Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Many American films and cartoons of the 1930s touch on the culture wars
>between colloquial, vernacular musicians and "classical" ones.  ......
>
>How this antagonistic divide came about is less clear than the fact
>that it *has* come about and, as far as the history of music goes, fairly
>recently.

My theory is that when music started to be recorded it became a product.
Once labelled as a product it was at the mercy of salesmen and marketing
men and it was a short step to putting it in categories to make purchasing
easier.

Also I have been reading a biography of Henry Wood the conductor (famous
for the The Proms).  The concerts show a mixture of classical and popular
items at the begining of his career but slowly change to the more usual
classical only concerts by the middle of his career.

Tim Horwood