We might think that Madonna or Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus take the cake when it comes to music controversy. You might be hard pressed to find classical composers twerking, but many were controversial in their day.  Miley Cyrus twerking on the Video Music Awards show might seem more burlesque than Beethoven, but many classical composers were controversial in their day. Do you think we would be talking about Lady Gaga as much if she didn't wear a meat dress or what if Madonna hadn't come up with her scandalous book and controversial music videos?  As they say in showbiz, "All publicity is good publicity." Now let's jump back to classical music. As a humanities professor for over a decade I find the irony is that much of the classical music that we listen to today actually was the "popular" or "mainstream" music of their era. Before movie theaters and television and Youtube there were concerts, operas, and private recitals. Were there ...