Yes, I don't think we should be too hard on recorded music, and especially not
radio stations, at least not earlier in this century. My mother grew up on a
farm in Kansas (seriously) with an outhouse, a well, a one-room school house,
a wood cookstove and all the rest. She and my aunts and uncles took piano
lessons and played band instruments, but what really got her hooked were the
Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts and the Sunday afternoon New
York Phil. Broadcasts. It is amazing to me to think that people all over the
country, as long as they had radios, could listen to these concerts from New
York City.
Still, I would agree that the easy availability of recorded music has somewhat
cut down on amateur music making, and I do hold to my original contention that
young people today (or even older people) are apt to respond more directly to
live performances if the music is strange to them. And I just don't see that
things are as dire out there as everyone thinks. I do a yearly concert in a
library in upstate New York, for example, where people probably never heard of
Couperin before, but they have now. And it's usually standing room only. And
there are even some young people in the audience!
Rebecca