# What changes in the classical music fans' community (over time) have you noticed?



## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

The question is aimed at those who have been around for a long time, even just from the beginning of the Internet and over the various fora and discourse environments in the past 20 years.

Have you noticed any changes in the discourse, popularity of various composers, etc.?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Newer fans will refer to symphonic movements as songs.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 and popular composers.

From 1,000+ thread titles

(+) is more mentions in 2021 compared to 2016, (-) is more mentions in 2016 compared to 2021 

Mozart	+11
Beethoven	+5
Bach	+4
Shostakovich	+4
Mahler	+3
Bruckner	+3
Chopin	+3
Prokofiev	+3
Williams	+2
Satie	+2
Morricone	+2
Dvorak	+2
Debussy +2
Berlioz	+2
Bartok	+1
Brahms	0
Liszt	0
Schumann	0
Handel	0
Wagner	-1
Vivaldi	-1
Strauss	-1
Saint-Saens	-1
Tavener	-1
Scriabin	-1
Rimsky	-1
Palestrina	-1
Mussorgsky	-1
Haydn	-2
Stravinsky	-2
Sibelius	-2
Schubert	-2
Vaughan-Williams	-2
Sousa	-2
Scarlatti	-2
Tchaikovsky	-3
Poulenc	-3
Ockeghem	-3
Martinu	-3
Schoenberg	-5
Ravel	-5
Mendelssohn - 6


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Ethereality said:


> Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 and popular composers.
> 
> From 1,000+ thread titles
> 
> ...


How did you compile the data about a 1000 threads?


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> How did you compile the data about a 1000 threads?


Use the search tool on Talk Classical forum, and the number of results will be counted automatically.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

You can also choose the time period you want to search for.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Ethereality said:


> Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 and popular composers.
> 
> From 1,000+ thread titles
> 
> ...


Nice. My best composer Mozart is mentioned more frequently.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Newer fans will refer to symphonic movements as songs.


Probably due to the influence of the increase of the popularity of Mahler


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Ethereality said:


> Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 and popular composers.
> 
> From 1,000+ thread titles
> 
> ...


John Cage has probably been mentioned more often than all of them. Particularly 4'33" (and excessively...come on, the man did write more than that).


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I think the Mozart threads were all flamewars


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Mozart is the most accessible composer. So no doubt there will be an increasing popularity of Mozart.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

What's changed over time? We've all got older! Oh and some people still refer to music recorded in the 1980s as 'modern'. Lol


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

You will probably get different results involving TalkClassical than with classical listeners at large. 


I mean I think those results are skewed by a trend a few years ago where there were, for some reason, an inordinate amount of Mozart flamewar threads.


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## BoggyB (May 6, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 [...]


Pondering this last night, it struck me that the identity of the Third Man is no sure matter. I opine in fact, that for the man on the street, in terms of popularity and recognition of his music, the Third Man is Tchaikovsky.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

BoggyB said:


> Pondering this last night, it struck me that the identity of the Third Man is no sure matter. I opine in fact, that for the man on the street, in terms of popularity and recognition of his music, the Third Man is Tchaikovsky.


You can forget the average person on the street - doesn't listen to any classical music.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The first online communities I experienced were in the mid-1990s. Mostly people from IT, tech and universities, the internet was not well known among the common populace. Therefore I think the changes since then have more to with far broader access to online discussion/message boards than with a change in classical music listeners.
Of course there is also demographic changes, 25 years ago, I was among the youngest in such discussion boards, now I am probably in the middle of the age distribution.
One point that seems to have changed is that in earlier times the focus of the hardcore collectors and nerds was more historical, rare, live or bootlegged recordings, usually of very famous artists and standard rep. (In the 1990s there was in fact quite a few moderately famous recordings not yet on CD or vanished again after having been transferred only in the earliest CD age in the 1980s and there no fast downloads yet, so private LP transfers had to be very private, so people were always kvetching about recordings "lost in the vaults", "behind the vinyl curtain" because they could not get their old favorites of the 1960s and 70s on CD.)
Now, or maybe since some time in the early 2000s the hardcore nerdy collectors seem more about expanding repertoire to lesser known or obscure composers, usually "unjustly neglected". Sure, we had this before. But for years the only piece I remember that was lauded as a sensational rediscovery was the Rott Symphony.
It could also have been a shift in my attention or the places I read.


