Harry Lavo wrote:
"paul packer" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 01:42:07 GMT, Jenn
wrote:


A conversation today with Mark Scatterday, the present conductor of the
much recorded Eastman Wind Ensemble, brought to me a reality of the
present-day classical music recording business: It's really pretty
bleak out there. This ensemble, which has recorded over 40 albums for
Mercury, DGG, Philips, Warner, Sony, and others, basically can't get a
recording released by any of the "majors". Virtually every classical
recording, other than super stars like Yo Yo Ma and cross over acts,
lose money. I know that we all know this intellectually, but it was
kind of brought home to me this week. If we lose this niche of the
record business, we will all be so much poorer for it.

Part of the problem is that the classical music recording business has
brought very little new to the table in the last 40 or 50 years that
wasn't atonal and unpleasant to listen to. Another is that, since the
classical musicians of the early and middle 20th century were at such a
peak of the art, it's often very difficult to equal, let alone improve
on the extant recordings. And a fourth, for Americans, is that
classical music is essentially European, and the Europeans have a
distressing tendency to do it better than we do-a tendency that strikes
me as normal rather than depressing.