BIS, Apple, Ted Gioia and a Finnish conducting teacher.

A few interesting items rolled in too late to make the Friday Miscellanea but still worth talking about. First up, Apple's acquisition of BIS records, a small Swedish label. Now to us in the classical music field, this seems interesting, but Ted puts it in perspective:

Apple has previously invested in music technology, but not the music itself. Previous buyouts have focused on sexy technologies like Beats headphones and Shazam music recognition software.

And now BIS Records?

If they were going to buy a label, why did they pick such a tiny one? Apple has enough cash to acquire all of the major labels. It could devour Universal Music for breakfast, and swallow Warner Music Group for dinner.

But instead it buys out BIS Records—with estimated revenues of $7.6 million. Just one Apple Store can make that much money in a single week.

I’ve read a number of offered explanations, but none of them are convincing. The notion that Apple is buying an obscure Swedish label to get credibility is a joke. If anything, the opposite is true—Apple gives luster to BIS by making this investment.

Even more amusing is the suggestion that Apple is making this deal to show its commitment to innovation. Does Apple really need a toehold in Akersbaga, Sweden to do that? I don’t think so.

So what’s really happening?

Right, to us classical types, BIS is just as big a name as Apple, but to the wide world, at $7.6 million annual revenue, it is vanishingly trivial compared to Apple's $384 billion revenue (for the 12 months ending in June 2023). Ted's conclusion?

Spotify has already learned that there’s no money to be made with exclusive rights to superstar offerings. “After pouring billions into podcasts and audiobooks to little effect,” explains tech journalist David Pierce, “it seems to have largely given up on the idea that exclusive content is the path to riches.”

The more profitable move is to manipulate listeners—prodding them to choose music the platform can use without royalty payments. As far as I can tell, this is the single biggest advantage to AI music. It’s a cheap alternative.

Apple surely must have learned the same lesson. Apple Music is now eight years old, but there’s no indication that the business is profitable. They need strategies to reduce costs, and substituting cheap music for expensive music is the most obvious way of doing this.

And buying up BIS gives them a comprehensive catalogue of a lot of classical music in attractive performances at a bargain price. It is a bit like the Naxos strategy: hire capable but obscure Eastern European orchestras to record standard repertoire for a bargain price as you don't have to pay musician union rates. I'm not sure this is evil as there seem to be benefits, especially for those Eastern European musicians. And sometimes they give performances just as good as the more famous international superstars. Anyway, Ted is going to offer us his solution to the problems of streaming revenues and the blandness of popular culture in an upcoming post.

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The New York Times has an informative piece: The Teacher Behind the World’s Great Conductors. Jorma Panula is 93 and has taught an astonishing number of the world's conductors. I have remarked before on how Finland is a musical superpower despite its small population.

Think of major Finnish conductors working around the world today — there are a disproportionate number of them — and chances are they studied with Panula. If this country is the world’s top exporter of conducting talents, then he is something like a farmer, cultivating generations of artists: those leading the field, like Susanna Mälkki and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and those emerging in a blaze, like Klaus Mäkelä.

Of course, being the New York Times, it has to find a speck of misogyny:

His sense of humor is quite dark, in a way that can be misread; Peltokoski once saw Panula walk out of a master class, then come back after rounding the block, a move that he described as “purely for theatrical effect.”

“It’s not the sort of humor all people might like, but it’s very specific to him,” Peltokoski added. “And it’s also essential in understanding him — the sarcasm, the deliberate misleading of people, the wordplay, these sort of ridiculous overexaggerations.”

Occasionally, though, Panula’s way of expressing himself has slid into the territory of offensive generalizations. In 2014, he gave an interview in which he glibly said that women were more suited to “feminine” music and were poor interpreters of repertoire like Bruckner symphonies. He was quickly criticized, including by former students.

Alongside that we might notice that he has taught quite a few very fine women conductors.

“I’ve met people in various parts of the world who have been Jorma’s students: architects and pedagogues, people from different walks of life,” Oramo said. “The work he’s done has just been a huge piece of Finnish orchestral life and culture. And the fact that the profession of the conductor is so highly appreciated in Finland is largely the result of his work. He’s irreplaceable.”

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And to remind us that it is not really about the Benjamins, or not entirely, here is Hopkinson Smith playing Sylvius Leopold Weiss on a lute from 1755: