Why Classical Music?

Yes, this is a bit off-topic, but I ran across this article today and wanted to send you a quote from it.

This is from the New Republic, and is discussing all the angst that has erupted lately online about "classical music is dying" - it stems from a thing the Washington Post did in a subway station with Joshua Bell, a world-class violinist. The original article:

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=f3839c75-3724-4154-adc4-e0638e30448a

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As a team of Texas researchers have recently announced, there are exactly 237 known reasons why people have sex. There are at least as many reasons why they listen to classical music, of which to sit in solemn silence on a dull dark dock is only one. There will always be social reasons as well as purely aesthetic ones, and thank God for that. There will always be people who make money from it--and why not?--as well as those who starve for the love of it. Classical music is not dying; it is changing. (My favorite example right now is Gabriel Prokofiev, the British-born grandson of the Russian composer, who studied electronic music in school, has headed a successful disco-punk band, and is now writing string quartets.) Change can be opposed, and it can be slowed down, but it cannot be stopped.