Last night I attended a book signing/event at the Strand bookstore 
here for the author/BBC music critic Norman Lebrecht, who has written 
a new book called "The Life and Death of Classical Music"  In this 
book, LeBrecht chronicles the history of the classical music recording 
during the last hundred years.  His thesis is that the classical music 
recording industry has now collapsed and died.  

LeBrecht told stories of how most people used to know who the great 
conductors and orchestras were, but no longer do.  When Arturo 
Toscanini came to the U.S., three in five people knew who he was.  
Enrico Caruso was the biggest recording star in the world. 

Now, as he points out, the great classical recording labels Duetsche 
Grammophon, Decca, EMI, CBS, RCA, and Philips used to put out hundreds 
and thousands of recordings.  New releases used to be great events.  
Now all of the great labels have either collapsed or are collapsing. 
The ones that remain are but a mere shell of what they once were.

LeBrecht blames a culture where people no longer concentrate on music 
and give it their full attention.  Now people have to be doing five 
things once and have no patience for the complexity of fine music.  
Younger generations, he points out, now only like to sample music.  
Download a few minutes of this, a few minutes of that.  He also is 
highly critical of schools these days, particularly in the U.S., where 
music programs and music study are no longer valued.  Students, he 
complains, are no longer taught how to write music, no longer study 
music, so there is no basis for them to learn a true appreciation of 
the art form.  He points to the high academic standards of the few 
countries where music theory is still taught in the lower grades, 
places like Finland.  

Classical music, he points out, had a great renaissance in the 
twentieth century with the advent of recording technology.  The music 
was made more readily accessible to more of the world than ever 
before.  But now, LeBrecht says, the renaissance is over, the 
classical music libraries have been recorded, and classical music is 
now no longer seen as the relevant art form it once was.  Classical 
music, he claims, is now going the way of Latin and Greek.  Languages 
scholars will study, and which will always have great historical 
value, but which are dead languages in modern times.  There is a 
generation gap in classical music listeners.  Of the fifty or so 
people at this event last night, maybe there was one under forty.  
LeBrecht pointed this out, and also that today the audience at 
symphony performances is considerably older than the members of the 
symphonies themselves.  There are great younger musicians.  The new 
conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony is going to be a twenty six year 
old wunderkid from Venezuela.  But the audience isn't young.

LeBrecht also talked about the decline of record stores and what it 
means for classical music.  He laments the loss of the community of 
listeners that existed around those stores. There are some music forms 
that don't lend themselves to internet downloads.  Who is going to 
download a four hour wagner opera?  These recordings were always sold 
by neighborhood record stores who had catalogs and knowledgeable 
clerks.  All that is gone now.  With the closing of Tower Records last 
year, there are few or no retailers with large stand alone classical 
music stores or sections.  

Intrestingly, in the Q&A session, one man got up and said he sells 
classical music over the internet and has started his own small label, 
and he argued that LeBrecht is entirely too pessimistic, that the 
future of the industry is simply not large labels and productions.  
This brought up a discussion of how the major labels, DG, London, 
Philips .etc all caused many of their own problems with gross 
mismanagement, overpaying of artists, and failure to maintain exacting 
quality recording standards.  

I am reading Norman LeBrecht's new book now and I highly recommend 
it.  "The Life and Death of Classical Music: Featuring the 100 Best 
and 20 Worst Recordings Ever Made"  It is not an entirely depressing 
read at all, as he would rather talk of the glory of what once was in 
classical music recording than focus entirely on the doom and gloom of 
current times.  

77 responses total.

So basically Norman LeBrecht is one of those old guys who yearns for the
"good old days" because he can't accept change. Wonder why he isn't a
grexer. :/

Fooey. For tens of thousands of years music was a service, until some
dude named Thomas Edison came along and made it into a commodity. Now it
is back to becoming a service again, and I for one am glad it is doing so.

 Link to an interesting and somewhat appropriate article in the Washington
 Post:

  http://tinyurl.com/2273gm

Thanks Mike I really enjoyed that article.

I thought it was hokey.  A)The average subway patron simply can't tell
the difference between a virtuoso violin player and a merely above
average one, particularly when the music itself is unfamiliar, and
B)people in the subway at rush hour are in too much of a hurry to stop
and listen for long.  Even if they were told that the musician is a
super-famous classical musician, most wouldn't care much.

