That's not his point. His point is that he has connected to the music by listening to what he likes, rather than what he was told to respect. I'd hardly call that result "unexpected", though.
As for your point, it is debatable. I think the percentage of people enjoying classical music is greater today than 100 years ago.
If you actually meant that the quality of music we write today is lower, that is very hard to for us to judge until maybe 100 years later. Maybe you've heard of John Cage, Luciano Berio, or perhaps György Ligeti -- whose music was used as the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of people out there writing contemporary "classical" music that are respected in the music community, but virtually unknown elsewhere (and they are respected because we are touched by their music, just like the author has written, and not because they are writing avant-garde, esoteric music).
I would admit that the percentage of quality music in the total corpus being performed and listened today is unfortunately lower than it might have been 100 years ago.
What I was trying to say in my reply was that "he is ignoring the fact that people still write classical music" is not a valid point. There are 6.7 billion people on this planet; if there are a couple of people with a hobby, that does not prove anything.
Gotcha. But what if those "people with a hobby" are capable of doing incredible things with music? They'd benefit from being in a field of music that's not neglected for being thought of as centuries-old.
As for your point, it is debatable. I think the percentage of people enjoying classical music is greater today than 100 years ago.
If you actually meant that the quality of music we write today is lower, that is very hard to for us to judge until maybe 100 years later. Maybe you've heard of John Cage, Luciano Berio, or perhaps György Ligeti -- whose music was used as the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of people out there writing contemporary "classical" music that are respected in the music community, but virtually unknown elsewhere (and they are respected because we are touched by their music, just like the author has written, and not because they are writing avant-garde, esoteric music).
I would admit that the percentage of quality music in the total corpus being performed and listened today is unfortunately lower than it might have been 100 years ago.