Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 03/03/2011 09:03 PM, Darren New wrote:
> > Invisible wrote:
> >> Music that's technically impressive, or music that people will
> >> actually pay money for?
> >
> > Mozart died a pauper. :-)
>
> I gather that in his own lifetime, Bach was known as a virtuoso
> organist. But relatively *unknown* as an actual composer...
>
> I wonder how many other "exceptional" composers were regarded as nothing
> particularly special when they were actually live?

You should remember that in those times musicians were actually servants to
aristocrats.  Their worth was in composing ceremonial music, ball music, sacra
music etc under some tight schedule.  There was not a great deal of cult of
celebrity as would develop during XIX's Romanticism, when artists lost
aristocratic patronage and had to struggle to survive by performing to an
audience or selling copies of their works.

in any case, sure folks those times had much better taste for arts... ;)

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