# Will classical music ever be as popular as it used to be?



## Tchaikovskyisthebest (May 21, 2019)

What do you think? Will classical music ever become as widespread as it was, say 100 or even 50 years ago? Or has pop and rock taken over the world forever?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Are you sure that it is not? How do you measure it? I certainly don't remember it being more popular 50 years ago although it was more expected then that the educated would know the main composers and some of their works.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

If you go back to about 1950 you see the dichotomy that exists today more clearly.

In 1950, if you bought a Vox LP, you probably heard a poorly tuned European pickup band playing classical music. If you buy a Naxos CD today you are likely to hear a first rate regional or international orchestra playing high quality classical music you may never have heard of.

In the 1950s classical music was played on TV and in popular culture in America. Today it largely is not. Popular culture has changed and classical music, for whatever reason, is not represented.

So there you have it. Popular culture changed, classical music fell, yet more people play it everywhere at a very high level and there are more recordings of famous and unknown classical music than ever before -- at prices probably lower than they've ever been.

It's clear classical music has not died in USA and Europe and it is thriving in Asia. Whether it can ever be as popular in USA as it once was is a question that cannot be answered because no one can say how popular it once was.

There was classical music on the Billboard chart as recently as the Three Tenors in the 1990s. It is hard to say how popular it was in that regard in 1950. If someone can say Toscanini outsold Tommy Dorsey then maybe that's a clue.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I think many of us generally believe classical music was more popular in the past whether that past is 50, 100, or 200 years ago. I don't really know whether that is true. First, there is the difference between absolute numbers of classical music listeners and the percentage of classical music listeners. I believe the absolute number if higher today than ever before. I suspect the percentage is lower, but a huge problem is knowing the number of people who stream classical music, download it to listen, and generally hear it outside of concert halls and purchased vinyl or CDs. I really don't have a sense of the numbers of younger people (say under 30) who listen. 

If there are modestly reliable sources for some of these numbers, I think that would be rather interesting.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

No, it won't, unless it's as a part of a larger turn back toward the idea of a "canon" of Western culture, which was formerly considered foundational to a cultural identity now in the process of dissolving as a result of communications and the movement of peoples.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> No, it won't, unless it's as a part of a larger turn back toward the idea of a "canon" of Western culture, which was formerly considered foundational to a cultural identity now in the process of dissolving as a result of communications and the movement of peoples.


Agree, good post.

With the complete total devaluation of the US $, which is the world's currency bench mark, most folks are very worried about how to make ends meet, CM is the furthest thing on their mind. CM is in its demise, which I have stated countless X's here on TC, with huge long posts. I have no desire to repeat, repeat, repeat myself over and over and over.

Elliott Carter represents the end , along with 3 others, of that tradition, ..Remember the idea of a terminology abeled *classical* has all been shot to pieces on the *was Beethoven more classic, or romantic*,,there it has been discussed that the idea of *classical* is a spoof,. 
Each and every composer is his own music. There is no such thing as mod, post mod, romantic, classical.

Those terms are extremely limiting and completely useless,.  It is called The High arts. ,,as opposed to everything else which is The Low Arts (= most worthless cra,,P,,especially jazz).
The High Arts, for me is dead, gone forever. Yet we are inheritors to a mother load of weath. Much greater than Rothchilds filthy 500T gold, which is wortholess as far as I am concerned. The High Arts has 500T X;'s more value than all of Roth's 500 trillion in gold.

and the whole world is chasing Roth's 500T gold.,,,likea donkey with a carrot on a stick tied to his neck,,,just out of reach.....so goes this world,,,,,.while we, the living souls, cherish and would not trade even 1 of our High Arts for all his 500T gold.


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

There was a time when European tv stations, granted there were less of them then, would transmit the premiere of Karajan’s Salzburg Trovatore or Don Carlo live, on a Saturday night prime time. It wasn’t just one specialist channel that did so, if you changed to the BBC or German ARD, they did the same thing. When Bernstein died, a lengthy documentary would feature; RAI’s 1980s dramatization of Verdi’s life was broadcast by a heap of channels, all 6 episodes subtitled and all. I believe there was a time when several American airwaves broadcast Toscanini’s concerts, NBC was proud of its orchestra and the coup of T heading it up. This would be incomprehensible nowadays. My point? Like with poetry or spoken theatre a bit of education or perhaps just assistance is needed to create interest. It doesn’t come to you as easily as ‘Friends’.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

In one hand, it's harder to measure the popularity of the music according to sales. On the other, millions of people have obviously been listening to it according to the number of views on, say, YouTube. I do not agree with those who say such numbers are not significant in some way. Some composers have millions upon millions of views and it couldn't possibly be because listeners do not like the music. In fact, it's just the opposite. So listeners are getting their dose of culture despite the Illuminati obsessed naysayers on this forum who cannot see what's going on around them because they never seem to look.

The crux of the matter as I see it is this: millions of people are listening to it: it's popular in Asia, it's being listening to by students when they study for school, and it's being listened by the lovers of the music who are not necessarily collectors. BUT it's so available for free that people do not want to pay for it in the same way as in the past, and that's what's changed, not necessarily people's lack of interest in it. They either don't have the money, perhaps because they are students; they don't want to attend concerts; they don't want boxes of CDs sitting around in their attic, but there are millions upon millions who are still listening to it, and this includes modern contemporary classical music too.

The other problem is of course that it is no longer taught in the schools like it once was and considered part of holistic education. There's less music taught in school starting in elementary school that is more educationally based and guided. The interest in the music is very much helped when it's introduced when students are young, and it looks to me that this is no longer done like it once was. But the idea that the music could fade and lack an audience of millions of listeners, I find patently absurd because human beings need it. They need its challenge. They need its complexity. They need its peace and beauty. They just need it and it's never been more available in the history of the world with some evidence in numbers of how much it is being viewed and heard. It would take somebody like Mozart 20 lifetimes to be heard as much as he's heard now, and the same goes for a number of contemporary composers who might have remained in relative obscurity had it not been for the Internet.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, I would venture to say that there are more orchestras now in the U.S. then there have ever been (although many are precarious and some are disbanding) -- maybe they are serving a smaller but wealthier clientelle.. Many years ago, a youthful preoccupation with pop and Broadway used to give way to an adult (at least knowledge of) CM, or at least willingness to go to Pops concerts. The pop muic/industrial complex has made it easier to stay mired in the music of one's youth (I know 65-year old college professors who are still Deadheads ). But CM will never die -- anymore than great art, classic literature, Shakespeare, etc. Measuring the size of the audience, however, is fraught with the same uncertainties as predicting the outcome of Presidential races.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Pop music, with a very heavy beat, is much better for the world's "Boogie To Oblivion."

Maybe in the very last days, when everything is flooded, people will listen to Pettersson. :lol:


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

No I don't think it will ever come back. It will continue to be a niche product attended by fewer and fewer. Orchestras will hang on for a long time, but to survive they're almost all doing a large number of pops style concerts to keep the doors open. Look at the large number playing movie soundtracks to the projection. Classical reviews are practically extinct in newspapers. Record companies have gone out of business, and the major US producers of yesterday (RCA, Sony, Angel) hardly make anything new. Saturday morning cartoon used to draw heavily from the classics for their soundtracks, but no more - so young people don't hear that music anymore. In the '30s through '50s there were hundreds of movies made where classical music and its performers were included in some way....no more. TV commercials in the US regularly feature retirees or pharmaceutical users in some activity - and it's always some old-guy garage band or guitar-pop group; you never see a brass quintet or string quartet. And in movies and TV, when there are classical musicians it's usually because they're the creepy, murderous, evil villain. Universities used to believe in the great cultural heritage of the west, but they no longer require it. History of Western Music had given way to History of Hip Hop and Lady Gaga Appreciation.

