Thanks for the sobering anecdote there Jasen; it also reinforces the article's point that audiences today respond to film-like classical music instead of the other way around, which would be responding positively to an instrumental soundtrack because it also shares some artistic traits with the musical landmarks of western tradition. As it happens, your friend is aware of the completely decontextualized version of the 'Valkyries', reminding me of those decontextualized best-sellers of the '70s 'Hooked on Classics' - strip away the great tune from the great work (which of course stands on its own) and collate that with other great such tunes for a disco medley... Thus the tired in the audience today have lost the capacity to follow a great work from beginning to end, and wake up only when the tune comes in, "tuning-off" straight after... What an (an)aesthetic... I suppose I should be elated they are still capable of enjoying some beat-less music.
Of course William is right in elevating Herrmann and Goldsmith on top of most of the modern serious clones; that's what you get when musical creation becomes so blueprinted and cookbooked - "these are today's matrices boys, and those are today's fashionable percussion and woodwinds articulations; go nuts!" Hence, the justified exodus of the already lighter-minded audiences, with the inexorable result that most of the people who will happily sit through Herrmann, Williams, Goldsmith, and Morricone suites, cannot communicate with Brahms, Wagner, let alone Scriabin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Britten, forget Lutoslawcki, Ligeti, and Xenakis. And I think that this is what the author is addressing, that audiences today are incapable of appreciating the great music of the 20th century (or even 19th, 18th), due to their limited scope; I'm not sure he expects them to delight in some 10th rate Lachenmann hopeful (brrrrr, can you imagine?...)