Classical Music for Aficionados

Ironically, I just read this article prior to you sending it!
Pretty sad.

That’s all true and very well written .

In late 50’s I knew something called "rock" would destroy the Big-Bands
and the Chopin I loved to listen to.

I did not mind saying so !

You have to be a complete fool  to say  " art for arts sake " .

I'm currently being bowled over by an Idagio stream of Mozart's Symphony #40. Played by the Ensemble Rezonanz. Conducted by Riccardo Minasi. Far from polite, it's a compelling, full-on romantic fireball rendition we might have heard in the days of Beethoven or Mendelssohn. Sound quality is just as excellent. 

Twoleftears, thank you for linking to the Spectator piece by Pace.  

While it's an overstatement to say that "the culture wars are killing Western classical music," as the Spectator article's heading proclaims, that's not really what this opinion piece says.  The thesis is that the culture wars are endangering academic musicology, and that will have harmful effects on Western music itself.

The Spectator piece is interesting and insightful.  But even the actual thesis of the piece is somewhat overstated.  Western classical music will likely survive even if academic musicology is further marginalized.  

Classical music survives because it's played, and listened to attentively, not because it is written about in journals.  

The greatest composers wrote music that expresses, more profoundly than any other art can, what it means to be a human being.  And now, though mass media and the Internet, the music is accessibly to vast numbers of people like never before in history.  They can find it, hear it, and have it change their lives.

First-rate composers still can flourish, and produce first-rate music in the Western classical tradition.  Think of Philip Glass, John Adams, and Thomas Ades.

There are reasons to not be so pessimistic about the future of Western classical music.