It's all very depressing - and yet there is area where I keep hopeful: summer festivals. They're everywhere. Small and large, all over the US - and they really draw in the crowds. It's astonishing to see the crowds in Hollywood Bowl, Aspen, Vail, Grant Tetons, Santa Fe, Round Top, Sun Valley - and thats just a few on the west side. Add Ravinia, Blossom, Tangelwood, Bard....it's invigorating!


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

MarkW said:


> Well, I would venture to say that there are more orchestras now in the U.S. then there have ever been (although many are precarious and some are disbanding) -- maybe they are serving a smaller but wealthier clientelle.. Many years ago, a youthful preoccupation with pop and Broadway used to give way to an adult (at least knowledge of) CM, or at least willingness to go to Pops concerts. The pop muic/industrial complex has made it easier to stay mired in the music of one's youth (I know 65-year old college professors who are still Deadheads ). But CM will never die -- anymore than great art, classic literature, Shakespeare, etc. Measuring the size of the audience, however, is fraught with the same uncertainties as predicting the outcome of Presidential races.


I attend the concerts of a local suburban-based orchestra more than I do the great orchestra that is based in the nearest big city. I don't live that far from that city but the inconveniences of traffic and transportation make it much easier to drive 10 minutes to the venue of the suburban orchestra when I need to hear live music.

The quality isn't the same but it is good enough to make me seldom regret having bought tickets. They have guest soloists who are better than the orchestra itself, ones that must be second tier because they don't appear with that great big-city orchestra, but I am unable to discern why. I think a few of them will make it into that first tier someday.

I am more worried than you that CM will never die, though. It will never die but could be become something limited to musicologists and museums without mass support, especially if musicians fail to make money at it.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I am more worried than you that CM will never die, though. It will never die but could be become something limited to musicologists and museums without mass support, especially if musicians fail to make money at it. _

As long as there are universities with music departments I wouldn't worry about that. They don't have to make money on it and most have some kind of large program. Universities in USA are the principal employers of composers and love to put on premiers, as well.

The one near me supports three orchestras, partners with the local regional orchestra, and supports 6 or 7 other musical arrangements that all put on concerts during the season. I imagine the university near you has something similar if it has a music department.

While local orchestras mainly "employ" retirees and part-time musicians (who pay to play) and local orchestras have part-time music, it is more likely the larger international orchestras that are in financial withdrawal. If the Detroit and Minneapolis orchestras can lose a season to a work stoppage and the Philadelphia Orchestra can go bankrupt, any orchestra outside a megalopolis can do same.

Granted the Londons, Berlins, New Yorks and Chicagos are all likely to survive anything and they are home to millions but not home to more.

And, as I've argued many times, it is the declining quality of new classical music being written that has led its decline in the past 30 years. There just isn't anything out there leading a new public, and especially a new young public, to the musicculture.

It is the continuation of this trend for another generation, in my opinion, that would most seriously damage the art form.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I certainly have the impression that many more recordings have been released in the past 10 years or so than ever before. I don't have statistics, but if anyone does, they might be very illuminating. Naxos seems to release recordings on popular to obscure composers. If classical music were dying in any significant way, I'm not sure we'd see so many recordings.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

larold said:


> _I am more worried than you that CM will never die, though. It will never die but could be become something limited to musicologists and museums without mass support, especially if musicians fail to make money at it. _
> 
> As long as there are universities with music departments I wouldn't worry about that. They don't have to make money on it and most have some kind of large program. Universities in USA are the principal employers of composers and love to put on premiers, as well.
> 
> ...


Universities are great in sponsoring chamber music concerts. But if the best quality large orchestras are failing to make ends meet, we aren't going to hear large scale works performed with top quality. I guess I'm contributing that by not attending more of my world class orchestra's concerts. I wish they would move to the suburbs. Their urban setting used to be crime-ridden. It's better now, but still a bother to get to.

Did the Philadelphia orchestra recover? Are they still performing?


