# Will classical music ever become popular again?



## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

Since the beginning of the 20th century, classical music has been increasingly displaced by popular music. This development is still going on, even the Internet could not counteract it. 

People sometimes argue that classical music cannot appeal to most people because it's too complex or esoteric, but when you look at the past, this isn't true at all. In the 19th century much of classical music was very popular with the people. Just think about Beethoven: His funeral was a huge event that was attended by thousands of people, even the schools in Vienna were closed for it! Liszt was also treated like a pop star. So this music definitely has the potential for mass appeal. 

So can you imagine that classical music will become as popular again as it was in the 19th century?

What do you think would need to happen for classical music to become relevant to the people again?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Its popularity has been increasing recently, according to the RPO, BPI and Deezer:

https://www.rpo.co.uk/about/news-pr...cal-streamers-worldwide-in-the-last-12-months

The report:

https://www.bpi.co.uk/media/2518/the-classical-revival-2020_final.pdf


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

The question is wrong. It never was popular, which is why music is characterized as ‘Classical’, ‘Pop’, ‘Jazz’, etc. It was more respected than it is now by the General Public. A few generations of using it as background music for on hold, elevators, etc hasn’t helped. The absence of a requirement to learn to play an instrument in order to hear music in the home has decreased the appreciation of all Music. And the hegemony of rock and roll killed off many genres, such as Broadway Musicals, Classical, Jazz….


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## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

The paradox of saying "Pop/rock is so much more popular than classical" is that many pop/rock musicians like classical and often borrow themes.

On YouTube comments I often see comments from younger listeners who like at least a few works. Classical may be appreciated more than we realize.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_What do you think would have to happen for classical music to become relevant to the people again?_

I think for new classical music to become mainstream relevant the first thing is there would have to be a return of melody, a musical form that has been increasingly discarded by many forms of music including a lot of popular music and a lot of film music.

Think of any song or tune or piece of music that is dear to you, that you know from memory and hum to yourself, and see if it has a memorable melody.

This topic was briefly discussed by the "Inside the Score" series:






Aside from this I think it would also have to be fun or entertaining or something along those lines. The idea of too much seriousness in classical music has also been played out to great extent around here and elsewhere. Its growing seriousness rather coincided with its disappearance in popular culture.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

larold said:


> _What do you think would have to happen for classical music to become relevant to the people again?_
> 
> I think for new classical music to become mainstream relevant the first thing is there would have to be a return of melody, a musical form that has been increasingly discarded by many forms of music including a lot of popular music and a lot of film music.
> 
> ...


_If _film music has 'discarded melody' (I don't think it has), does it matter? Film music is written for a specific purpose, and its incidental nature relates to the images, emotions and events on screen. I'm very happy that such music doesn't necessarily focus on melody for its effect.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The most popular film composer of our time, John Williams, is so embedded in popular culture his music played at halftime of my local school's football games and by my local professional orchestra. Film music may not be classical music but it is closer to it and an easier pathway to it than popular music.

Williams music relies on melody, arc, sonata and other traditional forms -- the reason for his popularity. Themes like those from Superman and Star Wars are well-known by young people because the music has stayed alive in popular culture the past 40 years unlike almost everything written by classical music composers the past 40 years.

Had classical music itself not abandoned these forms it too would have a greater following...instead of the decline that has occurred.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Why do you want Classical music to be more popular? Usually the more popular music becomes the more compromised it is artistically. If your standard is John Williams, that is not an improvement or even a continuation on Shostakovich, but a retreat to populism.

IMO, I prefer having Classical music remain a niche preoccupation, but with the artistic quality intact.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

larold said:


> The most popular film composer of our time, John Williams, is so embedded in popular culture his music played at halftime of my local school's football games and by my local professional orchestra. Film music may not be classical music but it is closer to it and an easier pathway to it than popular music.
> 
> Williams music relies on melody, arc, sonata and other traditional forms -- the reason for his popularity. Themes like those from Superman and Star Wars are well-known by young people because the music has stayed alive in popular culture the past 40 years unlike almost everything written by classical music composers the past 40 years.
> 
> Had classical music itself not abandoned these forms it too would have a greater following...instead of the decline that has occurred.


So, as exemplified by John Williams, film music hasn't abandoned melody.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> Why do you want Classical music to be more popular? Usually the more popular music becomes the more compromised it is artistically. If your standard is John Williams, that is not an improvement or even a continuation on Shostakovich, but a retreat to populism.
> 
> IMO, I prefer having Classical music remain a niche preoccupation, but with the artistic quality intact.


Classical music may enjoy a brief resurgence in sociaty in the future but it is the nature of life to move on, to progress.

It will become more and more niche.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_So, as exemplified by John Williams, film music hasn't abandoned melody._

Is like saying classical music hasn't abandoned it because Bach or Mozart use melody.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

This question has been asked and answered endlessly and there's not much to add. Classical music has become a niche product. There's nothing wrong with that. There will always be those few of us who really get into it, who really value it and recognize how powerful and thrilling great music can be. But to survive, it must change and do it quickly. Performers must break down the barriers that they created so that so many people think it's only for the wealthy elites.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

There has been a lot written about the "fall" of classical music and what must be done to resurrect it. I'm not sure anyone knows what changes or actions would increase the popularity. I think there so much competition from so many sources these days that a significant increase may be asking too much. Having said that, classical music may only be seriously listened to by a small percentage of the population, but the absolute numbers are still large.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> Performers must break down the barriers that they created so that so many people think it's only for the wealthy elites.


It's strange, because it seems like now, the wealthy elites are into pop and rock music, maybe a little hip hop. Am I missing something?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Classical music is not even _intended_ to be popular. It will never be popular, even in Alma Deutscher leads a tonal revolution.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

larold said:


> _So, as exemplified by John Williams, film music hasn't abandoned melody._
> 
> Is like saying classical music hasn't abandoned it because Bach or Mozart use melody.


No, it's like saying classical music hasn't abandoned melody, as exemplified by Eric Whitacre.

("Bach and Mozart" - I had no idea John Williams was so old!)


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I voted no, but I think that it _could_ be. In my opinion we in classical music urgently need that one composer who catalyses popular attention by making a step forward of his contemporaries in terms of artistic achievement. I see no Monteverdi, no Bach, no Mozart, no Beethoven, no Wagner and no Stravinsky in the nowadays' generation of composers. To me, it is as if the death of Shostakovich created a great vacuum and now we only have the Meyerbeers, the Spohrs, the Porporas and the Dittersdorfs of our days making classical music, or at least getting fame from it.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

No it won't.

Rap will be more popular than that.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> now we only have the Meyerbeers, the Spohrs, the Porporas and the Dittersdorfs of our days making classical music, or at least getting fame from it.


One would wish for at least a new Mussorgsky


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I know I'm in the minority, but I personally don't care if it's popular or not. I grew up being the only young person around who was actually interested in it. I knew other people my age who played instruments, but even they didn't seem to be that interested in listening to it (and many simply wrote it off as "study music"). But it made me unique and oddly enough, it always seemed to impress people when I expressed my interest in it. 

I would like to see an ongoing appreciation for classical music. I do not want to see symphony halls shutter and I am always encouraged by young people playing it and appreciating it. But I don't need or even want it to have the popularity of Top 40 radio music.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> One would wish for at least a new Mussorgsky


The _how_ to make classical music has become too complex. I think that the new Mussorgskys wouldn't stand a chance, unfortunately.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

chipia said:


> Since the beginning of the 20th century, classical music has been increasingly displaced by popular music. This development is still going on, even the Internet could not counteract it.
> 
> People sometimes argue that classical music cannot appeal to most people because it's too complex or esoteric, but when you look at the past, this isn't true at all. In the 19th century much of classical music was very popular with the people. Just think about Beethoven: His funeral was a huge event that was attended by thousands of people, even the schools in Vienna were closed for it! Liszt was also treated like a pop star. So this music definitely has the potential for mass appeal.
> 
> ...


