Classical music popularity?!
Question: How popular was classical music back in its "heyday?" Did everyone listen to it, and were the great composers idolized?
Answers: How popular was classical music back in its "heyday?" Did everyone listen to it, and were the great composers idolized?
Chamber music was probably the province of the aristocracy, but the rest was available to the public and, from what I've read, the public heard it and liked it. Remember, back in the day, no one thought of this as "classical" music, but simply as "music," and the composers aimed for the widest popular audience, in order to get more money for their compositions and their performances.
We would be shocked to go to a concert or an opera back then, as the crowd talked, ate, laughed, booed or clapped during the performances and after each movement and called for--and got--encores of arias during the act of the opera in which the aria was sung.
And I suppose that a 19th century opera or concert goer would be shocked to go to a concert today where the crowd sits in total silence. At least we applaud a well-sung aria at the opera.
I've read that in 19th Century Italy, tickets for standing room at the opera were very inexpensive and anyone could afford to and would go, and that new operas were widely discussed in the streets of, say, Naples, Palermo and Milano. I've also read that opera impressarios would engage the gondoliers in Venice to start singing the highlight arias from a new opera as soon as the opera was over, so that people would hear them and be interested in going to the opera and buying the sheet music.
Also, lots of classical music was written as masses and sacred cantatas and motets, so everyone could listen to this music in church for free.
Franz Liszt catered to the public and was known and idolized throughout Europe and performed in fairly large venues. But he was far from the only one.
In reading the lives of the great composers, it is interesting how many came from economically poor, non-musical backgrounds--Joseph Haydn is the leading example. However, their parents knew enough to get them into the study of music--usually church music. So it would appear that even the humblest of people knew enough about classical music to connect up the talent with the training for that talent.
Overall, I suspect that classical music was much more popular--in the sense that more people per capita listened to it--before the 20th Century.
Back in the 'heyday' classical music was reserved for those wealthy enough to afford to attend a concert, or to hire live musicians. They didn't really have the capability to record anything. Also, I'd assume that composers were idolzed. (One of my music teachers told me that Hayden's head was stored in a jar and toured around the countryside for several months. I'm assuming that this implies idol status?)
Like I said, music was very fine, and most 'common people' weren't really privaledged enough to afford instruments or tickets to a concert themselves.
I'm afraid I would have to disagree with your first responder; primarily, because I don't consider those earlier, first periods to qualify as being its "heyday": the Baroque and Classical periods of "Classical" music.
Its "heyday" I would submit was during the 19th century. As the economic status of the aristocrats begin to decline, and those of the mass of the peoples to rise, more and more people attended "public" concerts, and performances of operas.
These had moved out of the exclusive preserve of the aristocratic drawing rooms and parlors, out into the public concert halls and opera houses. And in Europe, these became one of the mainstays of outings and entertainment.
So that if my analysis is considered to be most accurate, one would have to say that classical music during its "heyday" was enormously popular.
Alberich
It depends what you mean by "heyday." During the baroque and classical eras it was either sacred and heard in church or only available to the nobility. It was not until after Beethoven that it achieved a wider audience. Ludwig was a celebrity in his own right in Vienna and he made money out of selling music thorough his publisher. The romantic period really was the beginning of public performance. Liszt really kind of invented the recital. Public concerts in Europe's cultural centers became more common.
The great composers were idolized to some degree. Beethoven had a huge crowd at his funeral.
Overall, I think it is safe to say that music as an artform was given its biggest boost by recording, which brought music into the homes of the middle classes and made famous the greatest composers and performers.
Just a comment I would like to make.In the US back in the 70s when you walked into what they called then a record store,half the selections would be classical music. Hard to believe now.
I think it was kind of a high society thing, but yes. There was nothing else. No rap or country garbage.
i agree with the 1st answer