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The Crisis of Classical Music 6

  Tobias

I was reminded of a great passage in “The Manual”, a book by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond. The situation was thus: I was having a cup of tea with a composer and we were debating about what makes a record succesful and he was contending that it should only be the music. I disagreed, citing the beforementioned excerpt: Someday, two records by two different artists will be released with nothing but a pounding 4/4 bass drum on them. On paper, these two releases will be absolutely identical. And yet, the public will have a clear favourite.

There’s two reasons for this. One has to do with interpretation and we will deal with that in a later article. And secondly, one of the artists will reveal just a little more of himself than the other, thereby displaying the person behind the music. And that’s an important aspect in why people buy records. However you look at it (and however some may lament this), music is never just a disc or a concert or a festival. It’s also a means of identification, of bonding. Buying music is about agreeing and about sharing something with the artist: A memory, a feeling, a certain point of view. Of course, quite a lot of this is merely an illusion – how could you ever truly feel connected to someone you’ve never met and whom you’ll only know from interviews and TV pictures? But to deny this aspect would be denying an inherent quality of art. And there’s the knack to some of the problems of the classical music scene. Artist have made it a habit of either quietly grumbling about their situation or of submissively accepting it. But the solution lies in their own hands! The public is yearning for more musicians to open up, to allow at least a glimpse into their lives and of finding out what this person is about. Less succesful artists (and small labels) like to blame the marketing budget of the majors for their relative failure, but marketing starts at the very bottom. The success of the big names depends at least to some extent to their willingness to market themselves. Treat your fans to a diary, like Hilary Hahn. Keep them updated on what’s happening regularly, like Lang Lang. Present them with new pictures and articles such as Anna Netrebko and Natasha Paremski. Work closely with fan Websites, such as Charlotte Church and Nigel Kennedy (the latter has even allowed one of them to become his official home on the internet). In any event, don’t let them visit an internet site which is out-of-date and put pictures of churches and ancient buildings on the cover of your CD.

This doesn’t mean everybody has got to be like Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake. Actually, it has got everything to do with being yourself. Sympathy and empathy in the recording business are just as important as love for the music and it would be foolish to ignore that. The good thing about this is that it’s a positive message: It’s an artist’s world, really!

"The Crisis of Classical Music" by Tobias Fischer