At 10:33 AM -0700 5/26/07, Mariposa Symphony Orchestra wrote:
I have to differ with Andrew: 'classical' music was really far more popular in 18th/19th century America - and in fact especially in the 20th century than you imply. In the mid-to-late 1800s American symphony orchestras and opera companies were sprouting everywhere; every last small town had its Opera House which was routinely sold out when a Jenny Lind or Louis Moreau Gottschalk came through.
While I agree with Les' thesis 100%, this is going a little too far!! "Every last small town had its Opera House?" Every last small town didn't even have a public or private auditorium suitable for concerts before large audiences, let alone an edifice dedicated to musico-theatrical productions! Nor did "every last small town" have an orchestra capable of supporting opera. Vaudeville, yes; Minstrel Shows, yes; Burlesque, yes; Opera, no way! Not on the East Coast, which was the original ghetto of European culture. Not in the riverport towns that were the next to grow into cities. And most certainly not in the small towns that were essentially trading centers for the rural populations (even after Messrs. Sears and Roebuck discovered the market for mail-order merchandising). My own home town, north of Seattle, didn't get a decent Civic Auditorium until the 1930s, and it was a WPA project then. And I don't recall that it EVER housed an opera production as I was growing up in the '40s and '50s.
There were many different Americas in the later 1800s, and no generalization can possibly describe them all.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
