Explicit

There's been some confusion about my post on the Thanatophiles who are pushing the "death of classical music" meme. Let me now be a bit more specific:

The mid-20th century way of doing classical music was built on a strict hierarchy, at the top of which were a handful of name-brand musicians, managed by a smaller handful of name-brand managers, performing in a handful of name-brand houses, recorded by a small handful of recording firms, and reviewed by a handful of critics published by newspapers and magazines which were printed on dead trees. This way of doing business focused, inevitably, on a narrow repertoire of music, performed within an even narrower band of interpretive possibilities.

The "death of classical" meme is being pushed by those who are most immediately threatened by the demise of the old way of doing business. The best example would be a newspaper critic or radio presenter who has focused his (to my knowledge, never a her) career on big artists who play in big halls and record on big labels. When the action moves beyond those small circles, as it has, and the said newsprint critic has to start taking blogging seriously*, or taking download-able recordings seriously, the earth has shook.

This way of doing business has gone the way of the dodo, but in this case, a bit of extinction has made way for greater musical biodiversity: in the newer environment, the hierarchies have been flattened, allowing for greater numbers of artists to perform in a wider variety of venues, to be recorded, to have those recordings available in a wider variety of formats, more flexibly packaged and deliverable through completely new channels, and -- most musically important -- to offer a wider variety of interpretive possibilities. The production and market conditions have so changed that the successful realization of the Naxos business plan -- unlike that of the behemoth Karajan-era Sony -- does not preclude the success of its competitors. Yes, the earth has shook, but we're very much alive, with the potential to thrive, in spite of the death chanting partisans of the old hierarchy.
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* If I still haven't been explicit enough, contrast the predominant assent to the death meme among the dead-tree critics who have been assembled at the ArtsJournal corporate blog with the optimism -- and hard statistics -- of Alex Ross, who has managed remarkably to do both his New Yorker paper route and to blog independently.