2023: The Year The Classical Recording Industry Became A Charity 

While I was studying composition at USC, one of our guest speakers was "the head of London Records." I don't recall his name but he stated that NO money is made, whatsoever, on Classical recordings. This was in the 1980's and I was convinced, with all the Grammys and whatnot, that -- surely -- all of those award-winning Sir Georg Solti recordings with the Chicago Symphony were breaking some kind of profit. So, I raised my hand and asked him, what about all those "Sir Georg Solti" recordings? His answer was, "It costs money [we LOSE money] to make EVERY one of those recordings. If it weren't for corporate sponsors donating the money to make them, none of those recordings would even be possible." I'm just happy, whatever the cost, there will never be a time when young people don't wish to become great musicians. Despite the lack of profits, it appears to me that there is no dearth of great talent -- instrumentalists, composers, conductors -- more than enough to fill every seat of any orchestra in the world. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure all of them will be able to pay rent or buy houses. Thank goodness the music still lives on.

As someone born a couple decades after the start of Mehta's Decca/LA recordings, this paragraph from the liner notes to the 2020 Mehta/LA box is mindblowing. Classical music was LUCRATIVE back in the day if Decca was willing to go to such intense lengths to make those recordings. "The recording crew arrived from London. With them were 56 crates weighing more than two-and-a-half tonnes. Culshaw and his engineers Gordon Parry and James Lock announced that the recording sessions would be held in the UCLA’s Royce Hall. A whole new stage platform had to be built, strong enough for the musicians, their instruments and the microphones. All very well, except that the entire set-up had to be dismantled regularly between sessions because the hall had been booked for lectures and for performances by the American Ballet Theater. The sessions themselves were extensive. Starting with Pictures at an Exhibition, they included Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and music by Schönberg and Scriabin - all recorded over five days."

Happy New Year, Dave! Thanks again for another informative video, and for all the videos you have made over the years. BTW in regards to this video’s topic, I was invited in 1969 by DG to be a management trainee for the label. The first thing they informed me when I arrived in Hamburg (DG’s Head Office) was Classical music did not make money and that I should really work in the Pop Department to understand the record business better. (Finally I never did work for DG and eventually ran A&R for Pop.) And this reality about Classical music was already there back in 1969…

Happy New Year, Dave. I can truly say that finding your channel earlier this year is one of the highlights for me of 2023. Thank you so much for your insights, wisdom and humor.

At least the “Chateau de Versailles” label is still bringing out new recordings on physical media of French baroque works. I have quite a few and they’re stunning recordings, many recorded in the opera theatre in Versailles, which has magnificent acoustics. I’m looking forward to buying the new recording of Lully’s Atys conducted by Christophe Rousset they are releasing in a few weeks. Interestingly, the back covers of their CD sets list all the organisations that support them and who have obviously contributed to the cost of producing these release. So classical music definitely needs financial support to keep going. Incidentally, I was amazed at some of the music stores that still operate in Paris when I was there last year. There’s a huge store in the Sorbonne that has an entire floor of classical CDs and boxed sets at reduced prices. I was in Heaven!!! I haven’t seen anything like that in almost 20 years.

Happy new year and thank you for another year of both very insightful and most entertaining videos.

I think a case can be made that essentially, classical music has virtually always been a money-losing proposition. Consider how music was financed throughout the vast majority of its history, usually through subsidies by royalty and the aristocracy. The notion that classical composers of previous centuries were the early equivalent of today’s rock stars is absurd. Classical music, from its roots, was a fine art form paid for by the aristocracy for the aristocracy. Don’t kid yourself that 18th-century Viennese chambermaids were rushing off to Esterhazy Palace to hear the latest Haydn symphony, or that Parisian chimney sweeps would go home at the end of the day to perform Rameau’s Pieces de Clavecin en concerts with their family. The common people had folk, and later pop, music, but classical music was never a major industry aimed at consumption by a mass market. More recently, performing arts organizations have derived little of their revenue from ticket sales, but instead depend primarily on wealthy donors, charitable foundations and corporations hoping to polish their public image. Metropolitan Opera General Director Rudolf Bing once stated in a TV interview that producing opera was inevitably a money-losing proposition, and that, in his view, that was how it should be. Major recording companies like Columbia and RCA would produce classical recordings as prestige projects while their vast pop catalogues paid the bills. Some time ago, exorbitant production costs in the U.S. forced record companies to depend more and more on European orchestras and recording facilities. I recently asked a well-known classical musician what his next recording projects will be, and was surprised to hear that it would depend on when he could raise the money to pay for the production himself. I worked for 22 years at the Ravinia Festival in the Chicago area, which for much of its history was primarily a venue that showcased the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, though it was independent of the CSO’s actual organization. They were able to do it for many years through the generosity of wealthy North Shore residents, but ballooning costs long ago prompted them to mix in a few pop shows, which were cheaper to produce and drew larger audiences. This trend grew and eventually resulted in a major change in Ravinia’s profile; if you check out their more recent season schedules, you’ll find a much higher percentage of big-box-office rock and pop shows. The CSO still performs there, but it ceased to be the financial raison d’etre for what has become, for a majority of Chicagoland residents, a venue for blockbuster pop acts.

