At the risk of writing something that I dont expect will meet with
general agreement, let me say that I think that the so-called
"classical music station" has itself contributed to people's lack of
ability to listen to music.  Many such stations treat classical music
as a kind of wallpaper.  Satie would have loved this, and wrote music
for people to talk over (Mais, parlez, parlez!).  However, the
stations I am thinking of (we have one where I live) have no
compunction in making pieces which were designed to be listened to
into aural wallpaper. e.g. "That was Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner,
now here's Ludwig van Beethoven's Diabelli Variations".  Or worse:
"That was Bach's Chaconne in D minor featuring Isaac Stern, now the
music of Scott Joplin, featuring Joshua Rifkin."
 
There is a station in the UK which does soemthing similar: it's called
Classical FM.  On a recent trip I listened to it in the car.  They
have a classical top ten, the top of which a couple of weeks ago was
the music from Titanic.  The only thing that I recognised on the
listing as being vaguely classical was "Verdi per due", by some
husband and wife singers with Abbado and the BPO.  The programming of
this station seems to rely heavily on the works of Frederick Delius
(not a composer I dislike, but a little goes a long way!), since the
supreme accolade they kept coming up with in their advertising was
that the music they pay is "relaxing" and "tranquilizing".
 
No wonder the general public doesnt pay much actual attention to
music, as such.  Playing music end to end on the radio without
intelligent discussion of it does more damage than not playing it at
all.
 
In my opinion, the phonograph/CDs, the movies, and radio itself have a
lot to answer for when examine the status of "classical" music in
today's world, having each contributed to its debasement and
devaluation.
 
That's all -- I now return you to the normal hpschd-l programming!
 
david