Your questions are based on a series of premises I do not agree with or think are supported by the historical record. But leaving all of that aside, I would say that classical music enjoyed a (relative) boom in popularity, in the US anyway, from roughly the 1920s through the 1960s. I think one thing that fueled this boom was the proliferation of the phonograph and broadcast radio. Suddenly, the symphony and opera, formerly available only to the wealthy elite in large urban centers except in the form of simple piano transcriptions that could be played in the home, became widely available at low cost to everyone, whether in a farmhouse or a cramped tenement apartment.

Ultimately, the rise of television brought so many new and different forms of entertainment to the masses, classical music increasingly got pushed further into the background. At the same time, the rise of electrical amplification completely changed western musical styles and tastes. Traditional 18th, 19th and early 20th century European classical music became virtually the last musical genre where hundreds or even thousands of people go to a concert hall to listen to unamplified singing and unamplified acoustic instruments. As Zubin Mehta once said, it survives as a museum, where a long and proud, but now past, historical cultural heritage is on full display.

So, my answer to your question would be, yes, "classical" music in the sense of serious art music intended to have lasting significance continues and will continue, and sometimes will even draw large audiences. But classical music in the sense of the European traditions of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Stravinsky, is done and gone forever, though its influence remains, much as Shakespeare's influence on English language, poetry and literature remains.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

eljr said:


> Classical music may enjoy a brief resurgence in sociaty in the future but it is the nature of life to move on, to progress.
> 
> It will become more and more niche.


I'm not sure this is true. According to this logic, do you also think that pop music will become niche?


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## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

chipia said:


> I'm not sure this is true. According to this logic, do you also think that pop music will become niche?


Plenty of pop/dance music forms from the past are already niche or completely forgotten.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

chipia said:


> I'm not sure this is true. According to this logic, do you also think that pop music will become niche?


Certain music styles have already become "niche". As the prog rockers die off, their creations of forty to fifty years ago are becoming part of musical history. Some genres will stick around. Others will wither on the vine. History will make that decision.

The problem with labelling, in the way it has historically been done, is that the labels paint with a very broad brush. "Baroque", for example, covers everything that was written between 1580 and 1750. Applying a label to more modern output would perhaps place Karl Jenkins, Sid Vicious and Cardi B under the same roof, depending on where one draws one's line in the sand. Only one of those is, IMO, worthy of consideration as a contributor to music. (Thought I'd better make that point.)

I think that what we call classical music is alive and kicking. Young performers are making the music their own, orchestras and choirs continue to attract an audience and people of all ages and backgrounds are discovering the classical repertoire, often as a result of digging deeper into their own regular choices and finding a classical root.

Classical music shares a stage, when it was once the only game in town. The great thing is that we live in the age of recording and the whole repertoire is available to us.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

fluteman said:


> So, my answer to your question would be, yes, "classical" music in the sense of serious art music intended to have lasting significance continues and will continue, and sometimes will even draw large audiences.


Can you give examples of such music, that draws large audiences?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

We have been down this road many times over the past fifteen years and in the end the discussions proved nothing.

One would really have to dumb down classical if they wanted it to compete with current popular music.

Even rock from the 1970's would have trouble competing with Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

chipia said:


> Can you give examples of such music, that draws large audiences?


Two instances spring instantly to mind. The Last Night of the Proms (good luck getting a ticket for that) and the Neujahrskonzert from Vienna.

Before Covid hit, I had started making a habit of attending concerts (bucket list item: See Beethoven's 9th live: DONE!!!). The venue was always very well attended. Hopefully, the lunacy will soon be over and concerts will once again feature on the calendar.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I didn't vote, because I think that the question is largely academic. 

The circumstances that Beethoven, Liszt and others lived under where vastly different to today. Obviously, there was no internet. The concert hall, a product of the industrial revolution, was a major part of opening up music to a new audience, the bourgeoisie. 

The piece for which Beethoven was most famous for was his early Septet. Apart from the transcriptions, Liszt hardly played his own music in public. After his retirement as a pianist, he did conduct his own music at Weimar, as well as that of others like Berlioz and Wagner. Comparatively few people would have heard his music even there.

These two cases illustrate how I see popularity as just being the tip of the iceberg, even for composers as famous as they were. How many just knew them by name? How many had actually heard their music? How many owned their scores? The numbers get less and less as you go along. 

This still exists today, and not only with regards to classical. However, digital technology means that in terms of absolute numbers, more people listen to more pieces of classical music than ever before. Even if we were to add up all the audiences of all the most popular classical musicians of the 19th century, the number would pale compared to the amount of people who access their music via digital means today.

Classical music won’t be popular in the same way, but that would only be a problem if we where back in the 19th century. The whole nature of music dissemination and consumption has changed. It doesn’t mean we have to dismiss the achievements of the past. The concert hall still exists, as does the railway. They’ve been joined by other changes and innovations, which means that we are the luckier for being able to enjoy the riches of the past as well as those of the present.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

it's art music, and a music that cares for art and quality produces in time things that are increasingly sophisticated and complex, and sophisticated and complex things tend to have less and less popularit. So it's hard for something like this to also remain popular. I guess that's what "You can't have your cake and eat it" means.

But I don't exclude that certain particular performers could have a certain degree of popularity, after all there are guys like Andre Rieu, Ludovico Einaudi, Giovanni Allevi that are indeed popular. The question is what is the artistic quality of their music.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

norman bates said:


> it's art music, and a music that cares for art and quality produces in time things that are increasingly sophisticated and complex, and sophisticated and complex things tend to have less and less popularit. So it's hard for something like this to also remain popular. I guess that's what "You can't have your cake and eat it" means.


But as I've shown in the OP, complex and sophisticated music actually WAS popular in the 19th century. So I don't think that complexity explains the musics vanishing appeal.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

As some have noted, the question is fallacious. Though perhaps respected in earlier times, art music has never been wholly popular with the masses. It remains a niche product to this day and that’s perfectly fine by me. Besides, what would we have to complain about on TC if not for the detumescent state of popular music? Good music needs terrible music as much as the rich need the poor—one cannot exist without the other.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> As some have noted, the question is fallacious. Though perhaps respected in earlier times, art music has never been wholly popular with the masses. It remains a niche product to this day and that's perfectly fine by me. Besides, what would we have to complain about on TC if not for the detumescent state of popular music? Good music needs terrible music as much as the rich need the poor-one cannot exist without the other.


Very elitist comment. The rich need the poor? No wonder the workers rose up!


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I just wanted to point out, this is a poll, and the 2 out of 20 who voted yes are probably quantum physicists.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I voted yes, because classical music was never popular, and it isn't popular now either. Mission accomplished!


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Conversation nowadays if you mention Classical on the streets:

"Bro! The concert was trippin"
"Concert. Do you guys like any Beethoven?" ... ... "Brahms?"
"Nah I don't play Pokemon Go."


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

Nereffid said:


> I voted yes, because classical music was never popular, and it isn't popular now either. Mission accomplished!


I'm not so sure, that classical music was never popular.

Here is a quote by eminent music historian Richard Taruskin, who actually suggests that classical music used to be popular with college students and record collectors:

_"When "High Fidelity" magazine begun, which was in the 1940s, there were whole lot of magazines for collectors. It was all classical music and there were several magazines like that - there was a "High Fidelity", "Stereo Review", "The American Record Guide", and there still are a couple in Britain - "The Gramophone" for example. *It was taken for granted that serious record collectors were collecting classical music but in the 1980s (I should say late 1970s, 1980s) there was an enormous change *in consumption patterns for music. Things actually begun to change in the 1960s. This is something that sociologists studied. *People who used to give up listening to popular music for classical music or jazz when they went to college (because those were grown up kinds of music) - stopped doing that .* It goes back to the time of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. It became intellectually respectable to listen to popular music in 1960s. So the effect of it was that the magazines that had been formed devoted to classical music now had to share space with popular music."_


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

1. The absolute popularity of classical music was never higher then now. The reason is better availability because of discs and the internet. And also much more people live today than in previous centuries.

2. The relative popularity of classical music is lower today. Popular music has benefited more from modern technical developments and changes in society. But as part of popular culture (like in films and in video games) classical music can be popular today too. It is more a specific problem of concert music and especially of atonal music.

3. Popular culture will decline when it's social foundations fail. I expect a collapse of society before the year 2100. Reasons are: Climate change, Overaging, Overpopulation, Migration, the decline of intellect, and possibly also a lack of raw materials and nuclear wars if it goes really bad. Things will change drastically and there will be no room for todays way of life. This will hit all kinds of art but probably especially todays art. But there will be more important things to worry about than classical music.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Wow. This discussion has so many twists and turns, from film scores, John Williams, technology, distribution, competing music genres, culture development . . . 

Classical Music has been popular, and will continue on being popular. Does everyone like it? Of course not; not everyone likes bell peppers, yet they continue to be popular.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> I voted yes, because classical music was never popular, and it isn't popular now either. Mission accomplished!


Right. And yet, every now and then it continues to make a big splash in popular culture. For example, in film scores, such as those of Michael Nyman for The Piano, John Corigliano for The Red Violin, and Tan Dun for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. As technology continues to march forward, movie theaters continue to disappear and online entertainment continues to increase in importance, we'll see some worthy serious music in that arena as well. But it will never, or almost never, lead the hit parade.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

fluteman said:


> Right. And yet, every now and then it continues to make a big splash in popular culture. For example, in film scores, such as those of Michael Nyman for The Piano, John Corigliano for The Red Violin, and Tan Dun for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. As technology continues to march forward, movie theaters continue to disappear and online entertainment continues to increase in importance, we'll see some worthy serious music in that arena as well. But it will never, or almost never, lead the hit parade.


If Nereffid is right, then how do you explain the quote from Richard Taruskin, one of todays most respected music historians? It's in my last post.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ORigel said:


> Classical music is not even _intended_ to be popular. It will never be popular, even in Alma Deutscher leads a tonal revolution.


A tonal revolution? This absolutely one of the most ridiculous statements I've read on this forum. Tonal music NEVER died.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

As for the poll, I voted "No". Classical music will never be loved by the masses and it shouldn't be. I'm thinking here of a Schoenberg quote: "If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art."


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

chipia said:


> But as I've shown in the OP, complex and sophisticated music actually WAS popular in the 19th century. So I don't think that complexity explains the musics vanishing appeal.


Sure it was complex but it was still very melodic, catchy and tied to tonality, while in the 20th century there were a lot of innovations that made it even more complex (harmonically and ryhtmically) and there was also a radical aesthetic shift, that made a lot of those innovations much more an acquired taste that is often a lot less immediate and requires familiarity (I'm not saying that all avantgarde is great music and that if the listener doesn't appreciate is necessarily his fault, but that's another story). Also composers went in a lot of different directions, unlike with music in the previous centuries, so that requires even more time. And on the other hand, radios and tvs often promoting very low quality and simple music has had an impact on what audiences listen, want and expect. Put the two things together, a music that is difficult and not immediate and on the other hand an audience accostumed to the most trivial music. I know I'm generalizing a lot, but since popularity means large audience so that's why I don't think that as a whole classical music could be what say, rap has been in the last decades ,or rock before it.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

pianozach said:


> Wow. This discussion has so many twists and turns, from film scores, John Williams, technology, distribution, competing music genres, culture development . . .
> 
> Classical Music has been popular, and will continue on being popular. Does everyone like it? Of course not; not everyone likes bell peppers, yet they continue to be popular.


I think that when Chipia says popular he means like the same piece listened by billions of people. Or even if it's not at Despacito/Gangnam style level of popularity, something that is known by a large part of the population. Classical music, especially aside the famous warhorses, is a very niche genre with a very limited appeal especially to the young generations.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

The idea gets thrown around sometimes that classical music is a dinosaur that's stuck around far too long and is waiting to die off. I disagree. I think CM is going to be around for the long haul because of the insitutions of conservatories and the industru instelf, which creates a lot of comptetition between musicians and composers to get to the top. I think people just like being good at their instruments too much and if prestige is there to be attained, people are always going to clamor for it.

Thats why I dont think CM in and of itself will die off, but a love and appreciation of deeper repretoire. If the piece's aren't suited to displaying virtuosic skills or aren't already cemented as staples in the repretoire, it'll go to the wayside. Maybe that's just me being overly cynical but I have a gut feeling I'm right.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> The idea gets thrown around sometimes that classical music is a dinosaur that's stuck around far too long and is waiting to die off. I disagree. I think CM is going to be around for the long haul because of the insitutions of conservatories and the industru instelf, which creates a lot of comptetition between musicians and composers to get to the top. I think people just like being good at their instruments too much and if prestige is there to be attained, people are always going to clamor for it.
> 
> Thats why I dont think CM in and of itself will die off, but a love and appreciation of deeper repretoire. If the piece's aren't suited to displaying virtuosic skills or aren't already cemented as staples in the repretoire, it'll go to the wayside. Maybe that's just me being overly cynical but I have a gut feeling I'm right.


Even though I disagree with you, I liked your post, as it was intelligent and reasonable, and you included legitimate factual support. The reason I disagree is that even though technical virtuosity is an important and fundamental element of a wide variety of musical genres, classical and not, western and not, modern and not, it is not and never will be the only important and fundamental element. Also, conservatories (note the word "conserve", as in maintaining and preserving old musical traditions), and the commercial music industry as a whole, don't control the basic long-term trends. Eventually, mavericks come along who depart from the norm, attract the audience, and, painfully slow as it may sometimes seem, force everyone to adopt new paradigms.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

JTS said:


> Very elitist comment. The rich need the poor? No wonder the workers rose up!


Elitist? Who cares? It's the truth. As for workers rising up-it didn't really make an iota of a difference, did it? Workers are still being exploited today. Capitalism as we know it in the west could not exist otherwise. The existence of the working class is responsible for the capitalist elite's chief pleasure-the illusion of superiority over those who cannot afford bare necessities, much less luxuries.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

arpeggio said:


> One would really have to dumb down classical if they wanted it to compete with current popular music.


:lol: If I made a comment like that I'd get a slap on the wrist for trolling and negativity. Not to mention several indignant rebukes. "Can you _prove_ that pop music is 'dumb'? What's 'dumb'? How can you compare apples and walnuts? Isn't that an elitist thing to say? Pop music today requires every bit as much intelligence and skill to produce as any other kind of music in music history. Are you saying the Art of Fugue is somehow 'superior' to Korean court music, Chinese opera or the gamelan? For shame. Can you find even one post where someone ever said pop music was 'more intelligent way back when'? I'll be waiting. Can you _prove empirically_ that 60s Motown is 'better' and somehow less 'dumb' (whatever that means)?"... And on and on.


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

Sid James said:


> Apart from the transcriptions, Liszt hardly played his own music in public.


Any source for that?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

arpeggio said:


> One would really have to dumb down classical if they wanted it to compete with current popular music.


Fortunately, they are not competitors, so neither needs to change into something else.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Livly_Station said:


> Any source for that?


This type comment, I do not understand. If you disagree, why not cite evidence to the contrary? It is apparently true that until Liszt retired from his life as a touring virtuoso pianist in 1847, his transcriptions were the main feature of his recitals. For example, Schonberg cites the program from an actual recital he gave in St. Petersburg: "his transcription of Rossini's William Tell overture, his fantasy on Mozart's Don Giovanni, his transcription of Schubert's Erlkonig and Beethoven's Adelaide, and his Galop Chromatique." At one point, Chopin famously criticized him for "climbing Parnassus on another man's Pegasus." Of course, he was composing some of his greatest music while he was still touring.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

fluteman said:


> This type comment, I do not understand. If you disagree, why not cite evidence to the contrary? It is apparently true that until Liszt retired from his life as a touring virtuoso pianist in 1847, his transcriptions were the main feature of his recitals. For example, Schonberg cites the program from an actual recital he gave in St. Petersburg: "his transcription of Rossini's William Tell overture, his fantasy on Mozart's Don Giovanni, his transcription of Schubert's Erlkonig and Beethoven's Adelaide, and his Galop Chromatique." At one point, Chopin famously criticized him for "climbing Parnassus on another man's Pegasus." Of course, he was composing some of his greatest music while he was still touring.


