Interesting commentary Michael. I knew that the conductor makes his grand appearance with the romantic age....I had not connected it with the titans of industry though and the decline of craftsmanship.
Two other issues connected with class and classical music.
-- Also in the romantic age you have the rise of the virtuoso, darkly mirrored by the decline of a general minimal competence in music making, partly due to the migration to the factories and the horrendous working hours there. Music requires leisure, both for the players and for the audience.
-- From where I sit, music begins with dance (Bach's gigues, gavottes, etc., Mozart's minuets, etc.) and dies a slow but sure death the greater its distance from dance. This is a cyclic thing and applies to rock and jazz as well as to classical music.
I spend a fair amount of time listening to classical music, both recorded and live, and it is a sad thing to see how much life has been taken out of it by being made a precious object of reflection rather than a shared activity. Given the dreck they applaud, I would guess a lot of the modern audience is there more for the status than for the pleasure. Same for theater.
Joanna