april 7 1863 this day in Americam music

[7thNYcav]

I do have a problem with the fact that no other music is thought of duing the period than that of folk or Steven Foster. They did have classical music and was listend to.
1863—American premiere of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Theodore Thomas conducting;

[Old Cremona]

Re: april 7 1863 this day in Americam music

Who says no other music is thought of other than folk or Foster? There is a post here on Moreau Gottschalk. And all the martial music stuff.

[John Keller]

Re: april 7 1863 this day in Americam music

Certainly folks in the 19th century, and particularly who were involved in the Civil War, listened to a wide variety of music, depending on their tastes and backgrounds. But folk music of the day -- minstrel music in particular -- was truly the popular music of the day. Certainly today plenty of people listen to classical music, just as they did 150 years ago, and that's great. Yet I would venture to guess that roughly as many people in the 19th century listened to folk and minstrel music, relative to classical music, as folks today listen to rock 'n' roll/country western, versus classical. The major of people listen to the "popular music" of the period; that's why we call it popular music.

Having said that, I'd love to see conversational threads in this news group about 19th century classical music. But we need to be careful here and not judge what was classical music to a 19th century audience by the same standards as we judge classical music today. For example, were Strauss waltzes in the 19th century considered to be classical or popular music? I don't know the answer to that, but I would guess that those waltzes -- at least to European audiences and to "sophisticated" segments in American audiences -- were "popular" music.

[7thNYcav]

Re: april 7 1863 this day in Americam music

There is a good web site that has the this day in music it is http://composersdatebook.publicradio.org/ it will tell you what happened in classical music the birthes deaths and premeres. It also metions the classical music orgaizations and sucicities that was around during that time.

During the 1800's man compsers would write for small groups of instruments that would be played in the average house. After all rember that is how most music could be heared short of going to a concert. Coposers would make money off the sales of the sheet music. Struss and others did write music that was considered as "popular" music. When the Europeans did imagrate they did bring the music with them.