Ok so I'm high, listening to some Beethoven, and I started to wonder how these classical musicians "fans" would know there was a new song? Was a new symphony something that people made posters and shit for? Were people waiting in line to get front row tickets at his orchestras?
Like "Catch Beethoven's newest single! String quartet no. 15, op. 132!". Or did he just sell the sheet music and you'd have to catch a coverband at your local pub?
Was it something you just came across happenstance? Did these guys "tour" when they dropped new stuff?
Did these guys even have fans back then?
I've really got myself hooked on this question and I don't even know how I'd google it.
Im sorry.
Ooof, this is a big, loaded question with a million answers, and a bunch of incorrect assumptions.
Western classical music was not performed/distributed the way modern music was. There weren't singles, they weren't played at pubs, there wasn't really 'touring' groups, etc.
Most classical music was written for a specific purpose - an opera for a particular opera house for a particular date. A church piece for a particular church service. A sonata commissioned by a particular noble. A symphony commissioned by a particular person for a major event. And a lot of these events were held in private locations for invited guests.
Did they have fans? Yes of course. But those fans would typically be limited to the aristocracy and people with a fair bit of money. Hiring a composer, musicians, and having a room large enough for them to perform in was very costly, and very much beyond the reach of most people. Neither were there recordings, and most musicians (and most people) in pubs couldn't read at all, let alone read sheet music.
Sometimes there would be public performances, ticketed events that the general public could attend. These would be advertised by papers, posters, invite, and word of mouth. Things like opera companies would have regular seasons, and you would typically buy out an entire box for the season (again, lots of money), though often individual tickets were available. These would be less costly, but still out of the range of a working class person for most of the 16th-19th centuries.
If you did have money, and you were a fan of a composer, you would commission them to write something for you, and you would either play it yourself, or hire people to play it for you. If you were extremely wealthy, you could become the patron of a composer, and they could write for you part/full time. The composer would often live in your household, and perform their work for you and your guests when you entertained. If you had this kind of money, you would often have your own musicians employed to play for you at your beck and call. It was definitely a mark of status to have a composer writing music for you.
Up until quite recently, music outside of folk music, church music, or music you made at home would be totally out of reach for the majority of people in Europe.
So the answer to "How did anyone know" is, by and large, they didn't. Music of this kind was a luxury item reserved for the rich.
It honestly varies depending on the exact time period and era of "classical music". For example, Mozart did go on tours and performed in other countries. He wrote operas for mostly the aristocracy but some for regular people (such as The Magic Flute). Bach, on the other hand, never even left Germany. In fact, a TON of his music was simply stuff he wrote for his weekly church services. In his lifetime he wasn't really even reknown as a legendary composer, he was known as an amazing organist but that was pretty much it.
It took a long time until after his death for his music to be "rediscovered" and performed live, which resulted in him becoming the musical household name he is today. During his lifetime whenever he "dropped" something new, it was generally only heard by whoever attended the local church service that week, or whichever wealthy patron he was writing it for specifically. For example, the well-known Brandenburg concertos were written as a job application to one of the Dukes...and Bach didn't even get the job! It's a miracle we were able to find those pieces at all. I read somewhere that they were discovered in a desk drawer, but idk if that's just legend or actual fact.
Honestly Bach would probably be amazed that we still have those compositions collected today, though still many of them have been lost. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven had much larger audiences during their lifetime, and KNEW it too. But still nothing like we have today. I cant even imagine Mozart's reaction if he learned that now all over the world, we can take a device out of our pocket and have his complete collection of symphonies blasting through our residence without requiring a single live musician in the room!
This is the best post I’ve read all week.