Illustration: Nicky Robertson

Marks and Spencer, found in most town centres, is the epitome of the quintessential middle class chain store: although somewhat drab, their clothes are nevertheless well made, something their prices reflect; their foodstuffs are of the highest quality and their home furnishing departments provide a preferable alternative to 'olde worlde' Laura Ghastly or the hard, pine-ridden furniture of the Swedes. Their flagship store, built in the wake of the Manchester IRA bomb blast, is an architectural gem and the centrepiece of the new, revitalised, city centre. Amidst several floors of open-plan glass and chromium, shoppers can browse Marks's seemingly endless ranges of bras and knickers in silence and, when exhausted, patronise a chic coffee bar to drink espresso, look at their purchases with a sense of satisfaction, chat to their companions, and enjoy an endless supply of music (obviously the choice of the spotty kid who pours the stuff) that is provided by an in-house entertainment system. When finished, shoppers can make their way through an umbilical walkway into the slightly less salubrious Arndale Centre, and continue to make purchases whilst blasted from every side by a cacophony of loudly-played, thumping muzak. Perhaps it is a conspiracy set about by a generation of work-shy shop assistants who have no wish to communicate with their customers, but then again, it could also be an experimental new music: stand in the centre of any shopping precinct in the world and listen and you will become sure from where many of Luciano Berio's inspirations came.

In fact, go anywhere and see if you can spend a little time without being patronised by the idea that the public cannot function without something to help pass the time, and although some muzak features remarkably good performers and performances, its presence is neither appropriate nor beneficial. Have you ever tried getting kids to listen to music in the classroom? I must have heard a thousand times the same response, 'it's boring'. And even if you manage to captivate them with a detailed description of what's going on, after just a few seconds they become restless, make faces at friends or play with their pens. It's not that they are incapable of listening, it's that they have grown up hearing music all around them; music on the television, music in shops, music from passing cars in the street. I don't think that it affects just children either, since, at a recent performance in the Barbican Centre in London, I was appalled by the behaviour of many so-called music lovers. If the rustling sweet papers weren't enough, when we got to the development section of a Mahler first movement, one lady behind me, evidently bored, started chatting to her partner! There can be no excuse for poor behaviour, but perhaps we cannot really blame her - today, from every angle, we are subjected to a barrage of noise, usually in the guise of muzak. As a result, we are becoming unused to listening to music; it's loosing its magic and we're losing our imagination.

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