Happy New Year, Dave. Great video. I wonder how composers and music writers in general are supposed to survive now. And most people don't even pay for the recording any way. It can be usually found for free on RU-vid, Spotify, or any other platform, if you are willing to tolerate the ads. I mean, you recently made a video on Monteverdi's Brilliant Classics Box Set. The label has the whole box for free on RU-vid. I don't understant. The way human psychology works, very few people are going to ever buy it. Why would you give it for free, if you expect people to buy? And the same thing happens with pop records. I guess I cannot understand anything.

It used to be that classical and jazz were long-term profits. Karajan's Beethoven 5th might not sell much that week...but by the end of the year every unit will be sold. The new release by a pop singer may sell big time its first week...or not at all. Pop, rock and, to a lesser degree, rap have to sell right away or not at all. Short-term profit. Big pay-out but big risk. It was the combination of long-term and short-term that was a winning combination for the record industry. Till the 90s. Then, the short-term model became, pretty much, the only strategy with obvious results. This is what happens to industries run by people who don't know that particular industry. And now (like so many other things) the problem is compounded by the acquisition by massive corporations. Eventually the record industry will completely collapse...no matter what style of music.

Elliot Carter told me in 1976 that Columbia records was basically a charity and that in spite of his fame as a composer that his earnings from recordings was 25 cents per $6 LP ( if I remember the price correctly), and Stravinsky wrote in 1962 that Columbia would only sell 3,000 to 5,000 of his records of new pieces in the US, less than 10 percent of Firebird LP sales.

Happy new year Dave and everyone else!🎉

Happy New Year, Dave! One of the highlights of my past year has been finding and enjoying your wonderful, informative, insightful, and very entertaining videos. At some point in all your videos you make me laugh for which I'm immensely grateful. A thousand thanks for your superb work!

Happy New Year David, Enjoy 2024 😊👍

Happy New Year, Dave!!! All the very best & ready for 2024 videos 👍 Keep On Listening!!!!!

From this informative and lucid video if any, I understand that issues in quality often noticed by critics among mostly 'recent' recordings will no longer depend on the management of long-lasting recording labels catering for a well or badly thought catalogue but on the undiscerning platforms that will take their place and harbour tons of outpouring artistic projects, made available to our home systems. The more competent critics will be needed then (or you will have to multiply hands and ears like some oriental titan) to guide us. Thanks a lot again for the pertinence and coherence that you bring and happy New Year to you too.

Happy New Year Big Guy.

Learned a lot from this channel. Not in sync with all your rankings, but boy did it broaden my horizons in the classical space. HNY!

Well, what a video to end the year. After viewing I feel I should resign from all this so I altered my resolution list to include acquiring a taste for hip hop, rap, trap and other contemporary noise. Anyway, Happy New Year to all!

Your awesome Dave. Happy New Year o wise one!

Great talk as always, Dave. As far as your last statement about our no longer having classical executives with a vision these days: Frank Zappa used to say that we were better off with having people in that position who were ignorant and took a chance on groups without thinking about it. I don’t know where I stand on that. But to me, it’s food for thought. HappiER New Year!

Happy New Year! Started listening to your videos in 2023. Always interesting and thought provoking and I am finding lots of new works and composers thanks to your recommendations. One thing I'm worried about with the Hyperion purchase by Universal is what will happen to their Romantic and Classical Concertos series. I've been collecting these since they started and would be very sad to see them stop.

I only buy digital downloads if the recording is not available on new or used CD or SACD multi-channel surround discs. Then I create a CD or DVD-Audio multi-channel of the download on my computer and print out the booklet. What a pain. So far, I have only bought 4 digital downloads ever. If BIS and/or Hyperion are only available via a download only, I'll no longer be buying their releases. However, I will continue to buy used SACDs and CDs from BIS and Hyperion.

Maybe you’ve already talked about this, but have you considered delving into classical music performances that are available on RU-vid? After decades of acquiring LPs & CDs, one day I pretty much stopped cold turkey. Now I find pleasure poking around RU-vid’s seemingly endless catalogue of old audio & video recordings and the overwhelming amount of new releases that constantly appear. Would you be interested in becoming our guide through the world of classical music RU-vid videos? 😎🎹

Happy New Year, Dave! Possibly the only chance for small orchestras, chamber groups and solo performers to recoup some costs of recording is to sell CDs at their concerts, and as the classical audience is generally on the older side, many still use physical product.

BIS was an early adopter of SACD and surround (5.0 anyways), so perhaps Apple's interest is in a catalog of classical titles that can convert to Atmos easier than what they would be able to get out of many other labels that didn't record in surround. Hyperion got out of SACDs when they lost their lawsuit years ago so their surround titles are much smaller.

"Agglomerating" is my first $100 word for 2024. Happy New Year, Dave Hurwitz.

That is truly surprising wow. Basically the model that film studios have is what record companies are doing.

