Fads in Music

What is not played is reflected by fads that come and then go, and there is much more in music than is played. This was illustrated by a craze in the 1980's for period instruments and background or historical pieces that inspired composers of better known works. So you heard Mozart on period instruments, an important feat, but you also heard pieces by composers who had a big influence on Mozart whom you don't hear much of now, Ditersdorf, for example, and there are others. You can just as well go to the music library if you have a good enough ear and read their scores and get as much as from listening to them performed. Even someone who is justly revered, Antonio Vivaldi, was overplayed to the the extant that the nasty jibe about him having written the same concerto over 1,000 times seemed literally true. The problem is that his sound was new in the Seventeenth Century and has lost some of its luster for modern ears. Please don't be offended by this example, I do love many of Vivaldi's works.