• Home
  • About
    • What’s happening here
    • Greg Sandow
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Sandow

Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

You are here: Home / 2004 / Archives for February 2004

Archives for February 2004

Words of wisdom

February 27, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Here are some excerpts from Philip Kennicott's Washington Post piece, linked from ArtsJournal today, which so wonderfully -- and justly  -- praises Sam Bergman's blog. And no, they're not about Sam, except indirectly. They're about the woeful state of orchestras, part of which is how woefully they communicate with…well, whom? Quite honestly, I don't know who most orchestra PR might be aimed at. The present audience? A new audience? The classical music press? The general press? The only thing most orchestras communicate that could interest … [Read more...]

Thrilling to read

February 22, 2004 by Greg Sandow

I haven't been blogging, and haven't said how thrilled I am with Alex Ross's piece on the nature of classical music, which ran in The New Yorker in the issue dated February 22, and was linked here last week. This is surely the most important essay ever written on classical music's future, or maybe, more precisely, on what its future ought to be. As I wrote to him after I read his essay (it's called "Listen to This"), he leapfrogs all the usual debate, all the breast-beating, all the criticisms people like me make, all the cries of "whither … [Read more...]

Barenboim

February 22, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Barenboim's announcement -- that he'll leave the Chicago Symphony when his current contract expires two years from now -- demonstrates two things. First, that music directors really are expected, in this new era for classical music, to do more than conduct. "After much soul-searching and reflection," Barenboim said (in the orchestra's official press release), "I have come to realize that the position and responsibilities of a music director in America are changing in that they require many non-artistic activities and I feel I have neither the … [Read more...]

Dotting Grammy’s eye

February 14, 2004 by Greg Sandow

A reader writes to tell me that I'm wrong about the Grammys. There's no contradiction between the Boulez Mahler Third being named the best orchestral performance, while the Tilson Thomas CD of the same piece is named best classical album. There seems to be a problem here, of course, because if the best album is orchestral, as this one is, than you'd think it would be best orchestral performance as well. But not so, says my correspondent. The orchestral award is specifically for the music -- "best orchestral performance" is exactly what it … [Read more...]

Grammy entertainment

February 10, 2004 by Greg Sandow

It's pointless to argue with award shows, but still there's something about the classical Grammy winners that makes no sense. The best classical album was Mahler's Third Symphony, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony. And the best orchestral album was Mahler's Third, but this time with the Vienna Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez conducting. Which, as I said, makes no sense! The Tilson Thomas Mahler Third is of course an orchestral album. So if it's the best classical album of the year, then it also has to be the … [Read more...]

Classical record biz

February 6, 2004 by Greg Sandow

Yesterday there was an ArtsJournal link to Anthony Tomassini's optimistic piece in the New York Times about the classical record business. In that piece, and in the ArtsJournal summary, was something that needs some qualification. Major record labels, Tony says, aren't doing so well, but Smaller labels like Nonesuch and Naxos, which once just filled in the gaps with records of specialty repertory and adventurous artists ignored by the majors, are proving that it is possible to release important recordings at midrange prices and still pay the … [Read more...]

Digital madness

February 5, 2004 by Greg Sandow

I was tickled to see my Wall Street Journal piece on problems with classical music digital downloads linked both here on ArtsJournal, and on Musical America. I also got a tide of e-mail, maybe more than I've ever gotten about anything I've written, including my Boston Symphony/modernism post here. Clearly I tackled problems many people have been having, among them an executive from one of the major classical record labels, who's been terribly frustrated by all the things I wrote about. Of course I've written about these things here, too; in … [Read more...]

Blogging/Not blogging

February 5, 2004 by Greg Sandow

The MyDoom virus must have hit Germany. This morning I've had well over 20 e-mails (I stopped counting) from German addresses, with the virus attached. But that's not what I want to write about. I haven't kept up this blog in the past week or so, for a blog-related reason -- I've been spending too much time living the blog in real life. And not just for the past week. This has been happening for the past month, and I've had to catch up on other work. What I mean is that people have been asking me to speak or consult on blog-related issues … [Read more...]

Great loss

February 2, 2004 by Greg Sandow

It's a shock that Robert Harth died -- a shock and a great sadness. He was, first of all, a wonderful person, really strong and optimistic. And tough. There's a wonderful bit in Anthony Tommasini's piece about him in The New York Times, linked from ArtsJournal today. Tony would run into Robert, after writing something critical; Robert would greet him cheerfully, but with a glint of steel underneath. The same thing happened to me. Tony's piece is exactly right, in all of its praise. I'd add that, under Robert, Carnegie Hall was the best-run … [Read more...]

Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSS

Archives

@gsandow

Tweets by @gsandow

Resources

How to write a press release

As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here's a post I did in 2005 -- wow, 11 years ago! --  about how to make press releases better. My examples may seem fanciful, but on the other hand, they're almost … [Read More...]

The future of classical music

Here's a quick outline of what I think the future of classical music will be. Watch the blog for frequent updates! I Classical music is in trouble, and there are well-known reasons why. We have an aging audience, falling ticket sales, and — in part … [Read More...]

Timeline of the crisis

Here — to end my posts on the dates of the classical music crisis  — is a detailed crisis timeline. The information in it comes from many sources, including published reports, blog comments by people who saw the crisis develop in their professional … [Read More...]

Before the crisis

Yes, the classical music crisis, which some don't believe in, and others think has been going on forever. This is the third post in a series. In the first, I asked, innocently enough, how long the classical music crisis (which is so widely talked … [Read More...]

Four keys to the future

Here, as promised, are the key things we need to do, if we're going to give classical music a future. When I wrote this, I was thinking of people who present classical performances. But I think it applies to all of us — for instance, to people who … [Read More...]

Age of the audience

Conventional wisdom: the classical music audience has always been the age it is now. Here's evidence that it used to be much younger. … [Read More...]

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in