BRIAN ENO' S LETTER

June 21 1996

Dear Anton,
thank you very much for sending me the CD(Ravel). I was very impressed by the absolutely beautiful playing, and proud to be connected with it in some small way. It's very kind of you to mention me on the cover.

I completely endorse your feelings about the world of classical music. There is so much strength of feeling, talent and energy there - but somehow it makes absolutely no difference to anything. Why is that? How has it happened that classical music has become so insulated from our lives and our thinking? I said in an interview last year (in WIRED) that I wouldn't mind if I never heard another piece of classical music in my life, so decadent is the whole scene for me. I find it hard to listen to that music without also hearing all the social pretensions and the sense of superiority that has become connected with it. I can't hear an orchestra without being aware of the caste system that it represents, the old and deadly metaphor of top-down social control bound up inside it. I realize this is my problem - nothing to do with the music, perhaps.

I know there is great intelligence in classical music, but, because of those prejudices, I am very rarely able to hear it. Your recording is therefore special: I find it direct, moving and completely fascinating. I don't hear it as 'classical music' - just as music. I don't hear someone showing off how clever they can be, but instead someone inside the music, an explorer discovering intricate new feelings. It makes me realize I've never really 'heard' Ravel before. Best wishes with your future work. I think this is a great recording.

PS - in return for the record, a copy of my just-published book.

Brian Eno