Liszt certainly performed his Beethoven transcriptions often and in some cases his performances were the only way some communities were exposed to Beethoven's symphonies. Also, despite the fact that these works are transcriptions, IMO, it does not take away from the artistry involved in these very idiomatic works for piano.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> Liszt certainly performed his Beethoven transcriptions often and in some cases his performances were the only way some communities were exposed to Beethoven's symphonies. Also, despite the fact that these works are transcriptions, IMO, it does not take away from the artistry involved in these very idiomatic works for piano.


Yes, to say the least. Chopin had to have been at least a little jealous, as apparently he wasn't comfortable appearing on stage and gave relatively few public recitals.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

fluteman said:


> This type comment, I do not understand. If you disagree, why not cite evidence to the contrary? It is apparently true that until Liszt retired from his life as a touring virtuoso pianist in 1847, his transcriptions were the main feature of his recitals.


I remember reading a Liszt biography long ago, and there was this anecdote; Liszt played his own compositions in public, broke a few strings of the piano while playing his etude, and Clara Schumann was disgusted by it. Supposedly this was before 1847; I think this was before Liszt dedicated his sonata to Robert, but I'm not entirely certain. Also, weren't the Hungarian rhapsodies the main staples of his repertoire as a travelling virtuoso?


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

fluteman said:


> This type comment, I do not understand. If you disagree, why not cite evidence to the contrary? It is apparently true that until Liszt retired from his life as a touring virtuoso pianist in 1847, his transcriptions were the main feature of his recitals. For example, Schonberg cites the program from an actual recital he gave in St. Petersburg: "his transcription of Rossini's William Tell overture, his fantasy on Mozart's Don Giovanni, his transcription of Schubert's Erlkonig and Beethoven's Adelaide, and his Galop Chromatique." At one point, Chopin famously criticized him for "climbing Parnassus on another man's Pegasus." Of course, he was composing some of his greatest music while he was still touring.


Everything alright, dude? Bad day today? Any problems at home?

I can't see what's the issue of asking someone for a source for their affirmation. *I'm not disagreeing*, I'm asking, which is different, just so you know. And I didn't try to be unpolite. Btw, he's not sharing an opinion, but making a factual statement, so I want to know where he read that. If he said it, he should be able to back it up. If he doesn't, that's fine, but I'm not wrong for asking. You are deeply misunderstanding with whom is the burden of proof.

I've always known that Liszt played other people's works. That's even obvious. But the statement was: _"Apart from the transcriptions, *Liszt hardly played his own music in public*"_, which is a completely different notion from what I had. It's particularly interesting because a lot Liszt's virtuosi compositions were made to be played live in his recitals, and even works like the first two sets of the _Années de Pèlerinage_ are, if I'm not mistaken, revised versions of pieces he used to play while touring (not all of it).


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Livly_Station said:


> Everything alright, dude? Bad day today? Any problems at home?
> 
> I can't see what's the issue of asking someone for a source for their affirmation. *I'm not disagreeing*, I'm asking, which is different, just so you know. And I didn't try to be unpolite. Btw, he's not sharing an opinion, but making a factual statement, so I want to know where he read that. If he said it, he should be able to back it up. If he doesn't, that's fine, but I'm not wrong for asking. You are deeply misunderstanding with whom is the burden of proof.
> 
> I've always known that Liszt played other people's works. That's even obvious. But the statement was: _"Apart from the transcriptions, *Liszt hardly played his own music in public*"_, which is a completely different notion from what I had. It's particularly interesting because a lot Liszt's virtuosi compositions were made to be played live in his recitals, and even works like the first two sets of the _Années de Pèlerinage_ are, if I'm not mistaken, revised versions of pieces he used to play while touring (not all of it).


I like this forum, and I've been here a while. But one of my pet peeves is this "What are your sources?" or "Give examples!" demands. The lives of the famous classical composers are well documented, not least because until very recently they lived in a time when people wrote letters. I recently read The Leonard Bernstein Letters, expertly edited by Nigel Simeone and published by Yale University Press. His was one of the last generations before e-mail and texting ruined the art of letter writing. Until his later years, when illness and personal problems began to take over and his letters became short and less informative, they reveal a great deal about his life and thinking. Of course, the letters written to him are interesting as well.

So, for Bernstein or earlier, you can see for yourself much of what was happening with the famous composers by reading books. Wikipedia may not be 100 percent reliable, but it is great for giving chronological lists of works. So it's easy to figure out that Liszt was skilled not only at writing, but in playing, transcriptions of the great and famous music of his predecessors in an exciting and convincing way, and had great success with that as a pianist on the concert stage. Even though today we are much more likely to remember his own greatest works, such as Années de pèlerinage and the B minor sonata.

I'm no expert in these things, but I'll do my own reading rather than challenge the scholarly research of anyone here. That's all. And today was a beautiful sunny day that I was alive for, so by definition it was a great day for me, thanks for asking. I hope it was for you too.


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

fluteman said:


> I like this forum, and I've been here a while. But one of my pet peeves is this "What are your sources?" or "Give examples!" demands.






> The lives of the famous classical composers are well documented, not least because until very recently they lived in a time when people wrote letters.


Excellent, because it means people can inform their sources. Thanks! :tiphat:


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Livly_Station said:


> Excellent, because it means people can inform their sources. Thanks! :tiphat:


Sigh. Maybe this site can be reformatted to allow posts to have footnotes and bibliographies. For those who want to spend time with that. Me, I'll do my own reading. YMMV.


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Sigh. Maybe this site can be reformatted to allow posts to have footnotes and bibliographies. For those who want to spend time with that. Me, I'll do my own reading. YMMV.


I'm pretty people can already do all that with the current format of the site. And, honestly, you're just overcomplicating something that's very simple and normal. It's part of a healthy exchange of knowledge to inform your sources if the other part asked for it -- and, here, it doesn't need follow all the bibliographical norms of an academic paper, since vague directions will suffice, like mentioning a particular book, or saying that it's just popular anecdotal knowledge. You're just helping the other person besides diminishing the possibility of passing forward bad info.

Since this is an informal place, nobody is obliged to answer, and the person may even have forgotten where they read it before, so that's fine. What I don't understand is your pet peeve, your issue with people asking for information. -- "Hey, boy, why don't you know this already? You should know! If you have a question, then go to the library and buy books. Have you read your books? Have you read ALL the books? You didn't! Oh, I have read my books.... but I won't share, no no no, so don't bother asking. Do your own research! Read your books! Which books? Well, that's a secret too..."


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

One of the dilemmas we have to face here are some of the rhetorical tactics that are employed by some of our more aggressive members.

One of them is that they ask a question they already know the answer to in order to be provocative.

Many time I have messed up because I have had problems with discerning a valid inquiry from a comment that is trying to provoke an argument


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Classical music _is _popular.

It supports orchestras throughout the world, with musicians who make six figure salaries. It supports a recording industry that continues to release albums all year every year. It supports YouTube videos that rack up millions of views.

As such, I reject the premise of the poll question.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

The fact that Classic FM can have 5.5 million listeners means there is a market for classical music, at least that which appeals. This was probably par for the course in the general population. We must remember that in the days of Caruso the record buying public would only buy the popular excerpts from the operas he recorded.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

I don't think that the question if Liszt only played transcriptions in public is even relevant to the topic. Even if he did, the transcriptions were still classical music, so that's no argument against classical music being popular in Liszt's time


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_It supports orchestras throughout the world, with musicians who make six figure salaries. It supports a recording industry that continues to release albums all year every year. It supports YouTube videos that rack up millions of views._

I agree it did this once but no more. Most orchestra, at least those in America, no longer pay six figure salaries. Some players can earn more doing extra things but no longer through their subscription program with an orchestra. Most orchestras have also shortened their seasons.

Recording contracts, which once supported orchestras worldwide travel, have also dried up because not many people any longer buy the hardcopy products from recordings. Streams do not support orchestras and barely support individual players.

The recording made today are mostly from small labels in very small runs, sometimes as few as 100 or less. Even the old giants like DG have invested more crossover (AKA non classical) music and use subcontractors to make their recordings.

YouTube is a great place to be a listener but no one in the music industry makes much from it. It is in fact one of the principal reasons the top two events have occurred -- no one needs to pay anyone for anything because now they can get it free -- the new mantra of the 21st century.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

larold said:


> _It supports orchestras throughout the world, with musicians who make six figure salaries. It supports a recording industry that continues to release albums all year every year. It supports YouTube videos that rack up millions of views._
> 
> I agree it did this once but no more. Most orchestra, at least those in America, no longer pay six figure salaries. Some players can earn more doing extra things but no longer through their subscription program with an orchestra. Most orchestras have also shortened their seasons.
> 
> ...


All of that is 100 percent true. However, there is a youtube channel run by two Australian classical violinists called TwoSetViolin with millions of subscribers that is successful, financially and otherwise. So much so, its two hosts have been able to do two live world performance tours to sold out houses in Asia, North America and Europe, and but for the pandemic would have done a third. They have long since quit their orchestra jobs and have a staff of employees helping them crank out hundreds of 10+ minute youtube videos a year (that being the minimum time to generate a higher level of youtube revenue).

The key is, they have hooked the all important 12 to 21 demographic that the 'experts' have long said cannot be made to listen to classical music, by being entertaining and good-humored, by not being elitist or condescending, and above all by linking classical music to the popular culture of today's youth in fun and creative ways. It helps that they are fluent in Chinese as well as English (both having Taiwanese backgrounds) and have a large Asian, as well as North (and even South) American and European fan base. And it isn't just a comedy act. They both play the violin on a high level, but are not egoists and cheerfully acknowledge the superiority of the likes of Hilary Hahn and Ray Chen, two of their frequent guests. (Fortunately, it turns out both Hahn and Chen have a sense of humor, as does Maxim Vengerov, another recent guest.)

So don't count out the survival of traditional classical music of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in our new world. It will continue to make periodic appearances in the popular culture world. It will continue to have an audience, just as there are still productions of Shakespeare's plays.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

larold said:


> _It supports orchestras throughout the world, with musicians who make six figure salaries. It supports a recording industry that continues to release albums all year every year. It supports YouTube videos that rack up millions of views._
> 
> I agree it did this once but no more. Most orchestra, at least those in America, no longer pay six figure salaries. Some players can earn more doing extra things but no longer through their subscription program with an orchestra. Most orchestras have also shortened their seasons.
> 
> ...


These things can all be true and not impact the question of classical music's popularity. The fact that people want it for free is a perfect indication of its popularity.

FWIW, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra recently ratified a 5 year contract that brings the base salary to $181,272.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

//So can you imagine that classical music will become as popular again as it was in the 19th century?//

No. But it's probably doing better than jazz.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

So in response to ‘Apart from the transcriptions, Liszt hardly played his own music in public.’, there is a request to cite sources. The response to that is essentially: you are committing a faux pas for asking for sources, why not go find your own evidence to the contrary.

Are you serious? When it comes to a discussion on facts regarding the history of classical music and it’s composers and artists, absolute statements of fact mean nothing without a source; they are just anecdotes. Unfortunately, absolute statements of (alleged) fact about some important things are far too common at TC. Sometimes, it’s about innocuous things, which I’m sure we’re all guilty of. But still, make an unsourced statement of alleged fact, expect a request for a source.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

MatthewWeflen said:


> Classical music _is _popular.
> 
> It supports orchestras throughout the world, with musicians who make six figure salaries. It supports a recording industry that continues to release albums all year every year.


I think there is a problem with the classical industry having been extraordinary lucrative for some people for a few decades in the "golden age" of recordings between the 1950s and 1990s, and this led to unrealistic expectations in the last 25 years. 
But earlier, say around 1900 or even in the age of shellac, I don't think any classical musician became as fabulously rich as Karajan or maybe a few more in the 1960s. There just is not enough leverage without comparably cheap mass media.
But Classical music existed and did well when most of its musicians were just making an ordinary living and there was no big industry around it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Livly_Station said:


> Any source for that?


No worries, you're right to ask. I thought it was common knowledge of the sort that Mahler hardly conducted his own music.. I've come across that sort of information on Liszt in reference books, liner notes and in an interview with Leslie Howard.



fluteman said:


> This type comment, I do not understand. If you disagree, why not cite evidence to the contrary? It is apparently true that until Liszt retired from his life as a touring virtuoso pianist in 1847, his transcriptions were the main feature of his recitals. For example, Schonberg cites the program from an actual recital he gave in St. Petersburg: "his transcription of Rossini's William Tell overture, his fantasy on Mozart's Don Giovanni, his transcription of Schubert's Erlkonig and Beethoven's Adelaide, and his Galop Chromatique." At one point, Chopin famously criticized him for "climbing Parnassus on another man's Pegasus." Of course, he was composing some of his greatest music while he was still touring.


Its very kind of you, fluteman for answering the question on my behalf. I appreciate that, thank you. I have read that book but I didn't have it specifically in mind. I was just going from memory, but it provides background for what I was saying.



SanAntone said:


> Liszt certainly performed his Beethoven transcriptions often and in some cases his performances were the only way some communities were exposed to Beethoven's symphonies. Also, despite the fact that these works are transcriptions, IMO, it does not take away from the artistry involved in these very idiomatic works for piano.


Liszt revolutionized piano technique, and his transcriptions and paraphrases are an important part of that legacy. He also established the public recital, with its mix of old and new pieces, and played a lot of the original works of Bach, Schubert and Beethoven. Liszt took part in funding the Beethoven statue in Bonn, but his most lasting tribute to Beethoven was playing his music.



chipia said:


> I don't think that the question if Liszt only played transcriptions in public is even relevant to the topic. Even if he did, the transcriptions were still classical music, so that's no argument against classical music being popular in Liszt's time


Whether or not they where relevant, you're obviously not interested in the substance of my argument.



chipia said:


> If Nereffid is right, then how do you explain the quote from Richard Taruskin, one of todays most respected music historians? It's in my last post.


Taruskin is always interesting, but I think you're doing him a great disservice by using what he says as ammunition against the opinions of others here.



DaveM said:


> So in response to 'Apart from the transcriptions, Liszt hardly played his own music in public.', there is a request to cite sources. The response to that is essentially: you are committing a faux pas for asking for sources, why not go find your own evidence to the contrary.
> 
> Are you serious? When it comes to a discussion on facts regarding the history of classical music and it's composers and artists, absolute statements of fact mean nothing without a source; they are just anecdotes. Unfortunately, absolute statements of (alleged) fact about some important things are far too common at TC. Sometimes, it's about innocuous things, which I'm sure we're all guilty of. But still, make an unsourced statement of alleged fact, expect a request for a source.


Its not so shocking. Just remember what Abe Lincoln said, "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." He must have said that back in the good ol' days, the 19th century. There are so many memes about it, so it must be true.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Sid James said:


> No worries, you're right to ask. I thought it was common knowledge of the sort that Mahler hardly conducted his own music.. I've come across that sort of information on Liszt in reference books, liner notes and in an interview with Leslie Howard.
> 
> Its very kind of you, fluteman for answering the question on my behalf. I appreciate that, thank you. I have read that book but I didn't have it specifically in mind. I was just going from memory, but it provides background for what I was saying.
> 
> ...


In my recent posts at TC, I have not only cited, but quoted at length a number of sources, including published books and essays by the critics and historians Harold Schonberg (whom I quoted above regarding Liszt transcriptions), and Walter Bate, the musicologist and musician Charles Rosen, and the aesthetic philosophers David Hume, John Dewey and Morris Weitz.

But I've come to see that largely as a waste of what is more than a little time and effort. As allegro says, the "source demanders" generally are aggressive debaters only interested in their own point of view and not in becoming better informed. They dismiss any source that refutes any of their tenets as spurious and/or irrelevant.

