Klarinet Archive - Posting 001246.txt from 1998/07

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Classical Music and Young People
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 23:43:45 -0400

On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Craig Earl Countryman wrote:

> Mozart's music was the popular music at that time.

I have to comment on this statement. This is a very widely held
misconception. Mozart's music or the music of any of the greatest
composers was the domain of the very highest echelons of society. Only
the richest and most aristocratic people had access to it. Likely, the
percentage of people in Mozart's day who had a broad knowledge of music of
that type was not so different from what we observe and bemoan in today's
society. There was hardly any middle class in the 18th century, although
the beginnings of a redistribution of wealth were occurring. The great
majority of people were rural peasants, barely removed from conditions of
slavery. There was no time and no resources for anything so frivilous as
music or any other arts. All their physical, mental and emotional energy
had to be devoted to staying alive, or as might have been said in that
day, keeping body and soul together.

> Jazz was the new form of popular music in its day.

During most of the history of jazz, this was as equally untrue. It was in
only one period of jazz history where the stream of development of jazz
and that of popular music coincided, and that naturally was the swing or
big band era, during the 1930's and the early 40's (the latter coincident
with the Second World War).

> Certainly, there are some forms of music today that are really bad,

You are correct. Now, if we could say what it is about these forms that
is "bad," then we might be able to say what it is about some other types
of music that is "good," and we might be able to do a better job of
interesting a broader spectrum of society in the "good" types.

> Classical music just isn't for everyone and that is OK!

Exactly. This confirms my statements above.

Ed Lacy
*****************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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