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> In one hand, it's harder to measure the popularity of the music according to sales. On the other, millions of people have obviously been listening to it according to the number of views on, say, YouTube. I do not agree with those who say such numbers are not significant in some way. Some composers have millions upon millions of views and it couldn't possibly be because listeners do not like the music. In fact, it's just the opposite. So listeners are getting their dose of culture despite the Illuminati obsessed naysayers on this forum who cannot see what's going on around them because they never seem to look.
> 
> The crux of the matter as I see it is this: millions of people are listening to it: it's popular in Asia, it's being listening to by students when they study for school, and it's being listened by the lovers of the music who are not necessarily collectors. BUT it's so available for free that people do not want to pay for it in the same way as in the past, and that's what's changed, not necessarily people's lack of interest in it. They either don't have the money, perhaps because they are students; they don't want to attend concerts; they don't want boxes of CDs sitting around in their attic, but there are millions upon millions who are still listening to it, and this includes modern contemporary classical music too.
> 
> The other problem is of course that it is no longer taught in the schools like it once was and considered part of holistic education. There's less music taught in school starting in elementary school that is more educationally based and guided. The interest in the music is very much helped when it's introduced when students are young, and it looks to me that this is no longer done like it once was. But the idea that the music could fade and lack an audience of millions of listeners, I find patently absurd because human beings need it. They need its challenge. They need its complexity. They need its peace and beauty. They just need it and it's never been more available in the history of the world with some evidence in numbers of how much it is being viewed and heard. It would take somebody like Mozart 20 lifetimes to be heard as much as he's heard now, and the same goes for a number of contemporary composers who might have remained in relative obscurity had it not been for the Internet.


'The other problem is of course that it is no longer taught in the schools like it once was and considered part of holistic education. There's less music taught in school starting in elementary school that is more educationally based and guided."

This is an interesting outcome CM enthusiasts have seen firsthand. The decision makers and policy makers of today probably didn't get much music in their early years. Or maybe it just didn't appeal to them because they were interested in other fields of learning. So what could they know about the value of CM throughout a person's life? This seems so inevitable now. A relatively few people, who I guess weren't the CM type, are deciding where the money is best spent.

The music teachers probably know, and other teachers also, but they're very different people than the decision-makers, who are driven to help children be prepared to make a living later on.

What does appreciating CM have to do with making a living? Nothing. But it's very different from pursuing painting or dancing or architecture. There is no parallel here to those 'activities', active pursuits.

It's true that a few rare people can begin appreciating CM on their own with no music theory classes during the crucial years, 13 for girls and 14 from boys according to a new study.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It probably won't die, seeing as everything is becoming Westernized. I don't see any other culture which has had such a sustained progress and power as the West, even if it is ancient, because my Sherman tank trumps your dirty loin cloth.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

> Granted the Londons, Berlins, New Yorks and Chicagos are all likely to survive anything and they are home to millions but not home to more.
> 
> And, as I've argued many times, it is the declining quality of new classical music being written that has led its decline in the past 30 years. There just isn't anything out there leading a new public, and especially a new young public, to the musicculture.


Berlin is doing something smart. They broadcast their concerts live over the Internet for a subscription rate of about $135 per year or shorter term if you prefer. I believe the Vienna State Opera Orchestra does the same thing and I'd like to hear if any other orchestras do that.

I'm not one who particularly loves new music or needs to hear it at every concert, but I heard an impressive work by a young composer named Lembit Beecher last year played by the Juilliard Quartet.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

People were moaning about the decline in the popularity of classical music 50 years ago. But the only thing that has changed for the worse in the 50+ years I have been listening to classical music is that it is no longer seen as something that an educated person should know something about. In the past a little knowledge was expected but this did not translate into a greater number of people who actually enjoyed it. This change has had many effects - the media is less likely to cover it, for example, and it is widely seen as a sort of elite pursuit - but its popularity is not declining as far as I can see. Indeed this is as good a time as I have known to be a classical music fan. The orchestras are better. The choice of recordings is greatly expanded. There are so many composers of all sorts of styles vying for our attention. And all of this despite big reductions in public spending to support the art. It is true that our ways of accessing music have changed but this has little to do with the popularity of classical music.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> People were moaning about the decline in the popularity of classical music 50 years ago. But the only thing that has changed for the worse in the 50+ years I have been listening to classical music is that it is no longer seen as something that an educated person should know something about. In the past a little knowledge was expected but this did not translate into a greater number of people who actually enjoyed it. This change has had many effects - the media is less likely to cover it, for example, and it is widely seen as a sort of elite pursuit - but its popularity is not declining as far as I can see. Indeed this is as good a time as I have known to be a classical music fan. The orchestras are better. The choice of recordings is greatly expanded. There are so many composers of all sorts of styles vying for our attention. And all of this despite big reductions in public spending to support the art. It is true that our ways of accessing music have changed but this has little to do with the popularity of classical music.


great post.

Sure more folks are into CM today,, but then the world pop past 60 yrs has increased 30%. + this inflated money supply has led to more leisure time and hobby money for concert attendance.
But agree, CM among the wealthy is on the declne,,,Love of money does not mix at all with love of CM, both are opposities. 
Can not love both at the same time. There are 10 X's the # of Gold lovers than CM fans. 
Not good for a healthy future for The High Art.

Public spending? 
No the less we have of gov money in the High Art, the much better all off we are.
The Gov has no bus in The High Art.

IMHO, love of gold has brought on the demise of fondness for The High Art. Commercialism , consumerism, socialism, all are the bane of The High Art These anti-spirit isms, which have plagued the USA for over 100 yrs now, have destroyed the soul's ability to appreciate The High Art. 
In this anarchy , may I say antichrist epoch, The High Art is barely a blip on the radar of the strugglers to survive,,,just one more day.
Yet incomprehensible, is the fact that The High Art offers the only respite and resistance to the Blob of zombieism.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Luchesi said:


> 'The other problem is of course that it is no longer taught in the schools like it once was and considered part of holistic education. There's less music taught in school starting in elementary school that is more educationally based and guided."
> 
> This is an interesting outcome CM enthusiasts have seen firsthand. The decision makers and policy makers of today probably didn't get much music in their early years. Or maybe it just didn't appeal to them because they were interested in other fields of learning. So what could they know about the value of CM throughout a person's life? This seems so inevitable now. A relatively few people, who I guess weren't the CM type, are deciding where the money is best spent.
> 
> ...


Good post,
CM is the last thing The USA EDU Industry has on its agenda. 
The powers that be, have little concern for CM, its just not something they equate with EDU. 
Yet CM is the one thing which can offer, healing, balance, and development to a young student.

Music has power to transform and renew the soul. 
A school with CM playing at subliminal levels in the hall ways, cafeteria, will be the 1 that will never see a school rampage.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Did the Philadelphia orchestra recover? Are they still performing?_

They recovered, even opened a new hall. They are one of many orchestras here and in Europe in the new world of lessened government and corporate financial support.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Luchesi said:


> What does appreciating CM have to do with making a living? Nothing. But it's very different from pursuing painting or dancing or architecture. There is no parallel here to those 'activities', active pursuits.


I don't understand your point here.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Open Book said:


> I don't understand your point here.


I think he means to say, CM, in the eyes of the powers that be, has little redeemable value in terms of makinga career.

Painting, dancing, Jung has said, is a great way for soul expression and therapy.

But Luch seems to say, these 2 are architecture, none of these 3 art forms, offer the potential powers hidden within the CM High Art.

I agree, Jung hardly ever directly mentions that The High Art is the preeminent venue for developing character and thus leading to a well rounded INDIVIDUAL, thus finding a suitable career. 
CM is the best thing a student can experience in order to achieve his financial goals of a successful career.


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## nospoonboy (Jan 27, 2016)

I have degrees in both music and history (I am a history teacher by profession) and I am consistently surprised by how much the past is idealized and romanticized. As many others have already pointed out, your question has some embedded presuppositions. 
You claim that classical music was more "widespread" in the past. What metric are you using here?

If you are going by "widespread" we have more access to music now than any past generation. The music available on youtube or spotify is more extensive than probably any single record collection of any individual or library 50 years ago.

It's the same with people who say, "people don't read these days..." when in fact more books are published now than any time in history and literacy rates have been going up over the last 100 years. 

