ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of the classical concert under the conditions of the culture industry. Over the course of the mid to late nineteenth century, music transformed into an economic branch of modern mass culture, with music being increasingly (re)produced as a more and more important section of the capitalist market. With the introduction of pop, music became the most important “art” within the culture industry, and aesthetic ideology and commodification overlapped. The term “classical” is itself an invention of the culture industry, and the classical concert (in the broadest sense) was turned into a mere pop event. Just as the culture industry turned every culture into a commodity, the second half of the twentieth century marked a second transformation in the development of cultural (i.e., musical) production: the presentation of every commodity as culture. The classical concert under conditions of the culture industry is an expression of this transformation.
