There are about twenty of these people, though.

I said "approximately nobody".

At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever.

Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instruments. But musicians in those jobs are often burning as much money as they are making. (Even Anouskha Shankar has a portfolio career).

This is essentially nobody. Everyone else in classical music is earning just the same way as popular musicians — and society doesn't "support" popular musicians at all! The perception that rock musicians make money touring, for example, is just that: perception. The vast majority of tours either just break even or lose money. Working in music production and staging makes better money than musicians make.

Everyone else, essentially, has another job.

> (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair')

Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary

> Today classical music is filled with people who want to pretend to be superior to pop musicians because they keep their repertoire confined to academically acceptable areas.

As somebody with classical training and a brother in the industry, it pains me to read this misinformed opinion of yours. Top-tier symphonies world round are doing crossover concerts with pop artists, play pop songs, modern and experimental music, and regularly feature works by living composers. In my high school orchestra, circa '98, we played stuff like music from Star Wars and West Side Story -- not just the ancients.

Down the foodchain, it gets even weirder. The favorite gig I played involved interpretive dance featuring waterboarding, gallons of fake blood, a live chicken race, and more.

Where you certainly will find a subset of afficionados of any genre who scoff at anything but their extremely narrow definition of "good music," if you take the time to rub elbows with mature classical musicians you'll find many to most of them quite open minded.

Your experience with young artists, finding them to be idealistic and purist, does not extend to the whole field. I know people who only listen to a single narrow genre or decade of pop music. How are they different?

Edit to add:

> And then the LARPers that want to make new music make complete and utter arhythmic and atonal trash that demands humans subdue our own aural feelings of beauty.

Oh, no. No, no no. I've been to a circuit-bent punk show. I recently went to an ambient music festival. I've heard glitch pop. Angine de Poitrine is blowing up because they use a semitonal guitar (though as a bit of a noise snob, I find their use of semitones milquetoast and rather uninspired).

Here you are, narrowly defining music, and excluding what you dislike. But it's not just "classical" living composers doing this.

The idea that classical composers (before about Liszt) were the "pop music" of their day is uninformed. Consider 1) the size of the venues that Mozart or Haydn's secular music was performed in, and 2) the fact that the bulk of the population was peasantry who wouldn't be admitted to such venues in a time of strict class distinctions.

Outside church settings, classical music of the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic eras was for the elites, and the masses had their own musics. This only changed gradually over the 19th century.

It's also weird to still be hung up on atonality in the contemporary classical world, when the pop-music world has for decades now had acts like Merzbow that are often farther out into noise.

I've heard this argument many times, there's a grain of truth and I strongly agree RE 'arhythmic and atonal trash', but it strikes me as disingenuous.

Classical music was somewhat elitist even at the time, coexisting with popular/folk music traditions. The Romantic period definitely saw music and art break away for traditional forms and conservative mores, but it wasn't a free for all.

The people who enjoy classical music today are largely the same people who enjoyed it at the time. Educated and 'enlightened' upper/middle classes, who sought music celebrating their aspirations. Freedom from political oppression and aristocratic control. A world where people could succeed based on talent, hard work, intelligence, and propriety. Where the middle class would have the power to reshape government and social institutions to advance their interests rather than those of the nobility. A personal experience of the religious rather than state ordained. The music pivots to natural, romantic, mystical themes as these people lost faith that industrialization will deliver for them.

Compare modern popular music which deals with universal themes - love, loss, sex, money, partying. You can enjoy pop music and still feel that these themes are not important to you.

People don't fake enjoying classical music to convince you that they're smart and cultured. They just gravitate to music which represents their idea of smart and cultured. The same is true for a lot of art.