Chateaubriand's memoir

I have a fear of becoming too modern and have consciously begun thinking of myself as a contemporary of the past, not that the past is better--it's full of booby traps and underbrush and people like George W. Bush--but the books and the music are far superior. After I'm finished with Chateaubriand's memoir I'm going to read Civil Disobedience, the masterpiece written in 1849, while listening to music by Haydn and Berlioz.

I know all about good books but I know almost nothing about music. I hear in it only what I don't know, and for this I am grateful.