I reached the stage where I decided, if I was listening to pop and rock that was up to and over fifty years old, not because I was being nostalgic but for the enduring thrill of hearing intensity, greatness, ravishing novelty, I might as well listen to music that was up to and over a hundred, 200, 300 years old. Rock and pop are now sinking back into that past, especially to those born in the twenty-first century, many of whom could reach their early teens with as little knowledge of the Beatles as of Beethoven. Great music was about, and responding to, the same things – being alive, seeking pleasure, falling in love, feeling happy, feeling sad, defining truth, articulating faith, fearing death, repelling demons, a total immersion in mystery – whenever it was written and whatever the circumstances. Discovering classical music recreates that feeling of wanting to know new things, find new music, and discover unknown places and experience wonderment and a general sense of difference.