I saw a guy play Eruption on a cello on YouTube.
uhhhh huhhuh...huh huh

apparently joshua bell doesn't practice enough these days and isn't quite as
good as he should be.

art music (i don't like to call it "classical" because that refers to a
specific period in art music: before the romantic period and after the baroque
period) has been a fossilized form for a while now.  our orchestras should
be considered as a sort of acoustic museum: the style is overly formal, they
require heavy subsidies, and all the great composers and conductors are from
another era.  modern professional orchestras touch a very small part of the
whole art music repertoire, and what little "new" music gets played is written
by academics.  it seems the purpose of their concerts, at least in north
america, is geared towards an almost gentrified audience:  tickets are
expensive, and people are supposed to dress nice to show off their culture.
it's hardy an avril lavigne night out.  

let's also remember that back in beethoven's time, people would applaud anytime
 during the concert, at a point they liked.  the audience at the premiere of
his ninth symphony clapped wildly after they heard the kettledrums tuned in
octaves, an unusual move at that time.  concerts sometimes went on for five
hours at a time.  all this is a far cry from the strict protocol today.  i
think the overly formal code is what makes concert halls less accessible to
today's public.  it's different in europe, though.  art music is part of their
history and culture, like a language.

i believe that only chamber music (small ensembles) and amateur orchestras
offer a way out of this fossilization: they make the music alive again.  alive
meaning that you don't have to wear a tuxedo and dress overly formally to
express what should be just listened to.  when the Canadian Brass put on a
concert, they make a point of wearing white running shoes and doing some silly
antics to make the audience involved.  this is what live music should be
about: getting the listeners into the music.  too many performers who lack
experience will sadly not take the time to introduce the music to their 
audience in an appropriate way.

it's interesting to note that it shouldn't be all that unusual to see someone
like joshua bell busking.  musicians will always be a part of the
entertainment class, and we shouldn't forget that.  as a musician, i'm
prepared to realise that what is entirely important for me may be completely
ignored by someone else.  but that's true for many areas in life.

so what about the recording industry?  well, you can only record so many times
beethoven's greatest hits.  but it's a fact that a very tiny part of the art 
music repertoire constitutes a huge part of a recording industry's revenue.  
people tend to forget this fact, but it's true.  people will always support
classical recording industries, just as companies bail out orchestras on the
verge of bankruptcy.  i don't think we should get worked up about it.  but 
i'm glad that it's helping keep music live.

nice post, naftee. And an interesting view to be sure. I think there is 
a lot to be said about making music accessible.

for sure.  i love orchestral music, but i realise that it's hard to get the
public interested in it, since most people seem predisposed to thinking that
it's "boring".  an unfortunate position !

I think you did a good job of touching on some of the reasons for that.

From my own experience I find that once I have one good recording of a 
piece of classical music I hardly, if ever, seek out a newer version. 
That's a huge hurdle facing the classical recording industry.  It's the 
same music, to a large extent, being done over and over and over.

re #10 In fact one issue is that after the cd boom came, far too much 
of the standard classical catalogue was recorded again and again and 
again, with the emphasis being on grinding out mass quantities of cds 
cheaply to make money.  You'd see Beethoven symphonies and Mozart this 
or that put out done by obscure symphonies and conductors you never 
heard of in small towns and cities all over europe.  The idea being 
that many casual listeners just want a passable copy of Beethoven's 
fifth for instance, and would be more than willing to buy it done by 
the east polovchak orchestra for a fourth of the price of versions by 
the Berlin Philarmonic or the Vienna Philharmonic.

There became so much quantity out there that it obscured the quality.  
It became too hard to find the really good recordings in the swarms of 
bad, pedestrian recordings put out cheaply and stuffed in the music 
bins to make a fast buck.  Its like if you sold real Rolexes in the 
same display cases as a thousand fake Rolexes, and so many people 
bought the fakes and had them break down that they got turned off on 
the brand altogether.

Oh, I don't know.  Sometime those no-name-brand orchestras are pretty darn 
good.  And they even include female musicians! ;-)  And not everyone can 
afford the BIS imports.  Instead they find the $5.00 Fifths a great fit.  

You don't have to be a rich snob to enjoy classical music.  But don't tell 
the rich snobs that - they won't understand.

LOL!

Re 10  Wow - that's an excellent point.  I'm not a huge classical 
connosieur, but I have the soundtrack to "Immortal Beloved" which has 
an AMAZING recording of Beethoven's Ninth by the Chicago Philharmonic 
under Sir Georg Solti.  Why would I look for another version?

re #14 The reason is that each performance is an interpretation.  
Years ago I saw Dustin Hoffman's broadway performance as Willie Loman 
in Death of a Salesman.  It was brilliant.  Years later it was revived 
with Brian Dennehy as Willie and I saw it again. I had seen Death of a 
Salesman.  Was it worth it to see it again?  It was absolutely worth 
it, because Dennehy's interpretation was far different than Hoffman's.

As times change, interpretations change. Approaches can change.  Great 
works of art are living things that change and take on different 
meanings with different performers.  Playing a great classical piece 
isn't like connect-the-dots, such that if you have someone playing all 
the notes right then thats all the work is or can be.  If you are 
satisfied with just one version, as if there is only one 
interpretation/one perfection, and that once it is acheived, the work 
has reached its limit, then you will be forever satisfied with just 
that version.  But if you believe great works are living things, and 
that the music has limitless potential, you must be receptive to new 
versions.

 

So why copy paintings? Just have newer generations of artists repaint
them with their own interpretations.

re #16 bad analogy.  Composers write music for others to perform.  
They expect their works to be reinterpreted.  Painters do not do 
paintings expecting others to re-paint the same works.

Why not?

I have at least five different versions of some pieces (at about 10 cents
each).

re #18 because music HAS to be played by others.  When many of these 
composers wrote music, it was before recording had been invented.  
Music was meant to be passed down and reinterpreted.  Tolstoy on the 
other hand did not write War and Peace with the intent that sixteen 
thousand people would re-write the story.  He wanted his version to be 
the definitive and only version of War and Peace.  Every time the book 
was re-typed by someone, and re-printed, it was the same book.  
Reading a book or painting is a direct relationship between the 
reader/viewer and author/painter.  With music, a third person or party 
has to be involved, i.e. the performer.  Unless the performer is a 
robot, you expect the work to be interpreted.

Mozart wrote Don Giovanni so others could perform it and make their 
own interpretations.  Tolstoy wrote War and Peace expecting to be the 
only one who would ever "perform" (in this case write) it.  

Of course, when you read War and Peace, you're likely reading a
reinterpretation of it in English rather than reading the original
Russian.  Plus you're not reading it in Tolstoy's handwriting but rather
a professionally typeset version which probably uses a different font.

The difference is merely one of degree, but pretty much any successful
book is going to be translated, adapted into a made-for-tv-movie, or
reinterpreted based on what Oprah tells people to think about it.

Again, Richard, you are looking at it from the point of view of a 
connoisseur willing and able to purchase the latest high-priced release. 

CDs last.  The music on them easily migrates to newer, lighter, smaller 
devices (iPods). I'm happy with my collection.  I seldom buy new classical 
recordings yet I thoroughly enjoy classical music.  I'm the problem, I 
guess.   

re #23 Maybe you are part of the problem Mary.  You shouldn't just be 
satisfied with the old recordings in your collection.  You should want 
to hear modern musicians new interpretations.  Suppose you have the 
best cello works ever written, as they were recorded in the seventies, 
and feel your collection is complete.  So you won't buy any new cello 
works.  This would mean you have missed out on all the great work Yo 
Yo Ma has done re-interpreting the great cello works during the last 
decade and a half.  It would be a music experience you are depriving 
yourself of having.

Now Yo Yo Ma has sold plenty of records by now, but new artists like 
him won't have the same chance.  The labels aren't putting out nearly 
as many records anymore.  Because people like Mary won't buy them 
anymore.

You know, I knew that Mary was the catalyst for the breakdown of 
polite and cultured society - now it's good to know we have proof.

;-)

re #23 I mean by some people's attitudes, you'd think they'd tell Yo 
Yo Ma he shouldn't even bother re-recording the great Brahms cello 
concertos with his nearly three hundred year old Davydov Stradivarius 
cello.  I mean Brahms has been done before right and people are 
satisfied with their collections?

Can you smell the self-righteousness?

re #26 what self righteousness?  I just think too many people these 
days fail to see classical music as an evolving art form.  They think 
Brahms is Brahms is Brahms.  Beethoven is Beethoven is Beethoven.  The 
classical music recording industry is dying out because too few see 
the value of new interpretations anymore.  Once they have a catalogue, 
thats it.

So, Richard. Do you think artists should be allowed to sue people who
take the music they wrote and "reinterpret" it? Like, say, Weird Al?

Moreover, there aren't enough artists recording standards these days,
or doing covers of Beatles songs.  It's a dang shame.

I'm not fond of classical music. It's not what I want to listen to. I do have
a few recordings (well, mp3s, on my iPod) because I got interested in the 
particular work, but on the whole, I don't buy it, old, new, reinterpreted,
or whatever. On the OTHER hand, I have several versions of some of my favorite
folk songs, just because I love hearing lots of different voices and different
variants of the lyrics -- though, on the GRIPPING hand, some people ARE the
definitive singers/interpreters of the songs in question, and I wouldn't want
to hear any other versions at all. (Ask me about "Matty Groves" sometime, if
you want to hear why I adore the Fairport Convention version above all others,
and not the one with Sandy Denny singing lead, either. Which makes certain
people (hi, KRJ!) wince, because I'm so so wrong about that.)

I can sympathize with richard's frustration about people having 
different tastes than he has. I know that I sometimes feel similar 
frustration when favorite tv shows are cancelled. But even so, richard, 
it is kind of arrogant to call other people's personal tastes "wrong" 
or even to imply that their tastes are part of some problem. 

re #29 there are plenty of artists doing beatles covers and other songs 
by them.  They are next month in fact releasing a heavily hyped new 
album of Lennon covers to raise money for Darfur, "Instant Karma: The 
Campaign to Save Darfur."  REM does John Lennon's #9 Dream, Green Day 
does "Working Class Hero", Christina Aguilera does "Mother", the Cure 
does "Love", Black Eyed Peas do "Power to the People" and Willie Nelson 
does "Imagine" among others.  


I mean I suppose if you had the Beatles "With a little help from My 
Friends", why would you want Joe Cocker's cover version?  A song is a 
song right and your collection is complete with just the original?  Or 
if you have Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", why bother spending 
money on the version Jimi Hendrix put out right?  

re #31 I am not in any way calling other people's personal tastes 
wrong.  It has nothing to do with a particular person's "tastes", it 
has to do with persons being unwilling to try new things.  The 
classical music industry is losing its customer base because its 
customers don't want to try the new samples.

Oh and I also wanted to comment about things like works of literature 
being reinturpreted. It turns out that they often are and if you pay 
attention, you might see the same story being told over and over again. 
You know Pyramus and Thisbe becomes Romeo and Juliet becomes West Side 
Story, etc. 

re #33 yeah but you are talking total re-writes, stories based on other 
stories. Much of art is derivative of earlier art.  However, West Side 
Story doesn't bill itself as Romeo and Juliet.

Re #32: you prove my point.  None of those groups became famous for doing
Beatles covers.

Richard also fails to note that doing "remakes" of popular music is far
different than rerecording the same score with a different orchestra. A better
comparison would be when orchestral works are rearranged for smaller groups.

resp:34 That is true. But some people buy the movie version of West 
Side Story and never bother to see every other interpretation of it 
ever put on by anyone. ;)

I doubt many artists create pieces with the intention that they would be
used by future generations.  Dante, Brahms, Rodin, Virgil and Picasso
all created works which were relevant to contemporary audiences.  So did
The Beatles, Warhol, Disney and Faulkner.  I doubt if any of these
artists would be much bothered that anyone in a later time would
re-interpret their work.  I bet they'd all be thrilled that anything
they did would still be relevant at all a hundred or a thousand years later.

re resp:20

You're right that music requires the intermediary of a performer.  but that's
it. Every single person who attends a performance of Mahler's ninth symphony
will come home with their own unique "interpretation" or perspective of the
work.  It's the same as every person who reads Bukowski's "Ham on Rye" will
have their own opinion of the whole novel.  Composers write music to be heard,
not just performed; just as writers wrote novels to be read, or painters
created paintings to be seen.

In fact, the performer's job is precisely to be as invisible as he can.  He
should study the work, find out what the composer is trying to say, and convey
that message to the audience.  Sure; the performer's personality will show
through his performance.  But that's a quirk, and not a means to an end.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss