Category: music

George Gershwin has been named the richest composer of all time. “Gershwin eclipsed such classical greats as Strauss, Verdi and Handel in the poll for Classic FM. The classical music station drew up the rich list based on estimates of earnings accrued in a composer’s lifetime.”

Chicago has always been a great music town. But the last 40 years have expanded the depth and breadth of classical Chicago. “Seed money from the National Endowment for the Arts (founded in 1965) and other granting institutions created fertile ground for new performing arts groups in the late ’60s and throughout the ’70s and ’80s. And many of those groups sustained their growth through the new practice of subscription ticket sales, which in turn fanned individual giving. As a result, the city now pulses with dozens of music ensembles made up of local professionals, almost all of them founded since 1967.”

The Oxford International Piano Festival is a different breed of dog. “It has nothing to do with winning anything or brokering careers. It’s about the exchange of views and opening of ears. We try to explore the world of the piano from every aspect: the virtuoso, the chamber musician, the accompanist, the pianist in academia. And being in Oxford, we’re interested in the relationship between playing and learning, performing and informing. I think that’s clear from who we invite and what they do while they’re with us.”

New York Times readers respond to Daniel Wakin’s story about classical music marketing: “Why are symphony audiences shrinking? It’s obvious. The majority of the public has zero connection to the standard repertory, and therefore little reason to hear it or care about it. Whereas video-game-music concerts take advantage of an emotional investment players make in characters and scenes which they not only observe, but actually control.”

A new recording of Tristan und Isolde with Pacido Domingo marks the end of an era. “No more spending hundreds of thousands of dollars coddling famous singers’ egos. No more waiting decades to, with luck, recoup an investment. No more recording works with singers who have never performed their roles onstage and are long past their primes. No more sessions spread out over weeks, months, years. No more relying on technology that permits a soprano and tenor to record a duet without ever setting foot in the studio at the same time. No more shifty studio magic. But then again, no more of that legerdemain to bring the music alive in ways it may never be in the opera house. This new “Tristan,” which EMI Classics will release in the U.S. in September, turns out — against all odds — to be glorious.”

SACD’s offer superior sound. “Though the discs engulf the listener with sound from five different channels, delivering depth, dimension and ambience that were barely imagined 20 years ago, they have traveled the world for the last five years like cruise missiles, slightly below the radar but successfully seeking their small, specific targets (or consumers). Some quarters of the often-impatient recording industry appear to be giving up on the technology. Others, less committed to immediate profits, see vast potential and won’t let it go.”

“Record companies have filed about 13,300 similar federal lawsuits against Internet users across the country since September 2003. Nearly 3,000 of those lawsuits have been settled. The offending music traders have agreed to pay an average of $4,000 to $5,000 and promised not to illegally download copyrighted songs anymore. None of the cases has gone to trial. That may change. And it may change with a soccer mom who said she would rather pay a lawyer’s fees than give in to what she calls intimidation tactics by the record companies to get her to settle.”

Music labels are worried that the recent judgment against Hyperion requiring the company to pay royalties to a musicologist who had prepared scores will kill certain kinds of recording. “What may set precedent is that, while musicologists have sometimes received recording royalties before, a court had never required a company to pay them, as far as I know. To require payment means classifying a musicologist with composers, who gained the right to royalties from for-profit performance of their work over a century ago. This may be why, whatever the legal merits, many people have decried the decision.”

“The classical music world has discovered a fact about copyright law that has long bothered folklorists and ethnomusicologists: under certain circumstances, the law allows individuals, in effect, to “privatize” works that are common property. Anonymous works handed down via oral tradition — the sort that make up the musical heritage of many small-scale societies — have always been vulnerable to legal appropriation.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philly Pops have merged operation. “Musically, little will change. Peter Nero, 71, will continue to lead the Pops. The number of Philadelphia Orchestra players who currently gig with the Pops is not expected to grow. But the consolidation gives the Philadelphia Orchestra a chance to boost its budget and donor base and allows it to concentrate on its main mission.”