Lovers of modern classical music have been trying to sell it to the mainstream for a century and failed. 100 years after Bach, Mozart, Beerhoven, Brahms, Saint-Saens, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and others wrote their seminal works, the audiences got them; in most cases they got them as soon as they came out or within a few years.

Schoenberg and his followers are dancing to a different tune, and that’s fine for them, but at this point it’s pretty clear that they will at best be remembered for their tangential effects on composers of actually beloved music.

Why does the mainstream get invoked in these types of arguments when no one called them? Who cares? There's hundreds upon hundreds of classical composers who didn't really survive into popularity who wrote standard good quality music for their time. Many people know of Haydn but who (who isn't a pianist) has ever heard of Kuhlau?

Not to mention Bach had to regain popularity through Mendelsshon.

> when no one called them?

This is debatable to say the least. Lovers of the avant-garde commonly trot out the argument that there's just no room for genuine, transformative innovation within the mainstream that can be grokked by average folk, that it is played out in some sense. And lovers of mainstream music (and arguably mainstream culture more generally) routinely prove them wrong, by managing to innovate within those boundaries in a way that's genuinely compelling to many. It happens again and again.

Many times what happens is that the "within" innovation is not so much innovation in itself, but the innovation is including aspects that were done by the avant-garde decades before, into a popular context.

avant-garde composers were playing with recording and editing techniques for a long time before the beatles came and used those ideas in a more catchy way, with a hairstyle to boot. The innovation is closer to the business side than to the music itself.

> Why does the mainstream get invoked in these types of arguments when no one called them?

Oh, I must have gotten lost. I thought I was in a forum dedicated to hacking where a post had been submitted to justify the importance of a composer almost universally found difficult to listen to to a mainstream audience. Probably took a wrong turn somewhere.

> Who cares?

Whoever posted the story here clearly did one way or another. Everyone who commented, both of us included, as well. Affecting detachment while taking the time to clearly post how detached one is is not very convincing.

I think importance can be recognized without appealing to the average Bad Bunny listener.

I care about the music, people should be more open to hearing challenging music. That doesn't necessarily mean "the mainstream", that entails a whole cabal of mechanisms at play that go beyond what an individual chooses to listen and how.

Also many now revered composers were shunned by audiences of their time, such as Mahler.

Bach is now regarded as the greatest composer but he wasn't exactly popular during his life outside select circles.

I think it's a valid point. Mozart and Beethoven's music was at the end of the day made to appeal to mass audiences. Although considered niche now, Mozart was quite the celebrity in his day and had a loyal base of (mostly female) followers. Whereas modern classical is meant to appeal to musicians, not a mass audiences.

We forget that although there are many surviving transcripts of their work, Mozart and Beethoven also improvised and performed on stage a lot. That whole genre of classical music is lost.

Mozart's music was considered too edgy and quirky in his day, actually. People who were knowledgeable about music tended to like it a lot because they could follow all the twists and turns, but Salieri was the more popular composer with the mass public. The story with Beethoven is not very different, ultimately some of the simplest pieces of his were the most popular and he wasn't very happy about that.

> The story with Beethoven is not very different, ultimately some of the simplest pieces of his were the most popular and he wasn't very happy about that.

I'm sure many artists fall into the trap of 'the public likes the work I like least'. That doesn't make the work not part of the authors creation. For example, Raffi makes extremely popular (and actually pretty good) music and I'm sure he absolutely hates having to play it over and over again. Still a better artist than Schoenberg.

If you read some reactions and reviews for music from Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, in their time, it is not much different than someone now hearing contemporary classical music.