America Leads, the World Follows
So for, like, YEARS, the Europeans have been all: “You stupid Yankee twerps. You don’t know about painting. You don’t know about literature. You don’t know about classical music. Nyah, nyah, nyah.”
Well guess the fuck what? As usual, we were just waaaaaay ahead of the pack. From the Guardian:
“More than half of Britons polled do not realise that Elgar was English or that Beethoven was born in Germany, according to a survey for the digital arts and culture channel Artsworld.
In a poll of nearly 1,200 people, Artsworld discovered that more than 85% of those surveyed described their knowledge of classical music as ‘average’ or ‘worse than average’.
Nearly two-thirds were unable to identify Mozart as composer of The Marriage of Figaro. The poll found that only 46.7% identified Sir Edward Elgar as English, with the remainder plumping for German or Austrian.”
In your face, Europe!
Where's the proof that Americans are ahead of the pack?
I seriously doubt anywhere near one-third of the American public could identify Mozart as the composer of the Marriage of Figaro. "Marriage of What?"