A Note on Links
More Essays by Milan
Speaking of Distraction
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Another Review of The Novel: An Alternative History
The Orange Eats Creeps
The Unconsoled and the Annihilation of Plot
Looks like The Guardian could use a reality check. It says:
"The industry is undeniably in bad shape: limping, desperate, propped up by film scores and photogenic crossover artists showing more thigh than talent," grumbled Michael White in the Sunday Times, reviewing Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: the Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry. "It is a depressing story that needed to be told. But whether it needed to be told by Norman Lebrecht, the Jilly Cooper of music journalism, is a different matter. Where others write he romps, pursuing scandal, sex and ’shame’ (a favourite word) with the alliterative abandon of a red-top tabloid." "Lebrecht tells it with clarity and a racy touch that makes a change from the reverence of most classical CD reviewing," wrote a more appreciative Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph, while Richard Morrison in the Times relished Lebrecht’s "pugilistic energy". "Classical music certainly faces difficult times," said the pianist Susan Tomes in the Independent. "But it’s hyperbole to pretend that the age of classical recording ‘has come to an end’."
Millions of CDs shipped in 1990, according to the RIAA ("net after returns"): 286.5
Percentage of classical (according to RIAA consumer surveys, genres self-described): 3.1
Millions of classical CDs presumed shipped in 1990 (applying the above percentage to the total): 8.88
Millions of CDs shipped in 2005: 705.3 (does not include digital downloads)
Percentage of classical: 2.4
Millions of classical CDs presumed shipped in 2005: 16.9
Millions of units downloaded in 2005 (all genres): 383
Reported percentage of classical music in iTunes sales: 12
Number of new releases listed in the November 1988 issue of Gramophone magazine: 284 CDs and LPs, 19 Compact Disc Videos. Includes such titles as Baroque Weekend, Best of Baroque, Baroque Favourites, and Movies Go to the Opera.
. . .
Number of new releases listed in the March 2007 issue of Gramophone: 401 CDs, 35 DVDs. Plus 66 more CDs and 14 more DVDs in the North American section. Total: 516.
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
I think there’s more to it than the aggregate numbers suggest, although the book you mention seems overly cynical. The middle ground is that the industry is not in great shape and it’s difficult to get recordings done unless you are already a big seller – just look at the top-selling list of that savior of everything “long-tail” iTunes – half of it’s crap like “the most relaxing…” and The Four Seasons and the rest are just a couple of well known names like Josh Bell and Yo Yo Ma.
The classical music recording industry has always been saddled with the problem of “bibiographic completeness.” Whether or not there was a demand for Schumann’s string quartets (not that there wasn’t), someone was going to record them. In the Sixties, several times over.
Now that most canonical music has been recorded (if not all), the “completeness” issue is no longer a factor in the making of recordings. It remains a factor (as it was not before) in the maintenance of backlists. If the old Schumann quartet recordings are discontinued, what is to be done? Reissue or re-record? If the industry hasn’t figured out an answer to this question, that’s largely because it never knew that it was in the fine-arts museum business. Ideally, non-profit foundations would acquire the rights to the best recordings and insure their availability. (The Andante label was an experiment along these lines.)
Given your remarks about novelty the other day, Scott, I’d expect you to disagree with my proposition that music can’t be listened to intelligently until the second hearing. That’s why recordings are so important.