Hope
for the Future of Classical Records
Speech delivered by Peter Gelb—president of Sony
Classical—at the Klassik Komm Conference in Hamburg, Germany on
September 26, 1997.
Thank you for
inviting me to speak here today. I spent many weeks in Hamburg when I
was the manager of Vladimir Horowitz. In fact, I brought Horowitz
directly here after his triumphant return to Russia in 1986. After
playing concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, Horowitz hoped to take the
same route to Germany that he had followed when he had originally
escaped Russia in 1925. So, we traveled from Leningrad to Hamburg and
were encamped at the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel for several months. I'll
never forget the night—before Horowitz had even played a concert
here—that I escorted him to the Hamburg Opera. When he entered the
auditorium, Horowitz was immediately recognized and within moments,
the entire audience rose to its feet and gave Horowitz a wild standing
ovation. Horowitz—perhaps disingenuously—shrieked with delight,
"They know who I am!"
The memory of
that spontaneous audience response—one of the greatest audience
reactions I have ever encountered—for an artist who on that evening,
at least, was not even going to be playing a single note --- will stay
with me forever. It is a testament, I think, to the German audiences'
singular enthusiasm and openness to great art and artists.
And in my
current role as President of Sony Classical, that memory helps to
remind me of the classical music industry's responsibility to the
audiences in Germany and to audiences throughout the world—that we
must ceaselessly strive to bring great and original art and artists to
the public. And when we do, the public will respond in kind.
The last time
I was in Hamburg, it was for a much less auspicious occasion. I was
last here in 1995 when the decision was made to shut down Sony
Classical's headquarters, which for seven years had been centered in
Hamburg. That was a painful visit, particularly for the Hamburg
employees of Sony Classical, who had toiled so hard on behalf of Sony.
In 1989 Sony
Classical's move to Hamburg began with great fanfare and high
expectations. By moving its operations here—the heartland of the
classical music industry—Sony Classical was meant to be positioned
to challenge Deutsche Grammophon for supremacy. Sony immediately began
signing big name conductors and making what it thought would be high
profile recording projects like the Beethoven symphonies with Carlo
Maria Giulini and a cycle of Verdi operas at the Metropolitan Opera.
Sony Classical acquired the collected video productions of Herbert von
Karajan, signing them at the time of his death. Sadly, although these
projects were extremely expensive, costing in the many millions of
dollars, they found very few sales.
For the
classical record industry, the handwriting was already on the wall.
All the major record labels were suffering significant declines in
sales of standard repertory recordings, but were at first very
reluctant to admit or even to try to understand the causes. Within a
few years it became obvious that Sony Classical's ambitious initiative
in Hamburg was destined for failure.
The closing
of our Hamburg headquarters was a watershed for Sony Classical, and
perhaps for the industry, as well. For Sony Classical, it marked the
end of making classical recordings without attention to the public’s
desires and the beginning of our quest in earnest, to attempt to make
revolutionary changes in our entire approach to what we record and how
we market it.
As
you all know by now, the collapse of the classical record
industry—at least as it once functioned—has been widely reported.
And it's certainly true. In an oversaturated market, the number of
successful new recordings of standard repertoire is now limited to
those few recordings of pure interpretative genius that can somehow
stand out from the hundreds of recordings of the same pieces that
preceded them.
Had the
record labels been cultivating and encouraging greater originality and
creativity from performers and composers in recent decades, instead of
passively and almost exclusively re-recording standard works without
consideration of popular demand, but only at the whim of a handful of
maestros eager to see their own performances permanently documented on
disc, the collapse wouldn't have been so sudden or dramatic. But
unlike the pop sector of the record industry where creativity is
encouraged, classical record executives long preferred to solely play
the role of curators…nothing more.
So, all they recorded were the same pieces over and over again.
And
particularly in the case of symphonic repertoire, it has become almost
impossible to discern one modern performance on record from another.
Thanks to the jet age, high tech world in which we live--in which
orchestras share the same conductors, players move more freely from
one orchestra to the next and recording technology is more
uniform--the world's top orchestras all sound excellent, but
unfortunately they also all sound pretty much the same on records.
The maestros,
themselves, have trouble discerning their own recordings from those of
their colleagues. I know. I have actually been with one top conductor
while he criticized a radio transmission of a recording, only to
discover at its conclusion—and much to his dismay—that it was his
own performance that he was listening to. So if the artists,
themselves, can't tell one symphonic recording from the next, how can
we expect the public to? We can't.
That's why
we've only made a few standard repertoire recordings at Sony Classical
in recent months. It's not that we wouldn't like to make more, but I
believe that every new recording that we make must have the potential
to be a unique artistic event. And with every piece of standard
repertoire having been recorded numerous times before, this is very
difficult to accomplish.
As a major
record label, I believe we have an obligation to make recordings that
are relevant. And to me relevance means that people actually listen to
our recordings. It's neither commercially rewarding nor artistically
relevant for us to make recordings that only sell a few thousand
copies, as has been the case with some of our recent releases of
standard repertoire recordings, even by orchestras as supreme as the
Berlin Philharmonic. If the public does not respond, that is an
indication that we have done something wrong. It's not a case of
insufficient marketing, as some low-selling artists in denial, would
have us believe.
When we
release that rare standard repertoire recording that is truly
brilliant and extraordinarily different from what is already
available, we find that the public does respond. Evgeny Kissin's first
recordings ever of the Beethoven Piano Concertos, which we just
recently released, is already making an enormous impression and I
believe that Arcadi Volodos' debut recording of piano transcriptions
will also be well-received. These are unique recordings that will
stand out in the over saturated market. And when you hear Volodos play
here at Klassik Komm tomorrow night, I think you'll understand what I
mean.
So, even
though we haven't completely given up on standard repertoire
recordings, we've been obliged to broaden our artistic horizons
dramatically. And we started this initiative even before we closed
down our operation in Hamburg. This has meant finding a new and more
creatively entrepreneurial role for our record label—a role in which
we take the initiative in creating dynamic new performance
opportunities and recordings, often even commissioning new
compositions and arrangements, ourselves.
And I think
that ultimately this is the good news that has come out of the crisis
facing the classical record industry. Because rather than drift
towards commercial oblivion with new recordings of old music that
don't sell, we have started doing something about it. The effort is
paying off with a surge of compositional creativity that I believe
will benefit the entire classical musical world and audiences, in
particular, for many years to come.
For far too
long, classical music audiences had been subjected to—and sometimes
suffered through—an almost exclusive diet of new music that was
atonal and difficult to enjoy. Attempts to commission or schedule
accessible and emotionally stimulating new music were blocked by a
cabal of atonal composers, academics and classical music critics, who
seemed to share one common goal—to confine all new classical music
to an elite intellectual exercise with very limited audience appeal.
By their rules, any new classical composition that enjoys commercial
success is no good.
It's not that
I'm opposed to the music of the academics' favorites, music by Berio
and Stockhausen and our own Ligeti. Their genius should be recognized
and supported. It's just that their audiences are extremely limited.
And there must be room for alternative choices.
It's ironic,
but no surprise that these same self-appointed guardians of the
listening experience—the critics—have been most vehement in
pronouncing the imminent demise of the classical record industry. Some
critics seem to have made it their life’s mission to vilify and
dismiss any genuine and constructive effort that is made to expand our
musical horizons. By trying to stonewall creativity and all attempts
to make new music that is accessible and commercially successful, the
critics are trying to make their gloomy prophecies for our industry
come true.
Fortunately,
the public pays little or no attention to what the classical critics
have to complain about. But the orchestras, the government arts
councils that fund composers, the opera companies, the not for profit
concert producers, have lived in inexplicable fear of their
prejudices. Great artists have not. I remember Vladimir Horowitz'
comment to an assemblage of critics who were listening to a recording
session of his extremely personal approach to a Mozart Piano Concerto.
Some of the critics expressed concern with the liberties they felt he
was taking. "It makes absolutely no difference," he
cheerfully told them. And for Horowitz, it didn’t.
In spite of
the critics, for the first time in many years serious new classical
music that is actually meant to appeal to the hearts and emotions of
its listeners is being composed and performed in mainstream venues.
At Sony
Classical, not only are we signing composers, we are helping them in
the creation of their works, guiding them towards the vehicles that
will help bring their compositions to the widest possible audience.
Sometimes, this means connecting a composer to a very prominent
soloist, or to a world event or to a feature film, or all three at
once! To be given the chance to be successful, new music must be heard
in concert halls and on classical radio stations and television so
that audiences have the opportunity to hear the music…and to
respond.
I think a
good example of our new approach to A&R and marketing is our
recent recording, Symphony 1997, a 70-minute oratorio by the
highly regarded Chinese composer Tan Dun, that already has sold about
50,000 copies throughout the world. This is Tan Dun's first recording
for us as part of his new and exclusive Sony Classical recording
contract. Prior to joining us, Tan Dun's biggest selling record sold
less than 3,000 copies. The reason his sales so dramatically increased
has to do with the nature of his compositional approach to Symphony
1997 and to our efforts on behalf of his composition.
For those of
you not familiar with the composition, Symphony 1997 was composed to
commemorate the recent Hong Kong handover ceremonies. It was written
for orchestra, children's choir, ancient Chinese bells and the cellist
Yo-Yo Ma. We encouraged Tan Dun to write this commemorative work,
since world events like the Handover provide great opportunities to
introduce new music. And we knew that Yo-Yo, who is also an exclusive
Sony Classical artist, was looking for a new composition to perform at
the Handover. In fact, it was Yo-Yo's idea to perform with the ancient
2,600 year old Chinese bells that Tan Dun then decided to incorporate
into his composition.
Tan Dun was
determined to write something with broad appeal. He explained that the
challenge of writing something accessible was formidable. "It's
much easier for a composer to write music that is completely
unfamiliar," he told me. "It's far more challenging to
compose music that is somewhat familiar—thereby making it
accessible—and still be original," he said. And that's what he
set out to do.
But that's
what composers have been doing for centuries. That's what Mahler and
Bartok did when they incorporated folk and ethnic themes into their
compositions. That's what Mozart did when he found source material in
the popular melodies and songs of his day. It's only in recent decades
that the critics and academics have senselessly decreed that being
derivative was no longer acceptable and that for a composer, being
successful was an unpardonable sin.
At the time
of the Handover, Tan Dun's Symphony 1997, was performed in Hong
Kong ---in excerpted form during the ceremonies and harbor fireworks
displays and in a complete version in the Hong Kong Cultural Center
and a few days later in Beijing. It was included in the extensive
global news coverage of the Handover events and locally, a music video
of the final three minutes of the composition entitled "Song of
Peace," was broadcast daily on all the local television stations.
This spring, Symphony
1997 will be performed at Lincoln Center and in London. It is a
global success.
Another
example of our new coordinated approach to A&R and Marketing has
to do with our efforts on behalf of The Red Violin. The Red
Violin is both the name of a film by the distinguished French
Canadian director Francois Girard—he also directed 32 Short Films
About Glenn Gould—and a new composition by the American composer
John Corigliano. We commissioned Corigliano to write the music for the
film—which is about an 18th century violin varnished in the blood of
a master violin maker's wife, and its impact on the lives of all who
come into contact with it over the next three hundred years . We also
commissioned Corigliano to write a separate Red Violin Chaconne concert
piece.
Both the
music for the film and the concert piece will be recorded this coming
December by Joshua Bell and Esa-Pekka Salonen, our exclusive artists.
And when the film is released next summer or fall our CD will be
released simultaneously. In the same time period, Bell will be
performing the Red Violin
Chaconne with orchestras in Europe and the United States.
Now, the
classical music critics and academics might denounce such a seamless
approach to marketing and art as proof of the invalidity of the
artistic process. In their minds, artistic thought and commerce must
be separated at all costs.
However, what
the critics have forgotten is that artists are performers in
partnership with the public. Performers cannot have success without
the public. Which doesn't mean that they have to compromise their art
for the public, only that their art must appeal to the public if they
desire widespread success. In fact, some of the greatest and most
successful artists of this century—Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein,
Herbert Von Karajan—always planned their concert activities with the
public in mind.
Horowitz only
agreed to his historic return to Moscow after I had set up a highly
commercial worldwide television broadcast of his concert (and promised
to air lift to him a daily supply of fresh Dover sole—the only food
he would eat for dinner). Karajan not only insisted on documenting on
television all his final performances, he directed them himself. And
Bernstein was a complete creature of the media, from his Young
Peoples' Concerts up to his final outdoor televised concert in Berlin
when the Wall was being dismantled.
If we are
going to succeed in revitalizing the classical record industry and
classical music, itself, we must be allowed to think with both sides
of our brains. That's why when we plan a recording we're at the same
time imagining how it will be introduced to the public.
A programming
revolution must take place in the concert halls, in the orchestras, in
the opera houses. For the first time in years, serialism is going to
have to start sharing space on concert hall programs with new music of
broader appeal.
And it's up
to the record industry to help launch these revolutionary changes. In
fact, I believe this revolution has already begun. That's why Wynton
Marsalis won the Pulitzer Prize for composition this year for his
epochal work Blood on the Fields, the first time a jazz
composition has won this distinguished prize. That's why Bobby
McFerrin was recently commissioned to compose an opera for the San
Francisco Opera House, which he plans to write for non operatic
voices. That's why Dawn Upshaw is singing on pop visionary Joe
Jackson's new recorded composition, Heaven and Hell and that's why
opera diva, Theresa Stratas and alternative pop chanteuse, PJ Harvey
are appearing on the same Kurt Weill CD.
So, in spite
of the opposition of the classical music establishment, the revolution
is happening. Of course, nothing horrifies classical music critics and
academics more than the thought of widespread success for a new
composition or an artist. (I can think of at least one specific
occasion in the past where a composer has been denied a commission
because of the fear that his music would be too popular by an opera intendant
afraid of offending the classical music critics).
Now I
certainly don't think that commercial success is proof of artistic
worth. But if there hadn't been significant commercial success for
classical music composers throughout its history, classical music
wouldn't even be struggling for its life today. It would have died
decades ago.
There was an
interesting article in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago which was
intended to rebut the negative attitudes of music critics towards
popular success. I quote the author [who happens to be me, Greg
Sandow; the link takes you to the article
itself]::
"I wonder if The New York Times critic would be any
happier in 1813, when Rossini's opera Tancredi
was a smash hit in Venice? He couldn't have escaped it at the opera
house, which would have been bad enough. But people also sang it on
the street and even in courtrooms, where the strains of its most
popular arias are said to have disrupted a trial."
I have
wondered why classical music critics seem more negative than critics
of other art forms. After all, filmmakers, painters, authors seem to
function in an environment in which creativity and accessibility and
commercial success are encouraged, in which critics may snipe, but are
ultimately interested in encouraging the bold and the new.
Well, I'm not
afraid to admit that we are seeking success. We are seeking artistic
and commercial success. And we're doing it by commissioning new music
and taking new musical initiatives.
We're
attempting to redefine the meaning of classical music. Classical music
has been redefined over the centuries. It was originally music written
in the 18th century and in this modern era the definition has already
been expanded by the critics to include music that's written today
---providing that it isn't successful. Well, we're going to redefine
classical music further to include music written today that is
successful.
So, in spite
of the indignant reports from classical music critics and academics
that the record business is dying, I disagree. Out of the current
turmoil, I believe we are emerging with a resurgence in
creativity—and with a healthy future for our industry and the
interested public, as well. I invite you to join me in meeting the
challenge of keeping our industry healthy and relevant, encouraging
creativity and innovation, and in building our audiences of the next
century. Thank you.
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