New business model for subsidized (by creatives) content discovery and distribution via web delivery platforms(maintained by distributor organization). Same thing is happening with books and movies as well. In book and journal publishing, referred to as open science or open access : free to read or use by people and costs are provided/subsidized by creators. One effect here is creators in complete artistic charge of how their work is produced(they are paying for it).

Apple’s revenue from services isn’t just from the services. They use the services to sell hardware. For example, Apple Music only allows lossless streams on Apple devices. So getting (typically affluent) classical fans to switch to Apple Music will likely incentivize a significant chunk of them to start/keep buying Apple devices. And that’s where they make the big bucks.

Apple Music will need to buy out a label for warhorse material and make it exclusive so that customers will get the music exclusively from Apple Music, only on proprietary devices, and of couse at Apple prices.

Hi Dave, I'm a first time commenter, long time subscriber, and classical music nut. Also an audiophile, so double nut. Question for a future episode? Now that Apple has eaten BIS, will BIS physical product disappear? If so, what five records should we buy up? Here's my list, in no particular order despite the numbers. 1) Suzuki's Bach masterpiece box, or his entire Bach cantatas for hardcore Bachians. He's better than the English school of Bachian like JEG. He's from Dutch school, like Herreweghe. His cantatas are better recorded and played than JEG's pilgrimage trip 20 years ago that sounded like a concert on the move rather than thoughtful discs. 2) The Planet by Andrew Litton because a superb audiophile recording and heartfelt playing. 3) Sibelius but not sure which ones. So many. You've covered this before. 4) Beethoven symphonies by Vänskä: Minnesota Orchestra. A solid cycle for those concerned with top sound. Not Wand, Bohm, etc but few weak links and an alternative. KOL!

I’ve got a pay-to-play album in the works. I had the option of a physical cd run. They wanted $25 A DISC to produce physical product. No thanks!

VERY bad news indeed. There goes the SACD format from BIS and what was left of innovative releases from Hyperion. Damnit.

Your comments are so entertaining and engaging that you should be heard by a larger audience. Now, I'm assuming radio would give you a wider audience. Has any radio station approached you about putting a weekly segment to air?

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones sales subsidised classical records from Decca and EMI.

Weird about Hyperion. I produced a video on You tube with some copyright free music. Hyperion claimed the music under copyright but subsequently banned the music being used on RU-vid. It was frustrating me as I had to find some different music and reissue the video.

Happy new year. You present a thoughtful view of the record industry. On a general scale, I wonder if “classical’ music is dying or dead and we just don’t know it yet. The pandemic has caused such a ripple in the fabric of life in general and the entertainment industry, particularly concert music. Orchestras are struggling, and relying on playing movie scores to draw in younger audiences, the general audience is getting grayer and grayer, . All this has, as you said, been said for years, but one has to ask, is how sick is the patient, and what is the prognosis?

How does/will the industry deal with platforms like RU-vid that offer products for free? The core of my listening ‘rep’ consists of opera recordings and live broadcasts from the beginning of the LP era, and you can practically find everything on RU-vid in some shape or form. Is this mainly a historical recording issue?

The BIS acquisition makes me very concerned that I will never get the complete Allan Pettersson set from Christian Lindberg. They're so close to completion!

I don't mind the death of physical product, provided it doesn't also mean the death of ownership. Happy to download a FLAC, but not to stream (i.e., rent), basically. 😅 Happy New Year to you, Dave.

Dave is probably personally responsible for half of the global purchases of classical cds, because he buys in bulk every single recording or reissue that he reviews.

What is the cost of producing an album of say, piano music? If the industry is now basically a charity, is it possible for a private individual to sponsor a pianist to record their next disc? I’ve seen some musicians using RU-vid and patreon as ways to supplement income, as well as serve as advertising for their concerts. Is live performance now the best / only real way for musicians to earn a living as musicians?

What about studio costs? I would assume that any orchestra would need a rather large room in order to record anything. And of course, how many takes would such recordings need before something worthwhile releasing would be achieved? I am not familiar at all with modern recording apps or doohickeys. Could Beethoven's or Dvorak's 9th Symphonies be digitally taken down with Pro-Tools?

I’m going to keep buying CDs and (in the words of Pete Townshend) hope I die before I get old…even though it’s way too late for that now.

This doesn't bode well for upcoming conductors, orchestras, concert soloists or even composers. There might be some terrific work being done, but we'll never know it. Any young baton wielder who thinks that he/she will have the recorded legacy of say Ormandy, Bernstein, Solti or Karajan is going to be sadly disappointed.

Apple buying BIS is somewhat curious, as they've never owned a record label before. Based on their previous behavior, I suspect what they really wanted were their audio engineers, as they do some of the best recordings in the business. For Apple acquisitions are usually about getting people and access rather than technology or products.

2023 the year Classical Music became Jazz. I am just glad new orchestral music is over 3 minutes. The new Jazz I have been unintentionally exposed to is unlistenable IMO.

Will a streaming company have a clue what to stream ?

Ted Gioia argues that Apple has 0 interest in investing in or maintaining a classical catalogue.