Stever Schwartz writes:

>... Another question I have is why does it matter how many people like it?
> After all, classical music-lovers are a niche market anyway.  Christina
> Aguilera sells more than Alfred Brendel.
>
>Finally, consider this: Beethoven's Second Symphony was considered ugly
> modern music.  Is it still ugly?  What changed?

As great concert ochestras cost millions to sustain and the sustenance
of great houses in which they play cost an additional pile, it seems to
me that it not only matters, but is crucial, to have programs that draw
enough people to pay the tab.  And I think I have observed that there
simply aren't sufficient concert goers to fill a great hall, and pay a
high prices, to attend concerts consisting of, say, Hindemith, Schonberg,
and Britten--and certainly not a season consisting of only that kind of
music.  To be sure, there can be merit to atonality or dissonance, or
otherwise willful music.  It can be, and to an extent is, accomodated
by the smaller halls.  Surely the trick is to match a category of concert
music to the right-sized performance site.  As for Beethoven's Second,
a large-house audience I think would be pleased to hear it.  Tastes do,
repeat do, change...over the span of 200 years.  Oh, and I gather that
Steve had recordings in mind in the posting cited.  Aguilera no doubt
sells more than Brendel but maybe Bredel playing Mozart outsells Oelze
and Schneider performing Webern's Drei Gedichte and other tidbits.  That's
doubtlessly why only very few and very virtuous record companies can
afford to indulge that sort of stuff.

Denis Fodor

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