In a typically thoughtful contribution to my post Why not play the premier league composers more often? Richard Bratby - who is professionally involved in classical music - mused "speaking solely from my own experience - there is a very noticeable falling-off in ticket sales when a symphony orchestra programmes pre-Beethoven repertoire, irrespective of the quality of the performance or the music, or the energy with which it is marketed. But why?" Now Kea has answered Richard's question with the following comment: Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc, all sound more or less like film music (or -- more accurately -- film music sounds more or less like recycled bits of Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc) and therefore don't require any intellectual involvement or serious effort to listen to. Understanding the music of Bach, Mozart or Haydn, etc (or for that matter Schumann, Brahms, Webern, Cage, etc) actually requires people to listen actively rather than being pulled alo...
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http://home.snafu.de/djwolf/vitae.htm#Bio
I endorse DJW's comment re the Peter Principle. It is, in fact, proven countless times every day, in every field of endeavour there is. The problem is that the PP was so obviously fitting for jokes on talk shows and in comedy acts, that the very true and serious nature of it was never really taken seriously when it was first published and hasn't been since other than by a few.