"Tºm ShermªnT °_°" " wrote in
message ...
On 3/17/2011 6:05 PM, Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
Let's spend a few moments discussing baroque music. Is it any more
relevant
than Renaissance music? I think not. It has become antique music to our
ears. I once rather liked Bach in my youth, but by now it has become
tiresome to say the least.

There is great music from the Renaissance also.

Probably before that too, but who cares about it except scholars.

Baroque music was never popular with the public. It was always music of
musicians and scholars. It truly does belong in museums just like
Renaissance music. I remember an old RCA 78 RPM catalog that I had from
the
1940's. There was very little baroque music in it. It was only with the
advent of the LP recording that baroque music began to come into its own.
But that that was because musicians liked it. After all, it was easy to
play
and new music to most of the world. But you cannot resurrect that which
has
died. Even Bach was outmoded and considered old fashioned before he died
himself. The public has never liked baroque music since at least the time
of
Bach.

The public has always preferred schlock. As John Charles Walsham Reith,
1st Baron Reith, said, "It is occasionally indicated to us that we are
apparently setting out to give the public what we think they need- and not
what they want - but few know what they want and very few what they need.
In any case it is better to overestimate the mentality of the public than
to underestimate it. He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the
public wants is often creating a fictitious demand for lower standards
which he himself will then satisfy."

I was only referencing an elite educated sophisticated public, that which
normally exists for classical music, not the general public which has no
interest in music at all except for, like you said, schlock.

--
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota