Friday Miscelleanea

First up, an economist's list of Best classical music recordings of 2020. I found most of his choices both surprising and interesting. And I am likely to pick up the Morton Feldman box of piano music for myself.

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Via Slipped Disc, the numbers on just how bad things are for musicians:

A report by UK Music shows that musicians , on average, lost two-thirds of their income in 2020.

Concert earnings are down by 85%.

The individual impact is disastrous. Before Covid, the average musician earned £23,059, about three-quarters of the national average.

During Covid, income fell to just £8,070.

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“Success is ratpoison for art” is how Herbert Blomstedt explains why Finland produces more good conductors than Sweden:

‘Finland is less of a spoiled nation than Sweden, there are fewer temptations. They’ve lived in a dangerous place, been skilled in diplomacy and managed to handle Russia. Therefore they are more introverted and work on their own. Sweden has succeeded in its economy and could afford to hire foreign conductors.

‘Here we have the ratpoison that Finland couldn’t afford.  Elias Canetti said: “Success is ratpoison for art.”‘

A famous writer once said something similar. When asked what was better for one's writing, success or failure, he immediately answered, "failure." But he said he preferred success.

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Oh no, non-union choristers: Israeli Opera chorus fights back against proposed layoffs:

The opera, like all cultural institutions, has been shuttered since the pandemic began and there is no date yet for resuming its operations. However, members of the chorus have said, through a spokesman from Shaham, the Israeli Actors’ Association, of which they are a part, that the opera announced its plan to lay them off now – after breaking off negotiations on a new contract – as a way to save money by hiring replacement singers at cheaper rates as freelancers in the future.

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Why Opera Will Never Die:

Opera is one of those words that contains so much historical and symbolic weight and prejudice that you have to clamber through dense, thorny tangles before you even get to what it might actually be, and if there is anything really left, other than it being a segregated leisure pursuit for the entitled.

What I hate about statements like that is that behind them is the urge to smear everything that is not the lowest common denominator. It is a kind of crude cultural Marxism that says if something is refined, subtle and expensive then it is for the "entitled" meaning those people who are to blame for the fact that the rest of us are "oppressed." The article itself is not bad, but the use of the term "entitled" rankled.

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Big Breaks and why you should beware of them.

Almost all record labels producing classical music CDs today require artists to pay them, as companies are unlikely to earn enough profit on sales to cover their costs. John Anderson, the owner of Odradek Records, a label which uses a pioneering anonymous selection system to choose its artists, told me, “Not even huge stars get their CDs for free anymore.” Costs can range from about $6,000 to release with a small label, to up to $70,000 for a recording with a major label (including a worldwide publicity blitz). At any price point, records are not expected to pay for themselves, but rather to increase the artist’s prestige, hopefully leading to more concerts with higher rates. (According to the German violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, DG even receives a cut of some of its artists’ future performance fees.)

Yes, this was certainly my experience. Don't get sucked in by your vanity.

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Here is Triadic Memories by Morton Feldman from the new box set recorded by Philip Thomas:

It grows on you. And here is the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 by J. S. Bach played by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra: