Author: Douglas McLennan

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

What killed the venerable BMG’s classical music recording operations? “A run of pin-striped MBAs and former wine salesmen was put in charge of classics, only to depart before their signings cut a debut disc. On the rock side BMG flourished, winning a record 24 trophies at this year’s Grammy awards. BMG has annual revenues of $16.4 billion and owns 200 labels, including Ariola, Arista and Windham Hill. Classics amount to less than four per cent of turnover. When the bottom line reddened amid a general classical downturn, the division was swatted by an executive fist, like a flea on a giant’s hide. That is the way of the corporate world, and that is what is killing classical recording.” – The Telegraph (London)

TIME TO PLAY

Limited rehearsal time has limited more than one classical music performance: soloist jets into town in time for one run-through before the concert, and everyone waits to see what comes off. Now a few performers have taken the unusual (and expensive) step of hiring their own orchestras and exploring a work in marathon rehearsals before stepping onstage. – Philadelphia Inquirer

BRUCH THIS

Yikes – for the fifth year in a row Max Bruch has won top spot on the UK’s Classic FM poll of favorite composers. But then, what do you expect? “If you spoonfeed your audience a pappy diet of light classics and bite-sized chunks of larger works, all seasoned with the odd bit of cross-over, and then get them to vote for their favourites, the result is more or less a foregone conclusion. Pavlov couldn’t have conditioned his salivating dogs any more effectively.” – The Guardian

TO DI FOR

Italian composer Bruno Moretti has written an opera that is a barely disguised version of Diana, Princess of Wales’ life. “The opera ends with the fading image of Emma [Diana] waltzing with her Arab lover to the screech of tyres and the paparazzi’s flashbulbs.” – The Times (London)

STAND BY ME

Getting working capital from banks to finance a project is often a problem for artists. So the Alberta and Canadian governments have decided to help with a “Cultural Industries Guarantee Fund” that provides collateral for project financing.  “Some of the book publishers or magazine publishers may be in that middle stage where they have had great initial success on a lot of their projects, and need to grow, and without that investment, just can’t. And they have a very difficult time.” – CBC

ROTH FOR NOBEL?

Ten years ago, “Philip Roth was still considered a literary troublemaker, a gleeful misogynist, a self-absorbed rake who made it impossible for an entire generation to look at liver the same way again.  But over the past decade, something magical has taken place. While his peers have slipped quietly into their literary dotage, Roth’s powers have steadily waxed. Since 1991, he has pumped out six books with metronomic, superhuman regularity, winning five major awards, including a Pulitzer. Now, with the imminent publication of his new novel, The Human Stain, the unthinkable has occurred: Portnoy is a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize.” – New York Magazine

UNLIMITED READ

A new hypertext book is a rabbit hole of an experience. “253” is a story of the 253 passengers (and the drive) on a train. But every sentence is filled with hypertext leading to details and subplots and descriptions of the other people on the train. No two readers are likely to read it the same way. “It’s far more work than writing an ordinary story,” says the author. In a traditional book, the author does not have to create everything around a character, everything they see. In hypertext, it’s all there: The writer has “to create interesting material that may never be read by anybody, ever.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

READING REVOLUTION

New electronic publishing technologies change not only the way we’ll be able to access words in the future, but also the way stories are written. The simple linear reading experience may be coming to an end. “This is either the dawn of a new age of writing or the end of Western civilization.” – Washington Post