Homeworld, Total Annihilation, FFVII, Star Wars, Donnie Darko, etc, all with great classical(ish) music. Whats wrong with the music industry that there isnt a classical MTV channel?
Classical music is still part of popular culture so people obviously enjoy it, I’m gonna venture a guess that people even buy it, so why is it not more available and marketed?
The classical music community/establishment has done a very poor job with music education and promotion. As the fans of classical age, there are fewer new listeners entering the ranks; in part this is due to the fact that music curriculums in our ever-worsening public schools have had budgets slashed to near non existance.
As for the industry side of it, the big orchestras are in a sickly state. They command ever higher fees for performance and royalties on recordings to the point that many labels simply won’t bother with them anymore. They’re so expensive that only a few big names (eg Ma, Hillary Hahn, Tilson-Thomas) will sell enough copies to break even.
Labels like Naxos have the right idea- instead of trying to sell 5,000 copies of some tired old warhorse played by the London Phil at $18 a pop, they record a talented but less expensive eastern European orchestra and sell 50,000 copies at $7. That’s one reason they’re now the biggest classical label in the world. The critics are unanimous in their praises of Naxos, too.
As for the commercial value, certainly the tendency towards “bleeding chunks” makes some economic sense, but attracting advertisers for classical music on the radio it hard. I listen to nothing but MPR, a semi-local all-classical public station. But I’m not sure a wonderful station like this could surive if it was a commercial endeavor.
in the UK we have classic FM, which apparantly does quite well for itself, and there’s other stations that play classical besides. Radio is all well and good, buts its got a rapidly vanishing audience (in-car mp3 will put another nail in the coffin). Its a “traditional” medium.
Its good to hear that the old orchestras havent got a monopoly because i think the whole traditional image is baggage holding the genre back. I think theres a sense that nobody wants to listen to classical stuff because its always been there and always will, theres just nothing new to compel people to be interested.
As i said, i think this is wrong, there’s alot of new and pretty damn good classicalish music in the popular culture, but always in a ‘supporting’ role. It would just be nice if it was allowed some limelight in the media (and not just because of charlotte church ).
I don’t know, oreso, where you get the idea that access to classical music is uneasy. The truth is that it’s just so easy, everywhere, anywhere, ubiquitous everywhere and anywhere. I’ve got classical on my mobiles. My ring tone is ever the favourite batatelle in A minor. Philips, Deutsche Gramophone, Decca, Naxos… as popular as ever. The newest Philips recording of Brendel was only a couple of years ago. I attended a concert given by the man in Birmingham a year ago. The Beethoven experience of BBC this summer, the one when they broadcast every single note of Beethoven. The documentories on BBC of the composer and Mozart, the proms… “Copying Beethoven”, have you booked your tickets yet? I say jump out of your current non-classical circle and find yourself the 3000 page “Cambridge campanion to Classical music”. Better, travel to Vienna, or Prague, where Don Giovani was on not too long ago, it’s where the opera was first premiered 200 yrs ago and the tradition is still there today. Is classical music dying? Depends on who you are, where you are, what you do. For me, classical is breakfast and supper.
aye aye, but that is still just traditional stuff, and ring tones, etc are still just background noise. Access to royalty free music is always gonna be easy.
but what about marketting for new stuff? I want new releases! Vanessa May was big a few years back, but then she disappeared after releasing two tracks or something. Charlotte Church was a bit of an experiment, i guess, i just dont like her. Has there been anything else? Are there some names i just havent heard of?
We have NPR down here. And of course theres always the P2P file swapping services. I wonder how many people those things have introduced to new kinds of music…
What did I tell you? Get a bulky journal on classical music for yourself already.
Myraids.
Shall I start with the youngest generation? Shall I start with the pianists? Li, Kempf, Yang… know what? Get that “Cambridge Companion” brick and start hitting.
Its kinda besides my point though, obviously i could get exposure by buying a journal dedicated to the genre, but i would never get exposure just by being interested in music generally (the typical magazine rack filled with music related mags, the set of current music tv channels, the normal music charts, etc).