Robert Peters wrote: >You scold the intellectuals (well, don't you belong to the learned?) >but you forget that music always was a pastime from intellectuals for >intellectuals and the nobility. The "general public" you refer was a >pretty small section of the population. What about the workers, the >pasants (did they ever hum tunes from the Pastorale?), what about the >sailors, the soldiers, the workmen? Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven didn't >write for them. Classical music always was a pastime for the happy few. And yet, during WWII, countless classical musicians toured military camps stateside and overseas, generally performing before enthusiastic "full houses" comprising a cross section of the population and not just the intellectual elite. And in a German POW camp, Messiaen wrote his *Quatuor pour la fin du temps* for performance before his fellow prisoners (who, while literally a captive audience, nevertheless, didn't appear to have received the work w/ sullenness or reluctance). Walter Meyer