For those of you searching this category,

you may be pleased to learn that the Oxford English Dictionary's translation of the musical term Classical is "traditional genre of music - appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste."

In other words, if you are browsing this section, you have class.

In fact you have more than class. You have a host of outstanding musicians with unrivalled expertise in both performance and reading, a fast-fading skill in today's climate of programmed and computerised music.

And that is why classical music has and always will stand the test of time because it is preserved in note form.

Yes there are recordings, yes there are performances, yes there are concert recitals - but each of these is subject to interpretation only and every piece played remains true to the original intentions of the world's greatest composers.

After all, who are we to argue with the romantic son of a drunk who wrote love letters to married women, the child prodigy who lived in debt and took loans from his family or the organ virtuoso who married his cousin after being caught "entertaining a strange damsel" in the loft of the church where he played ...

And you thought classical music was dull???