What was the impact of classical music in its own time?

I am not an expert in classical music nor music history/sociology. Only late in life, I have discovered this music genre, because I got tired of and bored with contemporary pop music!

However, I believe some of the classical music must have had a tremendous, positive impact on people, who were able to listen to it. Of course, there were no recordings available at the time. Concerts were either expensive or not accessible to many people! However, I presume that perhaps amateur or traveling musicians, whose names or contributions we will perhaps never know, picked up some of the music and played it on the street or gatherings of people for the entertainment of common people. I am speculating here that perhaps the music scene in previous centuries was not as bifurcated as possibly assumed: common people listened to local, rustic, indigenous folk music while nobility and well off people listened to sophisticated classical music.

Given that life was shorter and more brutish then, this music must have been heaven sent, so marvelous, so amazing! Some of it e.g. is of such an intensity and dynamic nature that late 20th century rock music pales compared to it.