Why is non-classical music looked down upon?

[nolan]

Hey guys,

I am in my second year at a university studying music. It baffles my mind how close-minded some of my professors seem regarding non-classical music. My piano teacher basically dismisses anything that isn't classical related (I don't mean the Classical era, just your traditional piano repertoire) as inferior and unworthy of her attention. But it is something that I focus my attention on.

It is frustrating to have a virtual cloud overhead when talking with my teacher because I can't speak openly about the music that I really do care about. I don't plan on being a concert pianist or a music historian. While I can appreciate and value music of the past, I am really passionate about music in the present day.

I'm definitely not bashing my college because there is one professor who is the coolest about any kind of music. He is my voice teacher. He has taught me a lot about being able to hear what makes great music regardless of genre. And it doesn't matter what you like as long as it is something that you are passionate about.

Grrrr...sorry, just venting...
Anyone have any thoughts?

[leucippus]

I think it's pretty common for the masses to enclose themselves in boxes.  Especially with respect to organized societies.

Finding people with genuinely open minds is a rare experience, but very rewarding when you find them (like your voice professor)

I think you'll find this everywhere you go.  I've been deeply involved with the sciences and mathematics and I've observed that the number of professors in those areas who are willing to hear any thoughts outside of the box is very rare.

However, I have met a few, and those were the most insightful and rewarding experiences.  I learned more from those people than I did from all the closed-minded ones put together.

And so the world turns. 

[gilad]

non-classical - music
Oxymoron of the century.

[ted]

Nolan:

I don't really know, this has always puzzled me too. A lot of jazz people are just as narrow as the classical brigade. I just carry on playing the sounds I like and ignore everybody. Which arbitrary subset of music they might happen to resemble neither interests nor concerns me.

[Derek]

Ted is awesome.

[ted]

People have been known to use several adjectives; "awesome", as I recall, has not featured among them. Thanks for the compliment though.

[opus10no2]

For the same reason magazine readers are looked down upon by some novel readers.

[dnephi]

For the same reason magazine readers are looked down upon by some novel readers.

Not novel readers, but classics readers, like GReeks and the like.

And they're right, if it comes to people magazine or some garbage.

I definitely find a lot more depth in classical music.  Current pop music is and the other things just ... um...

The Jazz Fiends don't appreciate good art, according to the Music Library I have which was published in 1902 .

[opus10no2]

Not necessarily; classical music encompasses art being created right now.

By and large the only thing that defines 'classical music' is complexity and richness, and it also seems to be defined by it's method of composition.

Progressive rock and jazz can also be complex, but why are they not defined as 'classical music'....it's simply a matter of who it is created by, it seems, and how it is created.

Tatum is jazz...but Kapustic is a similar style but writes his music down...so he is classical.

Composers can compose concertos for rock band electric guitar and orchestra, but if isn't 'written down' and composed like that, it IS rock music..somehow.

If I'm asked what kind of music I like I'd say that my tastes vary but that I gravitate towards more complex music, I don't like to use the word 'classical' because of all of the stigma attached to it's percieved connotation.

[kilini]

The same way classical can be looked down upon among rockers and pop addicts as "dorky" or "boring". Don't you hate when people label classical as easy-listening? Show 'em some late Prokofiev.

 Anyway, people are close-minded--fact of life. I've listened to mind-blowing classical, mind-blowing rock, mind-blowing pop, mind-blowing jazz, etc., so elitists really annoy me. Classical music has a tendency to be complex, but rock and pop can also be complex. Just ignore the close-minded professor and talk to cooler people, like us!

[nolan]

"Just ignore the close-minded professor and talk to cooler people, like us!"

Thanks...the Piano Forum is a pretty diverse group of people. It is easy to get so absorbed in a situation that you forget to step back and look around.

