David Rastall at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I ran across an article about the death of the classical music > recording industry. I thought I would pass it along for your perusal. > What do you think?
I've learned to take anything Lebrecht says with a grain of salt. This particular article has a way of leaving you hanging. He says, for example, that "The German firm Haenssler, which employed Sir Roger Norrington [Lebrecht doesn't think much of Norrington, BTW] and Sir Neville Marriner to conduct symphonic cycles, ran into financial difficulties and had to be restructured by its parent company, a Christian books publisher. Andante.com, a French-financed venture which sold archive recordings and internet access to live performances, stumbled into a protective alliance with another French group, Naive." What does this mean? They're out of business? Proceeding as normal? Worse? Better? Lebrecht doesn't say. But he then follows immediately with "Hypothermia set in to classical sales," as if this resulted from the restructuring of Haenssler or the "protective alliance" between Andante.com and Naive (though I doubt this is what he meant, if he meant anything) and without citing a single number to support this assertion. And, as the Hurwitz article that Roman linked says, the "death" that Lebrecht predicts is really just the disengagement of the biggest multinational entertainment conglomerates. If these guys were serious in the first place, they'd be recording lute players. Their absence will not make the slightest difference to Jim Edwards or Ed Martin. HP
