious music can morally improve the listener is a seductive one. It does not seem implausible that one can enhance one’s character by spending hours paying attention to the nuances of the great classical composers, delving into their hints about the human condition.
It is not a notion that survives too much scrutiny, however. As literary critic George Steiner observed: “We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert…
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