A Community-in-Sound

This chapter describes how young people in this study recognized an emotional depth in classical music that they stated they did not get from other musics, and that was particularly linked to the Romantic repertoire they preferred. The participants’ recognition of a deep interiority both in themselves and in this music constitutes a form of interpellation of themselves as subjects who are able to recognize the value of this music. Through this process, classical music can be seen as a cultural technology for knowing the bourgeois self. The embodied and affective experience of playing in classical music ensembles and the acoustic aesthetic facilitate transcendence of the body. The sound itself does the work of opening up the individual to facilitate a sense of community. Crucially, this deeply personal experience links young people into institutions and social groups that possess high levels of economic, social, and cultural capital.