I think there may be a lot of argument on this; not so much putting a cat among the pigeons, more a pride of lions among a herd of antelope :smirk: .
I for one would disagree with Vienna being the birthplace of MOST classical music, certainly quite a bit in the late 1700s and 1800s, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Strauss family and others, but many more composers were not associated with Vienna.
Most European countries can claim to have provided large amounts of classical music, example in the Baroque period, Germany, Italy, France and England possibly led the way, later Russia produced a lot of good classical music.
I would rather say Europe as a whole is the birthplace of classical music
as we know or classify it. Other countries and continents have their own musical traditions which in the most part are not so popular outside their own area.
As for the present day, you suggest London due to the number of fine orchestras based there, is this really the case though, perhaps CD can suggest quite a few around Moscow; France, Germany, Austria and Italy can probably field a fair few. In the States you seem to have your orchestras spread out, on this side of the pond we rarely hear of more than about half a dozen American orchestras, Boston, New York Philharmonic and Symphony, Philadelphia although according to Wiki there are lots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphony_orchestras_in_the_United_States
in comparison English orchestras and ensembles
http://www.abo.org.uk/Information/About-Orchestras/
and the Wiki entry for Europe (including UK)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphony_orchestras_in_Europe
