A letter from an artists management agency in Los Angeles provides an accurate diagnosis: Like many of even the best young musicians today, 'x' and 'y' are caught between eras in the music recording industry. Corporations like EMI and Sony will not offer them contracts... Gone is the time when music labels felt responsible to support and present the next generation of musical masters. Without a doubt, concert artists need high-quality commercial recordings available in lobbies or music stores … [Read more...]

'The classical recording industry can't possibly be in trouble,' writes Don Rosenberg in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 'Compact discs keep piling up, like sonic mountains.' What kind of logic is that? You might as well say city newspapers can't be in trouble because there are piles of them every day at the vendors. Or that pizza deliveries must be the hottest thing on earth because so many fliers are shoved through your letterbox. It must surely be obvious, even in the misty Cleveland heights, … [Read more...]

In a celebratory article about Elgar, launching the Daily Telegraph's Elgar week, BBC Proms director Nicholas Kenyon observes of a distinguished scholar that 'it is perhaps understandable of (Donald) Mitchell to regret that Elgar did not become more like Mahler.' Come again? Apart from Elgar lacking any trace of irony or central-European angst, it would have taken more than a leap of faith and conscience to transform the blunt, race-going, business-minded Edward into Gus the nervous … [Read more...]

The joys of the book tour begin to pall somewhere between the fourth and fifth consecutive interview in a bare-walled room in Brussels. Or perhaps a couple of hours later before a sun-numbed audience at the Bozarts that fails to laugh at my jokes. Or maybe in that first earnest interview in Berlin when, barely off the plane, I lose all my German at the sight of a radio mike. These, though, are inevitable lows. The best moments are the bookstore events - debating the state of the arts with Greg … [Read more...]

They took his name off the Floral Hall at Covent Garden today and replaced it with Paul Hamlyn's, a deceased publisher whose foundation kicked in the £10 million (that's $20m in Met equivalents) that cheeky Al promised the Royal Opera House but never paid. Well, never paid in full. He kicked in a couple of million, before the hi-tech hedge find ran dry and Alberto stopped returning calls. The Hamlyn money has been ring-fenced for education (which was also Vilar's intent), and I suppose that … [Read more...]

A week in New York is a long time in musical politics. I was there to launch the book and do some recording work for my new BBC series. I saw Company and LoveMusik, and had no spare nights for the NY Phil and the Met - a matter of some regret since my ears tell me from recent broadcasts that the Phil are playing better than I have ever heard them. The improvements must be credited to the directorship of Lorin Maazel, whom the chief critic of the NY Times lashed into once again last week for not … [Read more...]