I was 11 or 12 when my friend David Fisher took me aside. “You’re never going to have a girlfriend or any kind of social life if you insist on listening exclusively to classical music,” he said, and gave me an album by Men at Work. “Listen to this.” And so I started listening to pop music, but my classical habit has never left me, and today I’m an unrepentant zealot.



You're with friends talking pop, and you say 'Yeah, it reminds me of that Shostakovich quartet' … and the mood is killed

Until then, I was barely aware there was any other kind of music. My parents played Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Mahler at home, and I learned the piano and was a pretty good boy soprano. My parents loved opera too, and used to take me to the free outdoor productions San Francisco Opera put on every summer. The night before, they’d get out my dolls and make them act out the plot of what we were going to see. I remember the finale of Carmen. A tiny wooden man approached a woman doll singing “You promised / You’d be my GIRLFRIEND!!!” before stabbing her.



But perhaps it was Beethoven’s Third Symphony that broke it all wide open. I was 10, and sick in bed. My father brought me a cassette player as a get-well present and I had one tape – of that symphony. I don’t think I played anything else for a year. Later I bought my own turntable and would filch my parents’ recordings. Because I was in my private space it felt rebellious, even though it was the exact same thing they were listening to. Now I have a teenage son who shuts himself in his room to listen to Imagine Dragons, which is very depressing.



That classical feeling … Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket. Photograph: Meredith Heuer

But the trouble with being interested in classical music is that people look at you funny. You might be sitting with friends talking about pop music, or what you’ve read or seen on television, and everyone’s on the same page. And then you say “Yeah, it reminds me of that Shostakovich quartet, that chord at the end” and there’s a chill in the room, and the mood is killed. I thought if I seduced more people into the world of classical music I wouldn’t be as lonely and wretched.



So in 2006, Nathaniel Stookey and I wrote The Composer Is Dead to introduce audiences to classical music and orchestral instruments. We’d been at school together but didn’t keep in touch. Then we ran into each other on the street, to find that he’d become a composer while I was a novelist.

It’s a murder mystery story in which all the instruments in the orchestra are suspects. For many years in the US, it was the most performed piece of new music, which we used to say was like being the world’s tallest midget, but even so it’s something we’re proud of.

We wanted to create something that would be enjoyable if you already knew about music, and enjoyable and educational if you didn’t. In the US there’s no shortage of family concerts, but everyone is tired of the same old pieces that are part of that repertoire. So many musicians said to me “Thank God – if I’d had to play Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra one more time I was going to lose my mind.”

And then, of course, because in our piece every section of the orchestra has jokes made at their expense, pretty much every time I’ve performed it there’s been at least one offended musician. So there I also feel I’ve done my job. The first violins, goes the narrative, have the trickier parts to play, but the second violins are “more fun at parties”. One second violin came up to me to say, “That’s not true … The first violins have the higher parts.” “Don’t worry,” I said. “No one will think you’re more fun at parties.” That didn’t really resolve it.

Half the problem classical music has is getting people to the concerts in the first place

Half the problem classical music has is getting people to the concerts in the first place. In the same way that someone might live across the street from a museum but hasn’t been in years, you forget that something is not intimidating until you get there and then you remember it’s quite marvellous.

When people hear an orchestra it moves them. They often need to be reminded of that. The way I see it, classical music is part of a balanced diet. It’s good for the brain. If someone says: “You really ought to try this Japanese restaurant down the way” you’re not going to reply, “But I eat plenty of steak and had a marvellous pasta the other night … I don’t need to try anything else.”

For me, one of the wonders of classical music is its ability to engage and also disengage the mind. I write mostly in cafes with headphones on, and tailor the music to each individual project. Which I confess is probably because I get to spend a day or two going through my music collection and telling myself that counts as work.

For my Series of Unfortunate Events books it was Shostakovich string quartets. Which then led me to Scriabin, particularly a long, unfinished piece called Preparation for the Final Mystery. It’s melodramatic and doom-laden but there are also great passages of stasis and quiet when my mind would go to the Baudelaires and the music would keep me company. You can’t write to something that’s very engaging the whole time. I haven’t listened to the Scriabin since, but just the other day a friend spotted it in my collection and asked to put it on. “ABSOLUTELY NOT, under any circumstances,” said my wife.

Jim Carrey in the film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The books were powered by Shostakovich. Photograph: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock

If you name almost any period in my life, I can tell you what was the obsessive listen of that season

If you name almost any period in my life, I can tell you what was the obsessive listen of that season. At moment I’m going through a big Bartók phrase. Today it’s the Divertimento and some of the Hungarian Sketches. I’m working on a novel full of tricky sexual drama and Bartók seems to help.



Friends often ask for recommendations for entry-level classical music, but I find it really difficult. The music you enjoy is as personal what you like to read or eat. If you want to lie on your bed and stare at the ceiling, maybe try Morton Feldman. If you like to have people over for dinner and have everyone talking in a lively manner, Rossini. If you are feeling dramatic and that no one understands you, I recommend Mahler. Maybe I should start an advice column? I’d love that.

I’m not sure, though, that in the long run my deep love for Shostakovich hasn’t served me just as well as listening to Men at Work. Not least as it’s always handy to be able to tell pop musician friends who ask “What did you think of my new song?”: “Well, I’m really more of a Shostakovich man.” This excuses me from saying: “That’s the most insipid indie rock I’ve ever heard.”