Len Fehskens (replying to me):

>>A hundred years ago, most listeners would have known all about the major
>>pieces from the 1830s and 1840s and would have had a pretty good idea
>>about the 1870s and 1880s too
>
>What evidence do you have support this assertion? Most "listeners" could
>not attend more than a few live performances, and there were no recordings;
>not everything was made available in piano transcription.
>
>If you have documentary evidence, please share it with us.

A year or so ago I came across a second-hand book which is more or less
the transcript of three series of lecture tours on music given around 1910.
The book's not to hand at the moment, and I can't OTOMH remember details
such as the author's name or how long after the lectures the book was
written - I can check this if anyone's interested.

The third series of lectures was on contemporary music.  Most of the
composers from the 1890s who have made it into the core repertoire are
covered, including Bruckner and Mahler (the author wasn't impressed by
Bruckner, IIRC, but recognised that posterity might not agree with him).
There seems to be a cut-off date some years before the publication date,
so it's Sibelius's 1st he talked about, not Sibelius's 2nd.

Brahms was specifically excluded, as there's a chapter on his 4th Symphony
in the second part of the book - the second series of lectures was on the
core (Austro-German) repertoire of the time.

Peter Varley
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