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## FrankinUsa (Aug 3, 2021)

I am rather pessimistic about classical music in the United States. If you look at any “factor” about CM in the US,it’s trilogy just so negatively. CM in Europe is holder it’s own in European due to government assistance. The survival of CM may depend upon Asia;Japan,South Korea,China.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

FrankinUsa said:


> .....The survival of CM may depend upon Asia;Japan,South Korea,China.


You may be right....Asiatic musicians have swarmed to the US and European conservatories...and reached the highest levels of orchestra membership, esp in the strings....so obviously there is lots of hometown support for young musicians in those nations...
I remember hearing/seeing Chicago a couple of years back - there were 32 violinists - iirc, 18 or 19 were Asiatic, and of those 15 were women...


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> You may be right....Asiatic musicians have swarmed to the US and European conservatories...and reached the highest levels of orchestra membership, esp in the strings....so obviously there is lots of hometown support for young musicians in those nations...
> I remember hearing/seeing Chicago a couple of years back - there were 32 violinists - iirc, 18 or 19 were Asiatic, and of those 15 were women...


Strings at first, now they are rapidly increasing in the other sections, too. And in all, or nearly all, the major American orchestras, the Chinese in particular. But with recent political developments in China, who knows if that trend will continue.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> Newer fans will refer to symphonic movements as songs.


Casual listeners aren't fans. People who are embossed by popular music to an extend that they don't recognize that most classical pieces aren't songs are at best casual listeners of classical music. "Fan" comes from fanatic btw.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

SanAntone said:


> Newer fans will refer to symphonic movements as songs.


Oh yeah, that is so weird. And makers of MP3 players generally only think about popular music when developing the operating system, not that someone may want two tracks (not songs) to play consecutively and without a pause between.

I still wish we had albums for popular artists, but with the advent of the CD, I stopped hearing about albums. Album meant something, that this was a collection of songs on a particular artistic theme. Now its just CD--boring! And with electronic downloads... eh! Cheapens music so it seems to me.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Ethereality said:


> Compared to previous years, much more talk these days about the Big 3 and popular composers.
> 
> From 1,000+ thread titles
> 
> ...


I wish to know where Rachmaninoff sits on this list.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

KevinW said:


> Mozart is the most accessible composer. So no doubt there will be an increasing popularity of Mozart.


In what way is he most accessible? Perhaps because there are so many recordings out there of his music?


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

I used to be able to rattle off the names of the music directors of every major, big name orchestra as quickly and easily as I could rattle off the names of the starting lineup of the '82-'83 Philadelphia 76ers. Nowadays? Nah. In the 80's and 90's, the possibility of not knowing the names of the music directors of the major orchestras (including opera directors) of Berlin, Amsterdam, London, New York, Philly, Chicago, etc. was unthinkable. Same for many great orchestras which might not necessarily be considered 1st-tier, super-famous, or iconic. These days, I usually have to look it up. 

I wonder if any other "old-timers" have experienced this.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

KevinW said:


> Mozart is the most accessible composer. So no doubt there will be an increasing popularity of Mozart.


I find Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky among the most accessible composers for beginners.

Among true enthusiasts, however, those composers are less popular (certainly Vivaldi is despised by some listeners).


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> How did you compile the data about a 1000 threads?


I have no idea whatsoever what that chart even means.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

BoggyB said:


> Pondering this last night, it struck me that the identity of the Third Man is no sure matter. I opine in fact, that for the man on the street, in terms of popularity and recognition of his music, the Third Man is Tchaikovsky.


Who do you think are the First and Second Men, then?


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

BoggyB said:


> Pondering this last night, it struck me that the identity of the Third Man is no sure matter. I opine in fact, that for the man on the street, in terms of popularity and recognition of his music, the Third Man is Tchaikovsky.


Tchaikovsky has always been as popular as any other composer you could name. That's not what people mean by the "Big Three", or at least it wasn't in the past. In terms of sheer numbers of performances and recording throughout the world on any given day Chopin could probably compete pretty well, too, I should think. Lots of people with a piano in their living room play him on a daily basis, and then there are all those competitions and recitals.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

SixFootScowl said:


> In what way is he most accessible? Perhaps because there are so many recordings out there of his music?


And boy are we happy with them, I know I am for sure , till my final breath.


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