The average worker was not going around humming Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. And outside of the population of major cities, how many people do you think had ever attended an opera or symphony performance? 

This music was the music of the elite and a select few that had geographical access to musical performances.
Radio, vinyl, and eventually the internet spread culture and music far and wide...and globalization has only increased this process.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

paulbest said:


> Public spending?
> No the less we have of gov money in the High Art, the much better all off we are.
> The Gov has no bus in The High Art.


Until the mid-19th century, pretty much _all _High Art was subsidized by government, royalty, or the Church.
Fine with me


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

nospoonboy said:


> I have degrees in both music and history (I am a history teacher by profession) and I am consistently surprised by how much the past is idealized and romanticized. As many others have already pointed out, your question has some embedded presuppositions.
> You claim that classical music was more "widespread" in the past. What metric are you using here?
> 
> If you are going by "widespread" we have more access to music now than any past generation. The music available on youtube or spotify is more extensive than probably any single record collection of any individual or library 50 years ago.
> ...


Good post, and remember the most popular composers in their epoch, had the spot light on him, most of the time,,,I mean to say, pre 1900, we could list top 20 composers from 1700-1900, and the list would include every major + a few minors. 
But if we start st 1900- 2000 , list majors,,,it would be top 200 major composers, and there might be only a scant few minor composers making the list. 
point is, folks back pre 1900, did not have much competing musical venues, there was no jazz, pop, reggie, blues and such. The concert hall, was the only medium offered for music.

Agree, the elite, upper class were the supporters of CM back in the day.

We all must remember the USA Zeitgeist is programed, geared away from the High Art and this machine has only 1 objective, the sterilization of the masses.

I recall back in the late 50's, there was this mass release of the Krips/Vienna Beethoven set, on thick LP's. We played them,,,then later on in the mid 60's, we used the LP's as flying saucers in the park,,,we saw the moveies with flying saucers and figured the LP's would make really cool, flying objects. That's all they were good for, as the scratches made them unlistenable.

The High Arts just is another object in a world of physical objects. The inner mind has become des-sensitized to great art.

Lets say there was a free concert in Central park, the NYPO, performaing selections of Elliott Carter, Schnitttke, Pettersson,,and 1 more,,,,,and say Henze.

I wonder how many folks would next day place amazon orders on all 4 composers...and how many just went, as they really *had nothing going on that day,,and the weather was just too beautiful to be stuck inside...*.

Yeah the crowd was big, but where is the benefit to the musicians who performed?

Their sacrifice of free time, how will this pay their bills?

No, as I see things, the USA agenda to make every ignore the High Arts and thus to ONLY pay attention to The Almighty $ Agenda.

The USA is fragmenting in every nook of its society. The High Arts is caught in this perplexing , twisted, conundrum.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

MarkW said:


> Until the mid-19th century, pretty much _all _High Art was subsidized by government, royalty, or the Church.
> Fine with me


yeah all these monies were stolen from the beaten down poor. All powers back then robbed the victimized poor. 
Subsidies = money of the impoverished.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

It's big in China and Japan. Just like the movie industry became huge in China also. China is the largest consumer of pianos. Once a crime to listen to Beethoven. The story is quite striking.

"Conductor of the Shanghai Symphony Lu Hongen was also arrested. Days before his execution, he told his cell mate: "Visit Austria, the home of music. Go to Beethoven's tomb and lay a bouquet of flowers. And tell Beethoven that his disciple is in China.""

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...n-what-western-classical-music-means-in-china


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Classical music will always be with us - stop worrying.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

paulbest said:


> yeah all these monies were stolen from the beaten down poor. All powers back then robbed the victimized poor.
> Subsidies = money of the impoverished.


You seem not to have heard of progressive taxation (whereby the more you have the more you pay and the poor pay little or nothing)? Subsidies can ensure that merit rather than popularity gets supported and can make, for example, classical concerts affordable for poorer people.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

The Bach Guild recently released one of their new $. 99 box downloads and they are saying it was the #2 purchased download on Amazon for several days. Right up there with the rapping hip hop people!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

For the time being, as a CD collector, I'm glad Classical is not more popular, because there are some great CD buys out there right now.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> You seem not to have heard of progressive taxation (whereby the more you have the more you pay and the poor pay little or nothing)? Subsidies can ensure that merit rather than popularity gets supported and can make, for example, classical concerts affordable for poorer people.


When I go to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the program has several pages of big-money donors, including really rich people (with their tax-exempt philanthropic foundations!) who give hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. I expect that other orchestras and music programs are similarly subsidized. In the United States anyway. In the US, arts programs do not get a lot of government funding at all.

I personally would rather that there were no super rich people to begin with, but if we're going to tolerate them, they may as well fund some nice arts programs. (BSO tickets are still pretty expensive though!)


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

The super rich have their uses. I find it amusing that the Koch brothers contribute to public TV programming. They are acknowledged during science shows "Nova" and "Nature". I assume their contributions aren't affecting the way the science is presented.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Open Book said:


> The super rich have their uses. I find it amusing that the Koch brothers contribute to public TV programming. They are acknowledged during science shows "Nova" and "Nature". I assume their contributions aren't affecting the way the science is presented.


Well, they have other ways using their donations to affect the way science is used. They're also huge political donors and have made their fortunes in fossil fuels.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

As someone who lives in Chicago and who patronizes various orchestras in the area, I feel like I have some insights to offer.

"Classical Music" is much broader in the public's mind than in the minds of hobbyists. "Classical" includes pops and movie concerts, which are extraordinarily well-attended and profitable for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We also have a nearly century-long tradition of free summer concerts in Grant Park, and the ones that by far are the biggest draws are Broadways and pops. With that said, the other concerts usually fill up as well, and there is a distinctive pattern: Broadway and Pops draw the most, Romantic music the second most, classical/baroque and chamber works next down the list, and modern or premiere works the least.

This tells me that there is a consistent appetite for "classical music" broadly construed. It will survive no matter what. Whether it retains popularity and profitability depends on how the programming suits popular tastes. There was a time when "classical music" was the most popular attraction in a town, and composers followed fashionable trends. To some extend the idea of a "repertoire" or "canon," or that "classical music" should be stuffy and intellectual, may be hindering the music's popularity. I don't know many people outside of this forum who would find the idea of a night full of Schoenberg, Webern, and Corigliano to be very appealing, especially if it cost $60 per seat.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> People were moaning about the decline in the popularity of classical music 50 years ago. But the only thing that has changed for the worse in the 50+ years I have been listening to classical music is that it is no longer seen as something that an educated person should know something about. In the past a little knowledge was expected but this did not translate into a greater number of people who actually enjoyed it


Reminds me a bit of what Kenneth Clarke says at the end of his Civilisation documentary:



> Of course there has been a little flattening at the top. But you know, one mustn't overrate the culture of what used to be called 'top people' before the wars. They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans. They knew a little about literature, less about music, nothing about art, and less than nothing about philosophy. The members of a music group or an art group at a provincial university today would be ten times better informed and more alert.


It's an interesting point, just how superficial the high culture of Old Europe was in its learning.

At any rate, I'm thankful to live in an age where at the click of a mouse I can converse about classical music with dozens of passionate, diverse, highly informed people from around the world. How many people had that luxury in 1920 or 1970?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

A better question would be: Was classical music _ever _as popular as it used to be?


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> The Bach Guild recently released one of their new $. 99 box downloads and they are saying it was the #2 purchased download on Amazon for several days. Right up there with the rapping hip hop people!


This week Bach Guild released another box set that is listed: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40 Paid in Albums. That's not a bad thing for old, dead music. It beats out the bruno mars and the jonas brothers in pink pants.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

MarkW said:


> A better question would be: Was classical music _ever _as popular as it used to be?


