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The Crisis of Classical Music 5

  Tobias

For the last four episodes I have been somewhat unkind to the music industry, accusing them of going for the wrong approach and not getting their priorities right. There is still a lot to be said about that but I would like to take a different target for at least a little while (as always I’m reminding everyone that we’re coming to the bright side of things soon): The musicians. For all the problems they face, which are mostly not their own doing,  quite a few of them have been contributing to the (assumed) crisis themselves. One of their mistakes: Relying on the record companies too much.

Labels have faced steadly dropping sales figures, they have failed to build up young artists with true market potential, they have reacted defensively or given up entirely. At the same time, the live scene is blooming: When you pick up the events calendar of your town, you will find that there are Classical Concerts at every corner every day. Some of them big, some of them small, some of them expensive, some of them for free – Classical Music has rarely been more alive than it is today. Performances of many artists are still the talk of the town, billboards with the stars’ faces still grace the cities’ walls. The signs are clear: Concerts have taken over from records both as the principle source of revenue for an artist as well as the main stage where to display one’s art.
Bearing this in mind, it’s a shame to see so many musicians still almost falling on their knees to get a record contract. The balance of power between the industry and the artists has long shifted towards the latter, but they are behaving as though it was still the 70s. Big labels can even ask instrumentalists to pay for the recording sessions themselves, which basically ridicules the companies’ most important function, namely acting as a medial and financial intermediary (I’m not talking about young labels with limited resources themselves here). Some big talents will defy all plans they made with their friends and go for a record contract if the opportunity arises, they will set everything aside for just one little silver disc. The problems this causes are plain to see: It is creating a culture of dependency, perpetuating the crisis of the labels and cuasing a divide as well as infights among the artist community. Instead of constructively assisting each other, the battle is over who gets to sign that piece of paper first.

Artists like Oksana Kolesnikova have shown how one can make it without a label and Pianist Cristiana Pegoraro has even founded her own imprint. Rightly so, for why would they want to rely on anyone but themselves. Which is not to say that it were wrong to record albums or to trust a company. But in a situation which gets increasingly complex and opaque, artists should learn to take things into their own hands.

 "The Crisis of Classical Music" by Tobias Fischer