Karl Miller suggests:

>I also believe the notion of a standard repertoire has given the general
>public a limited notion of what classical music is all about.  It is a bit
>like what NPR did with their "great pieces of the millenium" or whatever.

I wonder if you are exchanging cause and effect here.  It's not as if
there exists some cabal of "know it alls" who are hell-bent on telling
the public what the canonical masterpieces are, so less worthy music can
be cast into the outer darkness.  The public, for the most part, wants
simple answers to complex questions:  "I don't have the time or inclination
to listen to everything ever written, so would someone please just tell me
what the good stuff is?".  Rarely is demand created out of whole cloth;
more often it exists untapped until discovered by the entrepreneurially
insightful.

len.