Ask An Expert: Can you hear me now?

Time for another of our reader-submitted Ask an Expert questions. (Click the link in the menu above to submit one of your own!) This week's question comes from Daisuke Takeuchi, who is not, as far as I know, any relation to the star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox:

Q: I am a new fan of classical music thanks to Osmo Vanska and The Minnesota Orchestra experience. My question is about the sound range of classical music. When I listen to CDs, some parts are too quiet to hear. So, I turn the volume up, but then the loud parts get too loud. I feel like in order to listen to classical music you need a perfectly quiet environment, otherwise you cannot hear the quiet parts. I live in a neighborhood where cars go by, babies are crying, dogs are barking, and I get frustrated when I cannot hear the music. Of course, putting on a headphone would solve the problem, but this bothers me. So, please enlighten me as to why some parts are played so quietly that I cannot hear a thing.

For an answer, I went right to the top, to the master of extreme pianissimo himself, Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä. Osmo has a reputation for demanding extreme dynamics at both ends of the decibel spectrum from his orchestras, and our recent Beethoven recordings do have a startlingly wide dynamic range, due in part to the incredibly senstive digital equipment that the recording team at BIS uses. So Osmo, why so soft, and what's the best way to listen?

Osmo's Answer: First of all, don't try to listen [to classical music] in the car. There's just too much extra noise around. I would say that, even in the concert hall, during the softest passages, you still can hardly hear what we are playing, and you have to allow that that may be what we want you to hear. In [popular] music, everything is recorded so that the sound meter is always in more or less the same position. The sound level never goes too far into the red, and never goes very far the other way either. It is not that way in our music. So I would suggest to Daisuke that he set his volume as loud as his neighbors and his stereo will allow for the loud parts, and then keep it there - don't touch it when we go to the softest passages. It is meant to be so that it is very difficult to hear. That's the whole secret of the music we play - if you [turn up the softest parts,] you are missing the opportunity to go where the music wants to take you.