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Anthony Holden compares orchestras he heard at this summer’s Proms and finds the mighty Cleveland Orchestra coming up wanting. “Like a pedigree dog on an over-tight leash, this is a dazzling orchestra with an uptight conductor. Devotees of this mightiest of masses found much to disappoint, from the underwhelming Cleveland chorus to the less than inspirational conducting of Franz Welser-Most (known to our own LPO, with whom he had an unhappy six years in the 1990s, as ‘Frankly, Worse Than Most’). His orchestra is one of the world’s finest, its strings boasting as much sheen as the Berlin’s, its wind players capable of sonic miracles. So why is Welser-Most so “bloodless”?

Ticket prices for symphony orchestra concerts have gone up much faster than the rate of inflation in recent decades. “What if what we’re talking about here is not a crisis in interest in classical music, but a crisis in what the public is willing to pay for that interest, orchestras nationally need to change the dialogue. Our ticket buyers are affluent, orchestras say. Some are, some aren’t. But the relevant question today is not what people are able to pay, but what they’re willing to pay. The answer isn’t more popular programming (though that’s a worthy subject on its own) or punchier adjectives in brochures. It just might be that cheaper tickets would do more to fill houses than an award-winning advertising campaign.”

Police are investigating an alleged embezzlement of $1.25 million in royalties from the Songwriters Guild of America. “The SGA represents about 5,000 songwriter members and their estates. Members may elect to have the guild collect royalties for them from publishers, collecting societies and others. The SGA collects nearly $16 million in royalties annually and holds about 2 percent of that amount, when it cannot find current addresses for writers.”