Klarinet Archive - Posting 000892.txt from 2000/04

From: David Blumberg <reedman@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] BMG dropping Classical Artists
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 13:18:14 -0400

This would include Stoltzman I assume:

Bottom Line To Take Its Toll On Classics
>
> By Philip Kennicott
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Wednesday, April 19, 2000; Page C01
>
> BMG Classics, once a powerhouse of the classical music recording
industry, is being gutted in a major reorganization of the recording labels
owned by the German entertainment giant Bertelsmann.
>
> In its heyday a decade ago, BMG Classics--better known in America under
its imprints RCA Victor Red Seal and RCA Victor--released several hundred
recordings a year, ffeaturing major box-office artists such as flutist
James Galway and pianist Evgeny Kissin. It also sat upon one of the
greatest troves of recorded sound ever assembled, a historic archive that
included the recordings of Toscanini, Rubenstein, Heifitz and Van Cliburn.
But in recent years it began releasing fewer and fewer recordings and
relying more heavily on its archives. With the reorganization, the former
giant will be a shadow of itself and even longtime stalwart artists, such
as Galway and percussionist Evelyn Glennie, will apparently lose their
contracts, according to those close to the company.
>
> The downsizing of BMG Classics is yet one more indication that the
market for classical music has changed radically over the past two decades.
A glut of classical recordings that developed in the late 1980s and early
1990s led to a leaner and more market-oriented approach by the major
labels. And those labels that remain in the classical music business today
are increasingly focused on their most profitable projects, and no longer
willing to subsidize a large stable of artists such as BMG once did.
>
> Industry observers say that as many as 120 employees, including staff at
RCA and the New Age/jazz label Windham Hill, could lose their jobs in the
reorganization. BMG Classics will cease to exist as an independent label
within the larger BMG corporation, and its few remaining artists and
corporate staff will be folded into the American-run RCA label, which
focuses on popular music. According to one insider, the label could be
working with only a handful of classical musicians, with major decisions
being made by the company's popular music executives.
>
> That leaves the fate of classical music projects in question. Sources
within BMG say that recording projects have already been canceled,
including one by Glennie, but the ultimate fate of the label's core
artists--including the King's Singers, conductors Lorin Maazel and Danielle
Gatti, cellist Steven Isserlis, Galway and Glennie--is sttill unknown.
>
> "We simply don't know yet," says David Kuehn, vice president of
marketing for classical music at RCA Red Seal. Kuehn wouldn't confirm
details of the reorganization, but sources say he has been struggling to
preserve major projects, including the label's critically successful
relationship with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco
Symphony.
>
> Label employees and music industry observers say they fear that
decisions about projects will be increasingly oriented to the bottom line.
A successful classical music recording may sell as few as 12,000 copies,
making profits precarious for almost all projects. (By comparison, the
recent album by teen heartthrobs 'N Sync sold 1.1 million in a single day.)
>
> "This is not an industry for people looking to make lots of money," said
an agent associated with one of the BMG artists. "If you're not in it for
artistic reasons, you shouldn't be in it at all."
>
> That sentiment was echoed by an anonymous BMG employee who fears that
the financial expectations created by successful projects on RCA's popular
labels, such as Arista, are unrealistic in the classical music world.
>
> "This isn't a business that they're familiar with. They come in and look
at the numbers and see that they're really low, and they're not going to
make big profits."
>
> News of major change at the label began circulating after the January
resignation of Rudi Gassner, chief executive of international operations
for the Munich-based parent company, BMG. Gassner was widely perceived as a
champion of classical music within the BMG corporate hierarchy, and his
departure may have precipitated the final retrenchment of BMG Classics into
its new form.
>
> The demise of BMG Classics marks what may be the final chapter in the
long and impressive history of the RCA company. In various corporate
guises, the label known as RCA Red Seal had recorded many of the century's
most popular and most widely known musicians, from Enrico Caruso to
Leontyne Price. After a slow period in the 1970s, the label was
reinvigorated in 1986 when it was purchased by BMG. That, plus the boom in
new recording sparked by the arrival of the compact disc format, made BMG
Classics one of the most prolific labels in the classical music industry.
>
> In the 1980s and early 1990s, BMG was home to dozens of artists,
including the National Symphony Orchestra's music director, Leonard
Slatkin, who recorded five Grammy-Award winning discs for the label. In
recent years, BMG cut back, focusing its energy on a smaller roster that
released a smaller number of recordings.
>
> "That was the trend through the '90s," Kuehn said. "There was a shift
from the core repertoire, centered around the big symphonic works, to more
event-type projects, more popular works, things like the Three Tenors."
>
> Major commitments were allowed to lapse, including Slatkin's 10-year
association, which ended early last year.
>
> Other labels, including Sony Classical, set the industry compass toward
more crossover albums and nonclassical fare. Major artists, who once
considered a major record contract as a lifetime commitment, began to work
from disc to disc, or not at all.
>
> Kuehn pointed to his label's November release of the 92-disc Rubenstein
edition--an omnibus collection of the famed pianist's entire recorded
works--as a recent high point for the label. It was an ironic vvaledictory:
The last great project of the once great label was devoted to an artist who
spent his lifetime with RCA; and although Kuehn won't reveal sales figures,
it was rumored to have sold only about 200 copies worldwide.
>
> With the reorganization of BMG Classics, the burden of carrying on the
recording of classical music is yet more solidly on the shoulders of
smaller independent labels, such as Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi,and other
small European houses.
>
> Although it is likely that the San Francisco Symphony will continue to
appear on RCA Red Seal, the reorganization of BMG Classics makes it yet
more clear that the fate of American orchestras on recordings is left to
the orchestras themselves, which have little choice but to produce their
own recordings in-house on vanity labels.
>
> As for the BMG artists affected by the reorganization, as of Tuesday
evening, most still hadn't been informed of whether they would remain with
the company.
>
> The Washington Post

David Blumberg
music@-----.com
http://www.mp3.com/mytempo
http://www.mytempo.com
---------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org