For example, the late Charles Rosen, who was a prominent pianist, author and lecturer, has written books full of cogent argument backed up by numerous specific examples, all discussed in great detail, about music in the Classical and Romantic eras. Of course, he was only human, and his own aesthetic tastes and artistic background inevitably influence his arguments, as they do even the best authors. But, at least for those with enough musical training and background to follow his discussion, it is invaluable. As it happens, he effectively and explicitly refutes some of the fallacies I see repeated here, so I thought him worth citing.

My reward for my efforts is a series of posts bashing Charles Rosen. I suppose I could respond, What are your sources? Or even, What are your credentials, and why should your views carry more weight than the thoroughly researched, carefully substantiated, published and widely read views of a famous musician like Mr. Rosen? But that is exactly what these posters want: a descent into mud slinging. No thanks.


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

Sid James said:


> No worries, you're right to ask. I thought it was common knowledge of the sort that Mahler hardly conducted his own music.. I've come across that sort of information on Liszt in reference books, liner notes and in an interview with Leslie Howard.


Thank you!

...


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

chipia said:


> People sometimes argue that classical music cannot appeal to most people because it's too complex or esoteric, but when you look at the past, this isn't true at all. In the 19th century much of classical music was very popular with the people. Just think about Beethoven: His funeral was a huge event that was attended by thousands of people, even the schools in Vienna were closed for it!


What does "popular" mean? and - mainly - are you sure that we can make sense comparing "popularity" in the 19th century and today?
You mention Beethoven's funeral, though it was not a Lady D funeral, it was certainly an event, but even if we take the commonly accepted figure of 10000 people, is it that much in a town of 400000 people? was Beethoven popular for his music or for being a freak? the deaf composer. What do we do with another well known episode of his biography, the second concert featuring the 9th symphony? an event which was a disaster because people in Wien preferred a week-end in the country than staying in town for a concert? I mean, how can we talk about 19th century and popularity - and comparing it with our times - when people who had the chance to witness the second performance of Beethoven's Ninth decided to desert it? Would it be going too far claiming that in those times people were not obsessed with music listening as we are? How can something be popular and unknown to the masses at the same time? in the Autumn of 1815 Rossini started to work for Teatro San Carlo in Naples, he realized an entire opera (Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghiletrra) using almost exclusively music he had already used in other operas since he thought "it was a good way to introduce himself to Neapolitans presenting music they had not had heard yet" - do we have to assume that in the 19th century a composer could be popular - Rossini in 1815 was for sure one of the "hottest" names in opera - even if no one knew his music?
And in the the end, classical music is a 20th century definition which includes too much music, even accepting that in the 19th century "popular" carried a totally different meaning and weight than today the main fact is that opera is the only "written music" which was "popular" in the 19th century, the symphonic seasons are a product of the late 19th century and in any case their numbers could not compete with opera numbers.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

It's probably more popular and accessible than it's ever been, it's just that other genres of music dwarf it by comparison. Most of those genres did not exist in CM's heyday.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Durendal said:


> It's probably more popular and accessible than it's ever been, it's just that other genres of music dwarf it by comparison. Most of those genres did not exist in CM's heyday.


Peasant music always flourished. :devil:


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

eljr said:


> Peasant music always flourished. :devil:


Fortunately for Bartok. :lol:


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> Why do you want Classical music to be more popular? Usually the more popular music becomes the more compromised it is artistically. If your standard is John Williams, that is not an improvement or even a continuation on Shostakovich, but a retreat to populism.
> 
> IMO, I prefer having Classical music remain a niche preoccupation, but with the artistic quality intact.


That is the argument of a pure listener.

But those who are musicians by profession would say otherwise.

Why do you want Classical music to be more popular?

1. Economical/financial benefits.

2. A sense of evangelism. To introduce the greatness and beauty of classical music to those who are not yet enlightened by it.

All in all, your point is still true.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

eljr said:


> Pleasant music always flourished.


Fixed that for you.:lol:


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Symphonic said:


> That is the argument of a pure listener.
> 
> But those who are musicians by profession would say otherwise.
> 
> ...


It's not only direct benefits for paid musicians. Classical music is often very expensive (especially opera and large professional orchestras) and needs a considerable educational and institutional infrastructure. If all this is not supported by "society as a whole" it becomes very difficult to justify these expenses. And nobody loving classical music should want it to be too dependent on the whims of blue haired widows of billionaires, especially when the next generation of billionaires is more interested in flying to Mars (and may take their spouses with them...)

There is also nothing wrong with a sense of evangelism. If I am really convinced that x is good, true etc. lack of "evangelism" for x or even too much of tolerance for some non-x or anti-x I seriously consider to be bad, wrong etc. would be inauthentic and even morally wrong. Obviously, it could still be poor strategy to behave like Hillsboro Baptist missionaries  But it is not at all obvious that overzealous preachers for something are more problematic than those who are indifferent, cynical or lenient towards things they take to be wrong.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_there is a youtube channel run by two Australian classical violinists called TwoSetViolin with millions of subscribers that is successful, financially and otherwise._

Many performers have shifted to YouTube including a couple of my favored pianists -- Elena Kuschnerova and Valentina Lisitsa, the latter said to be among the most successful of any classical artist in terms of YouTube subscribers and followers. But people don't pay much for those subscriptions, not much ends up in the artist's bank account, and they still rely on other forms of commerce to be successful musicians.

When it comes to YouTube just about anything you can find there for pay you can find free somewhere else on YouTube or the Web if you search long enough. If YouTube was the answer all the big orchestras would have shifted there. Instead many have created their own streaming or web sites for pay service.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_FWIW, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra recently ratified a 5 year contract that brings the base salary to $181,272._

Yup and the pay is half that in Minneapolis, Detroit and other big cities and about one-third that amount or less in Des Moines, Sarasota and other medium sized cities that still have orchestras.

It isn't only how the giants are doing that is the barometer of a worldwide industry.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_So can you imagine that classical music will become as popular again as it was in the 19th century? No. But it's probably doing better than jazz._

I agree because I believe jazz, an American art form, has always been a niche product even in Ameirica. It also has a history about 500 years shorter than classical as well.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I think there is a problem with the classical industry having been extraordinary lucrative for some people for a few decades in the "golden age" of recordings between the 1950s and 1990s, and this led to unrealistic expectations in the last 25 years._

I would state this differently -- to say classical music grew on a worldwide basis for about 400 years and then, in the 20th century as recordings became available at home, it exploded worldwide. One could finally listen to a complete opera at home anytime they wanted and classical musicians like Arturo Toscanini became household names.

Outside of Asia, where the art form is still growing, that growth continued through the late 20th century before the decline started. Once the 21st century arrived big orchestras went bankrupt all over the place, government and corporate subsidies dried up, and YouTube et al made it possible to have a "collection" of music available without paying a dime for it.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Symphonic said:


> That is the argument of a pure listener.
> 
> But those who are musicians by profession would say otherwise.
> 
> ...


I think poorly of evangelism and the folks who spread it. Most of them are pushy/arrogant and behave as if they know better than the folks they try to manipulate.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Symphonic said:


> That is the argument of a pure listener.
> 
> But those who are musicians by profession would say otherwise.
> 
> ...


There a few problems with your argument: 1) I am a professional musician, and 2) you did not address my point that the music would become dumbed down, and 3) Classical music evangelism will do (has done) more harm than good.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I have not yet seen a decline in the interest and love for classical music in my region. We regularly have organ concerts in churches with pipe organs, choral concerts that are classical based, our local symphony orchestra has their performances too usually to a sold out house.

It's been around for centuries and, imho, will survive many more centuries whereas the other _noise_ will cease to exist after awhile.

Kh


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

chipia said:


> I don't think that the question if Liszt only played transcriptions in public is even relevant to the topic. Even if he did, the transcriptions were still classical music, so that's no argument against classical music being popular in Liszt's time





Sid James said:


> Whether or not they where relevant, you're obviously not interested in the substance of my argument.





chipia said:


> If Nereffid is right, then how do you explain the quote from Richard Taruskin, one of todays most respected music historians? It's in my last post.





Sid James said:


> Taruskin is always interesting, but I think you're doing him a great disservice by using what he says as ammunition against the opinions of others here.


I regret making these rather pointed responses to you.

In my original argument, I tried to compare the 19th century to the present in both relative and absolute ways. Its less a case of me disputing the fame of Beethoven and Liszt, my emphasis was on how the nature of fame changed so much since. In relation to that, I think that Taruskin is more relevant if we want to compare changes in the mid 20th century to today rather than going way back to the 19th century, which was before recording technology. In the quote you gave, he talks about some reasons for changes in consumption patterns of music, including sociological ones.

My answer would have been different if we where only going back one hundred years (let alone fifty), rather than two hundred. Nevertheless, I think this has turned out to be an interesting discussion, with many different points of view being shared.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Why do you want Classical music to be more popular? Usually the more popular music becomes the more compromised it is artistically. If your standard is John Williams, that is not an improvement or even a continuation on Shostakovich, but a retreat to populism.


Well, I think if classical music is more popular then more musicians will be interested in becoming classical composers, which will lead to a larger and possibly more interesting scene of composers. I think it's very likely that the modern equivalents to Bach are already among us, but don't realise their talents because they are unaware of classical music.

I also think if classical music is more popular it will exert a positive influences on other music genres, as musicians are exposed to it and study it. I wouldn't be surprised if the preponderance of 4-chord-songs in modern pop is in part caused by the lack of relevance of classical music.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Here's someone tryin to make Classical "popular."

_Re-Inventions_
*Robin Spielberg*












> ROBUST RESOUNDING PIANO In addition to Robin`s pleasurable piano re-interpretations of classic pieces, you will also hear cello from Tina Guo, violin by Ricardo Ochoa, as well as beautiful bells by Robin s daughter Valerie Kosson and guitar from Robin s husband Larry Kosson as you listen to the intricate and intimate Les Patineurs Valse Op. 183 (The Skater s Waltz Reinvented) , you will realize why I ve been in love with Robin`s wonderful music ever since I reviewed her first album.What I have always appreciated about Robin s piano playing is her touch and pacing on Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846 , the approach is both bold and at times subtle she achieves some beautiful overtones on this performance if you listen closely (headphones recommended)! Robin skillfully brings the masters right into your living room. --ContemporaryFusionReviews.com
> 
> Robin Spielberg is a piano player extraordinaire. What you are about to listen to if you stream or purchase her CD or the LP/CD set are RE-INVENTIONS. It takes talent and a lot of courage to take world-renowned and treasured classical pieces by the masters and rework them into your vision...You will recognize many of these songs even though they have been reworked so the foundation stays intact out of her respect for the composers and their music. This is powerful and majestic music and unforgettable. Speaking of powerful, Canon and Gigue in D major, P.37 (Reinvented) is an exercise in total command of the ivory keys. It is very strong and it will impress any listener that can appreciate classical, contemporary, or instrumental piano music of any kind. I added it to my New Age Music Reviews Spotify Playlist. Melody in F major, Op.3 No.2 (Reinvented) finds a great partner in the violin to accompany this lovely track. It is so elegant and similar to a lullaby, immediately tugging on your heartstrings.Robin Spielberg has poured her heart and soul into this music, which becomes apparent quite readily. Track after track you have the opportunity to revisit classic compositions and the old blended with the new reborn into several variations. The color, ambiance, and heavenly beauty of this music is brilliantly performed. I can guarantee if you appreciate piano solo music, you will fall in love with RE-INVENTIONS. I know it did not take me long! --NewAgeMusicReviews.net
> 
> The album is an incredible foray into the music we know and love gently massaged and lovingly touched upon by a visionary contemporary composer. The well-known works of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Strauss, Schumann, Schubert, and others are represented in this album that is as accomplished as it is satisfying...It is amazing to me how emotional Spielberg's renderings are...Robin Spielberg has, in fact reinvented herself with this recording. It joins together two worlds, the past and the present. --RJ Lannan for Artisan Music Reviews


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Xisten267 said:


> Spohr


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> It's not only direct benefits for paid musicians. Classical music is often very expensive (especially opera and large professional orchestras) and needs a considerable educational and institutional infrastructure. If all this is not supported by "society as a whole" it becomes very difficult to justify these expenses. And nobody loving classical music should want it to be too dependent on the whims of blue haired widows of billionaires, especially when the next generation of billionaires is more interested in flying to Mars (and may take their spouses with them...)
> 
> There is also nothing wrong with a sense of evangelism. If I am really convinced that x is good, true etc. lack of "evangelism" for x or even too much of tolerance for some non-x or anti-x I seriously consider to be bad, wrong etc. would be inauthentic and even morally wrong. Obviously, it could still be poor strategy to behave like Hillsboro Baptist missionaries  But it is not at all obvious that overzealous preachers for something are more problematic than those who are indifferent, cynical or lenient towards things they take to be wrong.


Perhaps you misunderstood me. I did not imply there is anything wrong with a sense of evangelism. I was answering why a person would want Classical music to be more popular


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I did understand. 
I think everyone who likes classical music (not only those who make money with it in some way) should want it to be at least have a stable audience and as there is a lot of room for more popularity, should reasonably want it to be more popular. Because a minimal popularity will be one factor contributing to keeping classical music around at all, or ideally let it thrive. Not the only one, of course, but in a world of mass media etc. it would be fatuous to completely ignore growing lack of popularity.
(The passage about "evangelism" was not directed particularly towards you.)


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

I like it , so I will introduce it to my children . They will be influenced by the media , friends , etc... But at least I know they will have an idea what classical is all about and how to appreciate it.

Education is key imho !


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

A very brief history of classical music: Started as the music of the church; then became the music of royals and nobility; then the music of academia. In this regard, classical music is much more popular or populist than ever. Back in the days of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky; their symphonies, concertos, chamber music; I doubt that the vast majority of the European masses who were among the farmers or working class had any familiarity with it. Electronic media was yet to be invented, and they were too bust working to enjoy to classical music even if they had access to it. This is why Christmas celebrations were so important to the masses even though the church fathers saw Christmas as heretical; because the Christmas celebrations were one of the only times during the year when the peasants could enjoy good food, music, and dancing. The masses were so intent upon keeping their Christmas that the church fathers eventually gave in and made Christmas part of the Christian calendar. Anyway, the Christmas celebrations demonstrate how LITTLE time peasants had to enjoy music; let alone classical music. 

Today, the average person on the street, has at least some knowledge classical music, and knows how to access it if it should spike their interest; and they also have the TIME if they manage to pull themselves off their cell phones, TikTok, Istagram, Facebook, and YouTube videos long enough to enjoy something like classical music that brings beauty to a weary world. 

I'm basically just a guy from off the street. I didn't grow up in abject poverty, but I do come from a lower middle class/working class background. I was one of the first people in my family to graduate from college. As a kid, no one in my family exposed me to classical music, or ever took me to an art museum. Even so, I am able to enjoy some things of classical music and fine art just because it has been made available to me.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

It won't be popular anymore and it shouldn't be. Classical music is part of a different time. Music must go forward from many different directions. Many wannabe classical composers today are not able to compose captivating tunes/harmonies etc. It all sounds like some type of theoretical exercise and not actual music that will make you feel something. If you think that classical music is actually mathematics then you don't know what music is. No real musician or listener cares today how complex or simple it is. That's why Yanni and Vangelis (without any musical knowledge) are more popular today than any wannabe 'intellectual' classical musicians. There are no Beethovens or Mahlers in today's classical music. Classical music became a dead end since there's nothing new there to discover. Even if there is, the public mostly won't care for aspirings of egoistical classical composers who think they're better than Yanni.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Coach G said:


> Back in the days of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky; their symphonies, concertos, chamber music; I doubt that the vast majority of the European masses who were among the farmers or working class had any familiarity with it.


It depends. I would say you're more right than wrong, but interestingly, Mozart was wildly popular in Prague-and not just among the privileged but wildly popular with _the people_ of Prague. He probably would have lived into his 60s or 70s, if he had left for Prague before coming down (according to some) with Trichinosis in Vienna. Mozart said of Prague: "They understand me." It's speculated that part of the reason Prague's population appreciated Mozart so much is that if one went to school in Prague, one also studied music theory the way Elizabethan school children studied rhetoric in Shakespeare's youth. In short, of all of Mozart's audiences, they were the most likely to understood and recognize what was unique about him and what he was doing musically. They got him the way Elizabethan audiences got Shakespeare (and in a way we don't). Similarly, up until Bach's day, any poor child could receive a fine education if they showed real musical talent. This is what happened to Joseph and Micheal Haydn (along with another brother). So, in certain ways, the broader population could be more musically educated than our own. Despite its being held in low esteem by some, musical talent was highly valued and could be a pathway out of poverty.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

All the church music and even some of the court music was free for everyone. There was not only rather exclusive music for the nobility but there were also public events (think of Royal Fireworks and similar celebrations). And the churches also tended to promote music as a pastime (preferable to gambling, boozing and wenching). Also note that many famous composers came from the middle or lower classes, and not all from families of musicians (who themselves were mostly lower middle class, obviously the differences were huge between someone like Handel who became filthy rich, a solid middle class civil servant like Bach or a struggling orchestral musician like Zelenka).

By the late 18th and early 19th century some opera tunes became widely popular and were sung by serving maids, i.e. spread through the lower classes. (There is very funny text by the German poet Heine (author of the Dichterliebe and many other romantic lieder) how he cannot escape the Bridesmaid (Jungfernkranz) chorus from Freischütz in the 1820s because everyone from the scullery maids to the upper class ladies plays or sings it on every corner.

Of course, social differences were more pronounced in former times. But there are a lot of half truth or mostly wrong prejudices around, often perpetuated by whiggish historians (or non-historians like Pinker). That only a tiny upper class listened to/played what we today call classical music seems one of this myths.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Kreisler jr said:


> ...Of course, social differences were more pronounced in former times. But there are a lot of half truth or mostly wrong prejudices around, often perpetuated by whiggish historians (or non-historians like Pinker). That only a tiny upper class listened to/played what we today call classical music seems one of this myths.


I'm sure that the answer to how popular or "populist" classical music was among the masses is far more nuanced than my speculations. I know that my working class Italian-American family had no connection to the music of Rossini, Verdi, or Puccini. If they did, would all my favorite composers be a bunch of Austrians and Germans such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner? In the old neighborhood where I grew up with ethnic Italians, Irish, Swedes, Polish, Lithuanians, Greeks, Syrians, Lebanese, and French Canadians; it didn't seem that anyone I knew came from a family that was steeped in the fine arts and music of their ancestral homelands.

Moreover, when I was growing up in the 1980s, it seemed that the musical generation gap was much more pronounced. Boomers and Gen Xers wouldn't dare listen to Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin (or at least be willing to admit it), because as "cool" as Sinatra and Dean are now, back then they were "square"-it was your grandmother's music. Now with the internet and all music of every time period and genre being made readily available to young people, young people are not hemmed in by what just a handful of record companies, radio stations or "MTV" decides should be the soundtrack of their generation; so with that, young people today are as open today to Frank Sinatra as they are to AC/DC, Rap, Hip-Hop, and, yes, even classical music. Furthermore, the days when young people listened to music communally are gone. Instead of four teenage girls going to someone's house and spinning the latest by Elvis, the Beatles, or Michael Jackson; on one of those old portable record players; young people today are all plugged into their own private and customized playlists which is a world of sound that is all their own; so peer pressure no longer plays much of a role in what they are supposed to like.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

So, at the risk of upsetting those who think that asking for evidence is impertinent, what evidence is there to support, or contradict the notion that CM was not listened to by the lower classes? How do we know what the average peasant working the land in 1800 was listening to on his 19thC iPod, or getting to hear and whistle?

One piece of evidence cited was the numbers turning out at funerals (presumably waving their copies of Fur Elise at the passing cortege.) If I were a peasant and wanted a bit of entertainment, I'd be showing up at the hubbub too, regardless of the fact that I'd never listened to a bar of Beethoven.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I am not a historian. But I once read (it could have been in a book about Bach that also covered a little the two or three generations of the Bach family background) that in Lutheran Thuringia and Saxony it was not uncommon for peasants to be able to sight read their parts of 4 part choral music. And while this might have been more widespread in Lutheran regions, the Counterreformation also supported music to make religion attractive.

Or take church organs. They were among the most complicated and expensive things in early modernity. Nevertheless, there are dozens or hundreds of rather small villages (mostly) in central and northern Germany (and Netherlands, Scandinavia) with organs that were their day's state of the art. These humble villagers must have deemed this important enough to somehow raise he money (the organs were usually not gifted to them by patrons).

The lower and lower middle classes of early modernity were not slaving 24/7 covered in mud (at least not all and not everday). Many of them were skilled artisans, at least in protestant regions there was a decent level of literacy (and this often included reading music) and music was supported as a comparably innocent pastime (except maybe by the most puritan groups and even they would sing psalms and hymns although some banned organs).

So I'd say that virtually everyone could hear church music at least once (usually several times) a week. 
Other (courtish) music would be somewhat accessible in cities at public events but probably very rare in the country. I don't know but I would not be too surprised that even in the lower/lower middle classes in many households there would have been some instruments for domestic music making; people would borrow music and copy it. (We know that Haydn's father played some kind of cymbalon or harp.)


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

chipia said:


> I'm not sure this is true. According to this logic, do you also think that pop music will become niche?


Classic Rock, Be-Bop and Jazz Fusion will eventually become niche as well.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> The lower and lower middle classes of early modernity were not slaving 24/7 covered in mud (at least not all and not everday).


But the working classes (in the majority)? What were they doing?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Forster said:


> But the working classes (in the majority)? What were they doing?


Dancing around the maypole (hey nonny no) and going to church with a Bach cantata (or similar) every sunday. See above. Some peasants (pretty lower class) could sight read chorales and small North German towns afforded big organs for their churches. 
(There was no working class in our sense in the 17th and 18th century (or at least it was not the majority, there were some itinerant laborers etc. but the typical lower class were peasants). The working class is a product of the industrial revolution.)


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> (There was no working class in our sense in the 17th and 18th century (or at least it was not the majority, there were some itinerant laborers etc. but the typical lower class were peasants). The working class is a product of the industrial revolution.)


Umm...now you're getting technical, in a social history sense. It's the pre-industrial revolution peasant class I was referring to. The bottom of the heap. Surely in the majority?

Besides, this raises the question of measuring "popularity". The fact that peasants in church hear a tune or two on Sunday by that nice Mr Bach shouldn't lead us to conclude that Bach's cantatas were the most popular music of the day. Surely it would be the music most practised?...or purchased?...or concerts attended?...or...?


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## runssical (Jan 20, 2017)

eljr said:


> Classical music may enjoy a brief resurgence in sociaty in the future but it is the nature of life to move on, to progress.
> 
> It will become more and more niche.


Popular music does not represent "progress" and never has. Since the Renaissance music has been divided into two parallel tracks, folk/pop and art music.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Popularity is a false premise, Ghengis Khan was a popular guy, he had 3000+waifus, a lot of soldiers, a lot of money, and is still being venerated. However, I just want to say who the heck cares?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I remember reading somewhere here it only has a 1% market share out of all music genres. When before it was 100%. Who are the people going to prefer, 3 chord rock or atonal music as a lot of the contemporary music is now. I suspect the average non-Classical fan would consider film music as Classical. That will probably be enough for most. I remember my old roomate in College had the theme song for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly as one of those mp3's he would put on a playlist, the rest was popular music.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I think it will become even more niche in future.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

The thread title in itself is contradictory. As probably has been pointed out sufficiently already, "classical music" has probably by definition never been "popular". And I couldn't care less.


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