The X-Factorisation of the nation depresses most people who love music. That talent show, or whatever the current Saturday night regurgitation of it happens to be, has produced a generation of nasal-toned wannabes, with no more understanding of the popular song than they have of the works of Antonin Dvorak.

It’s the Dvorak bit that bothers James MacMillan, though it could easily be the Beethoven/Shostakovich/Sibelius bit. The celebrated Scottish composer and occasional controversialist said last week that pop culture had become an “imperialist force” that reduces our ability to sustain “deep, active listening”.

Mocking rock groups who strain to express themselves through the same three conventional chords, MacMillan suggested that the young are discouraged from “making discoveries in music and much else. All they get is what is flung at them through the usual sanctioned and controlling media”.

His concerns echo those of the Orkney-based Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who regularly despairs at our retreat from what he calls “serious music”. Maxwell Davies says that while most educated people in this country can list authors who have shaped their life and outlook — and even quote from Shakespeare or Dickens — the same is not true for music. He despairs of guests on Desert Island Discs, accomplished in science or literature, “who have no awareness whatsoever of even the existence of serious music”.

This may be stretching it a bit — most of us can hum the Champions League theme tune. But you know what Max is getting at. How many football fans would be able to name Handel as the composer?

Not all countries are so ignorant. The former Eastern bloc is more musically literate than the West (though they have yet to produce a decent rock band). Many years ago in Moscow, I had to fight through crowds of donkey-jacketed men desperate for a seat at the ballet and offering good money for my ticket. With the Gulag waiting to welcome novelists and playwrights who stepped out of line, classical music and dance were the only means of artistic expression during the Communist years and were embraced by everyone from plumber to professor.

So 80 years of queuing in the snow to buy oily vodka does have one positive legacy: a populace who appreciate Stravinsky’s use of polytonality. Surely there is another way to fill the knowledge gap that doesn’t demand such a high price?

Much as some of us would love to ban The X Factor on the grounds of taste, never mind decadence, it’s just not an option post-Stalin. Nor is attacking all popular music as an imperialist evil. MacMillan uses Celtic music in his work, so he is presumably not referring to all popular forms. But to suggest, as Maxwell Davies does, that only the western European tradition is “serious music” could be interpreted as a bit narrow-minded, since R’n’B, soul, jazz and blues came from Africa via the slave plantations of America.

This music is no less demanding than anything played at the St Magnus festival. A big-band arrangement by Quincy Jones for Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson is equal to a symphony by Tchaikovsky. The emotional and vocal range of Luciano Pavarotti is no “better” than that of Aretha Franklin. The work of Radiohead is no less intellectually challenging than that of Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

However, more people feel free to express an opinion on Franklin, Jones or Radiohead. We are far more exposed to their music. It will resonate with particular periods in our lives and so have deeper meaning. We can refine our knowledge by reading interviews, books and criticism. So a 14-year-old listening to Duffy or Kanye West might go on a journey that takes him back to Dionne Warwick and the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

It’s harder to explore classical music without considerable effort. We might flick on Classic FM and enjoy what we hear. But few people these days have the education or the technical language to really understand it. There is a strong argument that the classical European tradition is in danger and could do with some extra help.

Our national companies know this. The RSNO offer “Naked Classics” in which the conductor and musicians talk you through the work. Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra, featuring a scratch DJ, attracted a predominantly under-30 audience — who were then introduced to other modern work such as John Adams’ Nixon in China. Scottish Opera now recruits teenagers with potential who it hopes will become ambassadors for the art form.

Scottish schools are lucky to have the £70m Youth Music Initiative, started by the last Holyrood government and supported by the present one. Run through the Scottish Arts Council, it guarantees every child a year of musical tuition by the age of 10. They don’t all play the cello — some schools have African drumming classes or they start choirs. In Shetland, veteran fiddlers pass their knowledge to a younger generation.

It would be elitist to suggest such good ideas should be shelved in favour of an exclusively classical approach. Similarly, we should be wary of inverted snobbery that maintains kids only enjoy what is familiar. In Raploch, a deprived area of Stirling, the Arts Council help fund a children’s orchestra based on the El Sistema music movement in Venezuela. The method has already transformed the lives of 400,000 children in the South American country. Learning an instrument, playing together in an orchestra, discovering the work of great composers: all build confidence and open doors to the imagination as well as real life.

joan.mcalpine@sunday-times.co.uk

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