No - it wasn't and you're very correct in pointing it out. It has always been valued and actively pursued by a very small minority. When I was in high school 50 years ago, I didn't know anyone who, like me, went to the local symphony concerts, listened to classical radio, collected records and scores, and read biographies of great composers. No one! And this was in a school in a relatively wealthy part of town - Scottsdale. Now, all these years later, I know a lot of others who listen, attend concerts and play in orchestras. That's good. I know only one other person who is as rabid a collector as I. Between the two of us we could stock a really good classical music store. I am the ONLY person I know who subscribes to classical magazines like American Record Guide, Gramophone, or BBC Music. That's the way it goes...


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_This week Bach Guild released another box set that is listed: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40 Paid in Albums._

I don't know if this sold out digitally but when I looked at it I could only see tracks, not the whole thing.

I've bought a couple of those previously. For 99 cents they are always good buys.

As to the popularity of classical music, I've always heard 3 percent of the market for all music and the number being fairly stable over time.

Not sure if that is true of legend -- like the infamous 2 percent model: 2 percent of people see sports live, the other 98 percent on TV, etc.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> No, it won't, unless it's as a part of a larger turn back toward the idea of a "canon" of Western culture, which was formerly considered foundational to a cultural identity now in the process of dissolving as a result of communications and the movement of peoples.


I don't really understand that argument. 
Sure, communications are greater nowadays, but so were they during the Baroque period compared to the early middle ages.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Classical music seems to be about as popular as the 3% who’ve always enjoyed it. Only the faces have changed from one generation to the next to protect the innocent. In 20 years, it’ll be a different 3% until the factories and noxious gas emissions get us all. Then it’s a matter of whether Beethoven or Black Sabbath is played in heaven or in that Other Place down below.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Tchaikovskyisthebest said:


> What do you think? Will classical music ever become as widespread as it was, say 100 or even 50 years ago? Or has pop and rock taken over the world forever?


No, as I stated below.

How could CM ever be as popular as Beethoven has past 200 years?
Impossible...
Now with a catalogue of over~~~ TEN THOUSAND~~~ CLASSICAL MUSIC COMPOSERS,,how is it possible there are even 10 in the 10K as great as Beethoven has been past 200 years?

I am the philosopher here on TC, though not apprectiated, understood, nor accepted. ,,,at least my posts are perhaps the most provocative and far reaching.

If I have nothing interesting , nor has experience based ideas,,I will not say anything.

But here , as I just researched, Boulez/Stockhausen, and Henze available records,,,,,,seems there are 10K other composersb just waiting to be discovered,,,
Yet if Henze has even yet to be discovered,,,what does this , lack of interest in the CM community, equate to all other 1qK waiting in line?

In 100 yrs, most if not 99% will have been forgotten.

In 100 yrs The High Art will have fallen on deaf eras, as the souls of that group will be near dead in esthetics.

This the end result of matererialism worship, the greed factor, The almighty $ will have killed off any desire to know the High Art form.

Henze may havea following at that time epoch,,,Stock and Boulez's music most likely will be heard for what IT IS, and reduced to ashes. 
Berio, Ligeti's stardom will fall fast,,,,
There will be only a rare few who will seek the High Art,,and these few will know what is the real deal,,and what is the fake. 
This generation today, lacks a refined sensibility and a level of musical experience which acts a judge betwixt the real and the bilious fluff.

Those rare few in 100 yrs will not be fooled by tricks and gimmicks, as are so many today.

Well , blame it on the materialism factor, The love on THIS world as opposed to the realms of The High Art.

The musical schools are just the last refuge of the dying Low Art...Low Art is most every composers pre 1900. 
With a few rare exceptions.

Bach is considered by many as *the god*,,,Yet if you go look at the cd collection of these Bach and Beethovenites,,,you will not find much in 20TH C High Art.

Its almost like they are living in a dead past, and can not find a way to be reborn into this present.

Materialism has brought low the souls 's ability to hear the True High Art. 
Man is dead. 
AND HE DOES NOT KNOW IT.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

As many people 100,200 years ago were fooled by tricks and gimmicks as are today. Look at the musical "hit parade" of any given instant and compare with what contemporaneous music has lasted.


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