Premature Last Rites?

[Guest]

It is said that the classical recording industry is on its last legs, but the February issue of IRR has seven whole pages of new releases, each with four closely-spaced columns. I estimate this to be about 420 items for the month.

Someone must be buying these (or a least the producers think/hope they will)?

[Petrushka]

The death of the classical music industry has been announced so many times in the past 20/30 years that I've lost count. My thoughts were exactly the same as yours when I went through the riches making up the February releases on MDT. Law of business No 1: No-one makes a product that will not sell. That's a sure way to the bankruptcy court. The industry, like the orchestras, has an astonishing capacity to adapt and survive.

[Bryn]

I got my regular email with recommendations from that nice Herr Heymann this morning. He tried to convince me to download a recording of Schumann's Faust Scenes. He was kind enough, however, to advise me that a Blu-ray of the recording was in the pipeline. I don't think he fronts the costs of such a product without expecting at least one or two sales.

[ahinton]

Yes, the death-knell of the "classical" recording industry has indeed been sounding for so long that I take leave seriously to doubt that anyone's listeneing to it any more; the goodly(?) Mr Norman Lebrecht has long since assumed to rôle of Great Leader in this kind of journalistic fantasy yet, every time he's sought to hammer yet another of these kinds of nail into any coffin that might accept them, IRR and plenty of other journals have continued to inform the public about more and more new releases. What this tells each individual about Mr Lebrecht is for each such individual to decide...

[Mandryka]

Yes, the death-knell of the "classical" recording industry has indeed been sounding for so long that I take leave seriously to doubt that anyone's listeneing to it any more; the goodly(?) Mr Norman Lebrecht has long since assumed to rôle of Great Leader in this kind of journalistic fantasy yet, every time he's sought to hammer yet another of these kinds of nail into any coffin that might accept them, IRR and plenty of other journals have continued to inform the public about more and more new releases. What this tells each individual about Mr Lebrecht is for each such individual to decide...

Lebrecht probably deserves his own thread and will get one before long.

But briefly....he's built his career largely on being a Cassandra of the classical recording industry. I don't think anyone much had heard of him prior to the publication of his Maestro Myth book. And these days, having had a book pulped because it contained unsubstantiated allegations about Klaus Heymann, he appears to be on a downward trajectory. Does anyone still take him seriously?

[Ferretfancy]

It's not without interest that on the last page of the current IRR there's a piece by Mike Dutton in which he strongly endorses the CD as the most convenient type of recording. He is a specialist, both in his superb historical remasterings and his advocacy of much neglected English music, and he is confident that downloads will not supersede discs.
Incidentally, what do enthusiasts for downloads do when they need texts? Print them off or manage without?

[Bryn]

Well, Lebrecht gets most things wrong, but at least he's right re. Karajan.

[Bryn]

Incidentally, what do enthusiasts for downloads do when they need texts? Print them off or manage without?

Print? What century are you living in? They load the text onto their tablets, of course.

[Mandryka]

It's not without interest that on the last page of the current IRR there's a piece by Mike Dutton in which he strongly endorses the CD as the most convenient type of recording. He is a specialist, both in his superb historical remasterings and his advocacy of much neglected English music, and he is confident that downloads will not supersede discs.
Incidentally, what do enthusiasts for downloads do when they need texts? Print them off or manage without?

I'm not speaking from any kind of informed position, but I get the impression that downloads tend to be more popular among purchasers of pop music, who tend (on the whole) not to be too bothered about such things as notes/texts/lyrics.

[Bryn]

Bought any bargan boxes of CDs lately? Many of them come without any programme notes these days. The Bylsma Boccherini box which some of us here have recently ordered form amazon.fr is a case in point.

[salymap]

In 1934,Constant Lambert in his popular book 'Music Ho!' predicted the end of live music as he walked down a street, hearing radio and recorded music from every house apparently. Lots of people,myself included, still play videos, make tapes, listen to LPs now and then. T'was ever thus.

[MickyD]

Bought any bargan boxes of CDs lately? Many of them come without any programme notes these days. The Bylsma Boccherini box which some of us here have recently ordered form amazon.ft is a case in point.

Hear, hear, Bryn. Having waited ages for the re-release of the Richard Hickox Handel "Alcina", it finally came out on EMI without any libretto. Personally I can't be doing with going to the EMI website to find it.

[Ferretfancy]

Bryn,

Tablets, yes, but awkward to read in the bath, where naturally I do most of my more arcane studies.