I think it is irrelevant how difficult or intellectual music is. Certain things in different genres attract different people. There is nothing like going to a concert hall and listening to a beautifully played symphony...but then again, you also aren't surrounded by hundreds of people in a mosh pit or standing in a crowd listening to your favorite band. They are both different experiences...there isn't anything to say that one is better than the other.

[opus10no2]

True; it is impossible to say whether one piece of music or one style of music is better than another, because every piece of music serves a different purpose, they aren't trying to be the same thing, and this is the pointof composing...to do something different, not to be compared to what has been done before.

[prometheus]

Do they look down on all non-classical music or do they look down on pop music, light music, rock music?

I mean, they look down on people like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane? That what Indian classical musicians do? They classical tradition is 20 times older than ours.

Are they ignorant or just snobby by only liking art-music?

[leahcim]

It is frustrating to have a virtual cloud overhead when talking with my teacher because I can't speak openly about the music that I really do care about. I don't plan on being a concert pianist or a music historian. While I can appreciate and value music of the past, I am really passionate about music in the present day.

Does it matter? [I'm asking BTW] Jools Holland the t'other day on TV suggested that classical music was largely the music of that time that survived because it was written down - hinting that perhaps the idea that there weren't people jamming away is flawed, whereas today recordings have made other genres that aren't typically scored, thrive more.

He actually said something quite derogatory for his own playing -  as though he wasn't particulary seeing his art or skill as great compared with concert pianists.

So I get from that the impression that his music isn't really supposed to be analysed and learnt in the same way, by design, that he wouldn't expect to go to college to find out about it, play it or enjoy it.

Jazz may differ in that respect - and there are schools for rock guitar and so on now, but does it make any difference at all that out of the millions of people that like pop, rock and so on that your piano teacher doesn't?

Again I'm asking the question not suggesting the answer - I'm interested in whether you're just frustrated or hurt at the digs or attitude, or if you were hoping for some insight or teaching from them on the music?

[archneko]

some people tend to think classical music is the only "real" kind of music and rejects all those recent types of music like Pop and OSTs. I was one of them.
 I use to think that the world's views of music revolves around Rap, and I hated rap. When people asked me what music I listen to, I just replied, "Music is the absence of intellect. Its a waste of time spent on straining your neck muscles to invoke stupidity. It is vulgar and drones much too long for my ears to bear...." And from then on, I hated rap, pop, etc.
    Sometimes it takes time for someone to accept pop music. Just play an OST from any movie, anime, etc, and see if your professor accepts.

[keyofc]

Classical music is very technically demanding - and so in my opinion, that's why people look down on other kinds of music.  They make a competition out of it.
But when I hear a piece of music - I don't care if it's difficult or easy to play - I care about the artistic value.
It can be classical, jazz, worship music, etc.

I think it's important to remember that music communicates - and we are the communicators.  I want to communicate music inside of me - not what is inside of other people. 

[overscore]

I think it's just snobbery. I find it deeply upsetting that a lot of classical people are so arrogant. They think it's being dignified but they just come across as horrible, narrow minded people.

[jepoy]

I remember posting a thread in another classical music forum asking the members which pop music they listened to. I was just really curious.

I got a lot of snobbery, mostly saying that they only listened to classical music and today's pop music was going down the drain, etc. However, I raised a point that to me, music is simply music. Labeling it "classical", "pop", "jazz, "new age", whatever is reducing music to the categories of reason. Choosing one category and dismissing the others is the same as taking one part of the whole and calling it the whole. It is just a part and will never be the same as the whole. So, my point is, music is music.

Many members loosened up and some of their answers were quite amusing. Someone loved rave music, another liked U2 and some 80s band, but this guy who made a long point about why he thought pop music was unworthy actually listened to Sheryl Crow.

[aaron_ginn]

I have to admit I'm guilty of this to some extent.  I just find anything non-classical to be boring and trite, although I do enjoy playing bluegrass/folk music on my guitar.  Still, nothing can compare to something as grand as Brahms' 4th symphony or Gotterdammerung or something as intimate as Beethoven's Pathetique sonata.  Non-classical music justs makes me go "eh".

Still, I try not to disparage other people's taste in music.  It takes all kinds to make a world.

[rh20030001]

I met  some   musicians , music student , music teacher in the past,   and I felt that most of them   ( includeing  classical and non-classical music )  are  arrogant persons ? 

 i think that is a  personality ,character  question ? 

 

[mdshimazu]

In my opinion there is a lot of trash to be found in all genres... Lets face it there's a lot of classical music that's trash and that's why you don't know about those composers. Now non-classical music is different. There's a lot of trash that is well known. Slipknot immediately comes to mind. There is a lot of great music out there though. Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, and Loreena McKennitt are some of the ones that I like the most. They have excellent music. I think it comes down to a lot of people just being royal snobs about their classical music.

[pianowelsh]

Most piano proffs live in a time warp! thats just the honest truth.  We had to do compulsary work beyond 1970 and our proffs with one exception gave us all obsure 'artsy' works. Tough if you fancied having a crack at some einaudi or some Billy Joel (classical album) that was all definately off curriculum... Why!! thats what a lot of the paying public actually want to hear...not some hard to understand atonal mass by some half dead swedish uzbek who studied with so and so at the Paris conservatoire and then worked at the institute for modern music etc.  they need to get with the beat in my VERY humble opinion. But there we are.  I teach my students Good music is good music, whatever style or era its in. I encourage them only to study quality pieces - even regarding etudes.

[ramseytheii]

Your question seems too general, it brings up more questions than answers!

But I will attempt an answer that might just be wrong.  I think those who are piano professors, in other words those who have gone through many years of formal education, and have conquered incredible difficulties of coordination aligned with poetry in music from the 17th to the 20th century, don't see a reason to play piano music that doesn't contain passages that will challenge them.  I am thinking now of academic attitudes towards minimalist music, for instance, which contains virtually nothing to utilize the technique of a trained pianist.  Why should they care about this?  They've spent their lives perfecting something worthy of high admiration.  To play music that is too easy is to stoop low.

Still there is some truth to what you say, because a lot of pianists could never play the piano with the ability of Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, Oscar Peterson, etc, but still look down on jazz.  And I am not opposed to atonal or modernist music per se, but I feel a lot of people force themselves to play works in this genre with are pianistically unsatisfying, and I don't see the reasoning behind that either.

Walter Ramsey

[danny elfboy]

In a word: snobbery

But I believe there's also a good dose of cowardice
I'm thinking of composers for example. They say that X genre is not worth it and they do all their best to never spontaneously use a construct or effect typical of that genre
But if someone believes that a genre is superior and ignore anything else he/she is just showing off a lack of musical flexibility, hence talent and hence showing off his/her cowardice. The talent is seen when you can do the best with what you have, not when you always choose to have something you can manage easily and turn easily into something valuable.

Another word: discrimination

Judging the value of a song by its genre is like judging a person from the color of his skin. It's prejudice and subtley racist.
It's clear that the genre of a song can't encompass everything the song is meant the be. You have to listen to it and see what it conveys to you.

Judging music by how hard pieces are to play, how demanding they are, how harmonical complex they are is the quintessence of idiocy and dumbness
With music you just have to listen and feel. If a single staccato note in the right hand and a single staccato note in the left hand can create a melody which is able to conveys something valuable to the listeners then it doesn't matter if even a baby can play it overnight. Snobbery in music began in the late 19th century
Before that there was no snobbery against popular music vs. accademical music and no snobbery against easy music vs. hard music. In fact all composers considers popular music superior to accademical music and instead of snobbing it they based all their work on popular sound and folk songs

Clearly as the skin of a person doesn't determine what kind of person he is, the genre of a music doesn't determine what kind of music it is. But this must be hard enough to understand clearly if racism was the norm just 70 years ago and it's still a huge reality nowadays

[overscore]

True, Beethoven didn't have any problem with writing all those Scottish folk songs. And you could almost call Fur Elise a three-minute pop song of it's day.

[nightingale11]

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[nightingale11]

Well...because new music(pop, hip hop..etc) is trash. Bernhard has expressed himself on the subject here:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,2658.0.html
(there are 3 big posts by bernhard )

[beethoven2]

My experience with the 'outside world': Classical music is looked down on. (Except for in some circumstances with certain friends.)

[mad_max2024]

My experience with the 'outside world': Classical music is looked down on. (Except for in some circumstances with certain friends.)

That depends on the population you consider
I find classical music is looked down upon by the average uneducated person I meet in the streets
With more educated people I usually find they like all sorts of music, some more than others
With high society snobbish people non-classical music is looked down upon
With classically trained musicians and people related to classical music that can also be the case I guess, since classical music interests them more
I usually find them open to all sorts of music though

I like all sorts of things, the only music I look down upon is commercial music purely made to sell records by enhancing trend factors and the image of the band paying no regard to the musical content of the songs which are usually rubbish
Unfortunately that happens a lot these days

[danny elfboy]

It's not like everything Bernhard has ever said is always "right"
Bernhard is dead wrong this time

It's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to justify objectively the claim that classical music is superior to other genres and other genres are ***
This is just a clear case of cherry-picking information7arguments out of context so as to support your biased position

We must always remember that music is an universal language, as such it is highly subjective but also immediate
Before snobbery in music was invented the great composers of the past believed/knew that you don't need to know music to appreciate good music, that there's no difference between the musically educated and the ignorant. In fact that's what art is all about. Dealing with complexity in order to make it available to the non-artists
If something artistic is conceived to be "understood/appreciated" only by someone that being an artist himself/herself can understand the subtle "meanings" ... then that "thing" is not art and it becomes more cheesy and even hypocritical than something commercial

The idea that certain music is more accessible to certain social classes is ridicolous and if it is TRUE it's only because the music itself has been conceived not to be "immediate and introspective" as music should be, in other words is "an exercise in mannerism"

The idea the the more complex a music is and the more harmonically perfect it is, the better it is .... is just laughable
In a post about ear-training I kept repeating that to train you ear you must "shut your brain" and just listen
It's the same principle with music. Shut your flawed, judgemental, obsessive brain and just listen with your ears and your instinct.
This is also a principle of theater. With theater you must shut down the side of your brain that want to analyze, to objectify, to explain ... and activate the side of your brain that just observe and absorb. The side of your brain which is site of your emotional activity and creativity and suspend judgment and disbelief

I bough a Danny Eflman Soundtrack CD.
It's daunting beautiful and that's all I care, I don't give a *** if it's not classical, if Elfman is not scolarly trained and the melodies are rather simple

If what Bernhard said was even remotely true (and was not so dishonestly closed minded) then a big novel by Emily Dickinson or Tolstoi would always be better than anything more simple
And yet I find a book like "The little prince" absolutely needed and incredibly well written and I could care less if the language is simple and there's no showing off of good grammar and language knowledge

Another book I love is Dominick by Stagg. It's a book intended for 5-6 years old children. Very simply written in a kind of childlike manner
I don't give a *** again. I just care whether the book tells ME something and it does, more than many complex tomes

In fact I recently saw Little Mermaid and i find the score and songs composed by Alan Menken simply beautiful and unique; I can't find that anywhere in the accademical music
Bernhard (contrary to what the composers he worships believed) seems to be more interested in the "showing-off" aspect of the music rather than the content. And the content can be incredibly rich even if written in a simple language.
Mozart believed this, Tchaikovsky believe this, Schumann believed this ...

We must also keep in mind that the effect of something simple can't be achieved by something complex. In other words both the languages are needed and there's enough room for both. The gymnopedies by Satie are unique piece of music and their simple language is what determine their whole sound. In other words: they work, and any useless (just for the sake of showing-off or claiming intellectual disonesty) complexity would ruin them or changing them in something they are not

Last but not least Bernhard seems to forget that music is first of all "circumstantial"
It's stupid to claim that people are stupid and hence would prefer Pop instead of Classical without putting their choice into a cultural and temporal context.
Because even 200 years ago no one would have wanted to listen a Clair de Lune at a party. Dance music for example works in a certain context, has a certain function and as such is as worth as any other music. Christmas songs likewise and so on ...
There are moment and situations suited for certain music and moments and situations suited for other music.

Bernhard also seems to forget that "babies" (probably those we should look at when we need to observe human perfection) love classical music and are in a trance like state when listening to the sound of piano or an orchestra. Nevertheless they are in a trance state even when they ear the chants of Enya, the electronic music of Vangelis, Peruvian music played with the flute, trance quality music (Children by Robert Miles for example) the rock of REM, the jazz of Petrucciani....
Which again proves that there's no need to be musically or culturally educated to appreciate something so ethereal and universal as music but also proves that any kind of pseudo-intelletual snobbery is an hindrance to real music appreciation.
The *** analytical/rational/temporal/linear/computistic side of our brain should be turned off. Music is intended to be appreciated at another level than such down on earth level. We should instead absorb music with our ears and the analogic/atemporal/intuitive/instictive/creative/global/imaginative side of our brain

There's good music everywhere and there's no justification for claiming the objective superiority of a genre over another.
Last thing: I always listen before judging and always judge what the music has "told" me not its harmonical structure and other "behind the scenes" nonsense but if I had to make a criteria to judge what music is worth and what is not I would refer to "creative honesty"

While there are many pop artists that are just mass-media phenomena and don't put any kind of creative effort in what they do and just care for the $$$ ... there are pop artists that put their heart in what they do, express themselves through music and really love this language, even techno music authors. I greatly respect these people and what they do because it is MUSIC with the highest meaning of this word and more music than the mannerist effortless showing-off exercises of many avant-garde composers

Someone said once that music come through us but we don't really create or own it
And if the music that come through us is simple and work perfectly in its simplicity it's a crime to "complex" it for the sake of it. Maybe another thing we need to understand is that "simplicity" is not lack of artistic value, is not lack of creativity, lack of originaly or lack of effort. It's a language on its own, a language that conveys important emotions and information that complexity can't convey. It's the same difference there's between painting with black ink and painting with colors. It's not like painting with colors is better, artistically higher or more "complete". Both are valuable artistic means and one can't take the place of the other.

I also dare everyone to look at the repertory of composers known for very complex works or for virtuoso playing. All of them, you will find, had found the need for expressing themselves both with complexity and both with semplicity
Not to mention that often complexity hiddens a lack of content while you can't hide anything with semplicity as it is naked and direct. It's WAY HARDER to express richness of content with semplicity than with complexity, in fact as Bernard Shaw, John Holt, Dumas and many others have always claimed it's clear that there's more intelligence and wisdom in the simple words of young children than in the mental masturbation of adults

I don't think a non musically-eclectic musician IS a musician at all
Such a person will always be an half musician
To narrow music into stupid preconceived compartment is destroying the very essence and nature of music and it's impossible to really work with music and feel music when that's how we treat it

[overscore]

Very well said danny. It's true you can cherry pick intellectual arguments to justify any position you want to take.

I can intellectually justify why my girlfriend is better looking than yours, but that doesn't mean she is.

[nightingale11]

-

[danny elfboy]

Well you don't seem to know what you are talking about. Classical music has always been a minority and many non-musician during bach's time very seldom heard such music. They were in to folkmusic(todays popmusic). Bach and other top musician lived in a something similar to a ''secret society'' which you could only could acces if you were an apprentice of a master. Bach, Handel, scarlatti etc. very well knew each other( even though in some circumstances they may never have met each other) they copied their compositions and sent them to each other. They say bach was forgotten and only rediscovered 80 years afterwards, well that was by the public not by musicians. These composers were not interesting in composing music kindly for the public, that is satisfied with bullshit, but for performers/musicians. This music can only be fully appreciated by non-ignorants.

the rest I will not care to answer because you just make up things you don't have a clue about.

Ever read anything about the life of these composers of you do believe in your stereotypical ideas? Music can be appreciated by anyone. Scarlatti appreciated popular music more than elite music and Bach had a very strong religious vibe about the fruition of music by any kind of people. And you're totally wrong in believe any of these composers meant all their music to be listened and appreciated only by their collegue.
Read real biographies of all the composers you know and you'll see the majority of composers not only appreciated non-accademical music but liked to listen to it.
Likewise the world is full of pianists, musicians and composers with diploma that can play a Mephisto Waltz at unbelievable high speed and still appreciate any kind of good music from rock, blues to christmas carols and musicals.
And look more carefully: musicians/performers/composers are satisfied by bullshit too; in fact often arguably they have the worst ear for good (artistically honest and not just silly mannerism) music

Thanks for proving my point about narrow mindedness and snobbery (and the wondefully arrogant tone of your post helped too)

[steve jones]

Hey guys,

I am in my second year at a university studying music. It baffles my mind how close-minded some of my professors seem regarding non-classical music. My piano teacher basically dismisses anything that isn't classical related (I don't mean the Classical era, just your traditional piano repertoire) as inferior and unworthy of her attention. But it is something that I focus my attention on.

It is frustrating to have a virtual cloud overhead when talking with my teacher because I can't speak openly about the music that I really do care about. I don't plan on being a concert pianist or a music historian. While I can appreciate and value music of the past, I am really passionate about music in the present day.

I'm definitely not bashing my college because there is one professor who is the coolest about any kind of music. He is my voice teacher. He has taught me a lot about being able to hear what makes great music regardless of genre. And it doesn't matter what you like as long as it is something that you are passionate about.

Grrrr...sorry, just venting...
Anyone have any thoughts?

I think you have to remember that music is like fashion - people dont listen to it because they like it, they listen to it because the like what it says about them!

Your chav kids like to 50 cent, your punk kids listen to Green Day, your emo kids listen to My Chemical Romance... its a fashion, just like the clothes they wear and the preprogrammed shite they speak.

And Im afraid its not just kids who are guilty of this. Adults can be just as bad! Ever had your parents insist that you listen to Bach at the dinner table, when they clearly know nothing of the composer or his music. They just like to feel sophisticated!

True musicians, those who relish music because of how it makes them feel, should be open minded enough to give anything a chance. Sometimes taste for a style doesnt come instantly, it can take work, just like getting into a new, unfamiliar composer. But its always worth it!

Personally, my musicals tastes are far and wide. I have yet to find a type of music that I cant 'feel'. Except 'Happy Hardcore' perhaps... that is filth, and I dont care who you ask, lol!

SJ

[alzado]

I find this thread very interesting.

I play a lot of classical -- I try to get away from the overworked material and find my own out there.

A few months every year I take a vacation and play other kinds of music.  I enjoy piano transcriptions of "big band" classics, some composed by Duke Ellington and others.

I find rhythmic and harmonic qualities that are quite different from what I find in classical music.  Certainly the sound of this music is quite different.

As for the professors -- my friend, sorry for you . . .  I am free.  I know enough to guide my own path.  I explore and play as I want.  I find new things and do new things.

I am sorry for anyone under the thumb of these professors. 

Perhaps their problem is not that they know too much about music -- their problem is that they know too little.

[webern78]

Before snobbery in music was invented the great composers of the past believed/knew that you don't need to know music to appreciate good music, that there's no difference between the musically educated and the ignorant.

Excuse me? Did you just pulled this information out of your bum?

Composers have always been an elitist bunch because that's the nature of their business.

It's a matter of fact art music has always been for the 'educated' because before the 20th century educated people (which meant artisans, middle class or the rich) were the only ones enjoying any degree of exposure to 'art'. The 'masses' of those times were illiterate peasants who were just too busy dying from famine, disease or war to give less then a crap about what higher members of society were doing with their time.
 
Even then, you still had ignorant people bitching about art music. In the 16h century it was polyphony which was just too hard to understand. A century and a half later you had people accusing Bach of putting too much 'art' in his music. Mozart? Too many notes. Beethoven? Too difficult to play. Brahms? Too formally confusing. Webern? Is that even music?

The truth is that classical art is an elite. The composers we deem worthy of remembering today which form the current repertory of art music have achieved their status by elevating themselves above every single musician of their respective times through a process of natural selection. They have earned their position by pitting themselves against the very best and coming out on top, making history in the process. Back in the days where individualism reigned supreme and people cherished the notion of human achievement (remember the renaissance?) individuals of great distinction eventually earned a place in history.

Today however we live in the age of political correctness where everything has to be brought down to the lowest common denominator and it's all about making people feel good and appease the masses. Even mentioning the word 'greatness' will get you branded as an elitist, and then people wonder why there are no great composers anymore? What difference would it make? It's all about opinions and if it 'feels' good right? And who's to say that Breatny Spears isn't the Bach of our days? 

Down with closed minded professors who are unable to see the greatness of 50 cents...

[danny elfboy]

Excuse me? Did you just pulled this information out of your bum?

Composers have always been an elitist bunch because that's the nature of their business.

That's a nonsense, you're just repeating nonsense stereotypes and probably has never read a biography of a composer or music history book

We're not discussing the fruition of music, still nowadays the fruition of music depends on "money" because if you're a poor person living in 15 mq room and having not enough money to buy food you certain can't go to concerts, buy cds, have a television or a radio and so on

We're talking about the intention of the composers
This nonsense about composers writing music for their collegues is something that was born in the late 19th century. If you read the biographies of most composers before that sad era (even the less known ones) you will see many of them 1) had more respect for popular music than accademical one from which they got the inspiration to write their music 2) were more worried with expressing themselves than creating "something technically damanding" that the other composers could listen to

And they also were "popular" enough
Now to say that they were popular among the richest classes doesn't mean absolutely nothing and doesn't put them in the same situation of hatred idiots like Boulez who don't even write for themselves but just to show off who knows what. The point is that there was a strongest dividision between social classes but still the highest social classes rapresented a "populus" on their own making the music they used to listen to "popular" even though only in their context

But as I said it's not different from the modern social classes who can afford the media to listening to music and those who can't.
You're misusing the word educated here
I was saying that art, the real meaning of art, is using complex means to make thing simple. What many people here have said is that music is the "mean itself" in a way and that it's more important than mean and appreciating/understanding the mean is more important than the result. This is real lunacy. I don't have to know anything about perspective, color-mixing, special brushing effects, eye-horizont in order to appreciate a good picture and I don't need to know anything about good quality material, incisions, proper cooking, proportions and so on to appreciate sculpture. In fact an very very often recurring meaning of art is "making it complex behind the scenes" but making it appear as if it just "happened". No artist should feel the need to have people understand the means he/she used to reach a result, only the result means
At the same time I don't know to know anything about music theory, harmony, counterpoint to appreciate music. In fact it is known that classic music has not only a magnetic effect on babies but evern positive effect on them ... they're really appreciating it as art should be appreciated (with suspension of disbelief and judgement) and they do even if they do nothing about the means that make it possible to create music

What you say is not wrong but you're talking about "educated" when the context is actually "wealthy". Althought music lessons were spread enough among the high classes it was still not an universal knowledge meaning that many "educated" people having the financial mean to appreciate the non-paesan music were still mostly ignorant about harmony, counterpoint, cadences and what not and still were able to appreciate

In the 16h century it was polyphony which was just too hard to understand. A century and a half later you had people accusing Bach of putting too much 'art' in his music. Mozart? Too many notes. Beethoven? Too difficult to play. Brahms? Too formally confusing. Webern? Is that even music?

First of all there was not such an unanoymous criticizing as you want us to believe
There still were people who appreciated and people who didn't
But I also want to point out that there's still a huge difference between getting accustumed to something sonically new and accepting it only by knowing the theorical means behind it. For example I've been told many times that it was not easy to get accustumed to technicolor in europe televisions and it was almost painful to the eyes at the beginning. But eventually and quickly they got accustumed to it ... but that just involved physiological adaptation and not learning about the technical details of technicolors or how televisions worked and were built

The truth is that classical art is an elite. The composers we deem worthy of remembering today which form the current repertory of art music have achieved their status by elevating themselves above every single musician of their respective times through a process of natural selection. They have earned their position by pitting themselves against the very best and coming out on top, making history in the process. Back in the days where individualism reigned supreme and people cherished the notion of human achievement (remember the renaissance?) individuals of great distinction eventually earned a place in history.

Today however we live in the age of political correctness where everything has to be brought down to the lowest common denominator and it's all about making people feel good and appease the masses. Even mentioning the word 'greatness' will get you branded as an elitist, and then people wonder why there are no great composers anymore? What difference would it make? It's all about opinions and if it 'feels' good right? And who's to say that Breatny Spears isn't the Bach of our days? 

It has always been about opinions
You can't mix these different aspects of arts for christ sake
An artistic opera has always two side of the coin
One is as you say how it enriches music and its structure and creation
The other is "pure appreciation" it's shutting down judgement and just enojying it
That's why even those composers that "haven't made history" still composers wonderful pieces that it's a pleasure to listen at. The two components can coexist but you still have great music even when they don't.
That's why they say that art and harmony are both "artistic" concepts and "scientific" concepts. From one side they allow you to absorb the emotional content the author was trying to convert, from the other they allow you a technically analysis of the construction of the piece. These two aspects are indipendent

It's like cinema experts now saying that Alfred Hitchcok direction allows the analysis of a superb technique that has made the history of cinema and from which we've lot to learn
This is the analytic component
YET this doesn't forbid the same people from just taking a bowl of popcorn and enojying the movies themselves, the suspence, the emotions ... forgetting completely about directon, technique and what not

A person who insist mixing these two component almost claiming that one can't exist without the others is just fucked up

I know many people who listen to "classical music" and many of them don't listen to the known ones but to the almost unknown

The point is that within a certain period it is possible to create a lot of good music which is meaningful and rich of content. But the chance of making good music while allowing a technical "evolution" is for few ... and it's not for few only because few could affort that but also because of a temporal reason. Evolution in music technique often came spontaneously and it occurred always for a concomitance of technical, accademical and cultural factors ... it was almost never pushed or taken out of the blue. As such for the composers it was not only a matter of having the talent to make that evolution possible to also the lucky chance to be among that concomitance of factors.

I think we should also maybe resign to the idea that sooner or later no amount of technical evolution will be possible. And the amount of "forcing it" by always tring to show off something "fakely innovative" can't be called "musical evolution"

Yet I think that even if our musical means from now on remain identical and don't evolve this won't effect the music and it's reason to be and exist


P.S.
And by the way I'm rather familiar with the contemporary music scene and if there's no great composer anymore it's not because people can't recognize one but because if we're talking about musical appreciation then it is individual indeed and there's no universal good or bad and if we're talking about superior technique and music bulding mastery there's absolutely no one worth remembering for this at the moment
The nonsense mentality of mannerist avant-garde composers was already old 50 years ago now it is just rotten. If they almost created a dogma (ask the composer Elisabetta Brusa to have many examples) nowadays no one is afraid to see them for the mannerist idiots they have always been and hence the masterprice or composers and teachers and other accademical figures claiming their distance from that mindset



Down with closed minded professors who are unable to see the greatness of 50 cents...