Read The Life and Death of Classical Music Online
Authors: Norman Lebrecht
The Life and Death of Classical Music (19 page)
37.
Confidential interview.
38.
Georg Solti with Harvey Sachs,
Solti on Solti: A Memoir
, London: Chatto & Windus, 1997. p. 114.
39.
Stephen Rubin, telephone interview, 22 July 2005.
40.
Herbert Breslin and Anne Midgette,
The King and I
, New York: Doubleday, 2004, p. 41.
41.
Ibid., p. 39.
42.
Gramophone
, April 1988, Deutsche Grammophon advertising supplement.
43.
Richard Osborne,
Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music
, London: Chatto & Windus, 1998, p. 558.
44.
Quotes here and below from Peter Andry, interview, 26 July 2005.
45.
Ibid.
46.
John Mordler, telephone interview, 29 July 2005.
47.
Note to EMI CD see CD 71, p. 242.
48.
Norman Lebrecht,
The Maestro Myth
, London: Simon & Schuster, 1991, p. 241.
49.
See Osborne,
Herbert von Karajan
, pp. 575–90.
50.
Conversations with Peter Alward, 2002–5.
51.
Panel discussion, Bavarian TV, 2005.
52.
Claim: Osborne,
Herbert von Karajan
, p. 439; denial: Sarah Dimenstein, telephone interview, June 2005.
53.
Bruno Montsaigneon (tr. Stewart Spencer),
Sviatoslav Richter, Notebooks and Conversations
, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, pp. 118-19.
54.
Interview with Tully Potter,
International Classical Record Collector
, Winter 1997, pp. 36–40.
55.
Information from James Mallinson, Michael Haas, emails to author, May 2005.
56.
Valerie Solti, interview, May 2005.
57.
Obituary, Sir Edward Lewis,
Music Week, January
1980.
58.
John Best, email to the author, 27 May 2005.
59.
Tokyo, May 1970, quoted in Osborne,
Herbert von Karajan
, p. 591.
60.
Kees A. Schouhamer Immink, ‘The Compact Disc Story’,
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
, vol. 46, no. 5, May 1998.
61.
For a detailed account see John Nathan,
Sony: The Private Life
, London: HarperCollins, 1999, pp. 141–3.
62.
Raymond Cooke, telephone interview, December 1982.
63.
Gramophone
, April 1978, p. 1784.
64.
Personal recollection.
65.
André as Holschneider, telephone interview, 3 July 2005.
1.
Sleeve note to Shura Gehrman, Schwanengesang; with Nina Walker (piano), Nimbus 5022.
2.
Paul Burger, chief executive, Sony Music (Europe), interview, December 2005.
3.
Quotes here and below from Paul Myers, email to author, 10 June 2005, and Joseph Dash, telephone interview, July 2005.
4.
Neville Marriner, interview, May 2004.
5.
Michael Haas, email to the author, 16 April 2005.
6.
André as Holschneider, telephone interview, 3 July 2005.
7.
‘Why Britain Is off the Record’,
Sunday Times
, 9 January 1983.
8.
Brian Southall, telephone interview, April 1983.
9.
Sleeve note to Beethoven violin concerto, NDR Symphony Orchestra, cond. Klaus Tennstedt, CDC 7 54574 2.
10.
Observed by the author, June 1992.
11.
John Nathan,
Sony: The Private Life
, London: HarperCollins, 1999, p. 145.
12.
Confirmed to the author by André as Holschneider.
13.
Gramophone
, April 1988, p. 1393.
14.
Roger Vaughan,
Herbert von Karajan: A Biographical Portrait
, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986.
15.
André as Holschneider, comment to the author, July 2005.
16.
Paul Burger interview, December 2005.
17.
Confidential interview.
18.
Fortune
, 1 September 1992.
19.
Deutsche Grammophon press release.
20.
André as Holschneider, telephone interview, 3 July 2005.
21.
Joseph Dash, telephone interview, July 2005.
22.
Norio Ohga, interview, Tokyo, February 1992.
23.
Information obtained from a family friend.
1.
Gunther Breest, interview, Salzburg, August 1991.
2.
Norman Lebrecht,
When the Music Stops
, London: Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 380.
3.
Medi Gasteiner, email to the author, 31 July 2005.
4.
Gunther Breest, interview, July 1991.
5.
Confidential interview.
6.
Costa Pilavachi, interview, August 2005.
7.
See Harold Schonberg,
Horowitz
, London: Simon & Schuster, 1992, pp. 308-9.
8.
Press statement, November 1990.
9.
James Glicker, telephone interview, 29 July 2005.
10.
Paul Burger, interview, December 2005.
11.
Peter Alward, interview, September 2004.
12.
Herbert Breslin and Anne Midgette,
The King and I
, New York: Doubleday, 2004, p. 218.
13.
Tim Page, telephone interview, 11 September 2005.
14.
Tim Page, conversation with the author, July 2005.
15.
Tim Page, unpublished article for Tower Records magazine, n.d.
16.
James Glicker, telephone interview, 29 July 2005.
17.
Page, unpublished article for Tower Records magazine.
18.
Klaus Heymann, interview 1995; in Lebrecht
When the Music Stops
, p. 313.
19.
Andrew Clark, ‘Buccaneer of Classical Music’,
Financial Times
, 19 May 1997.
20.
Michael Shmith, ‘King of Naxos and His 2,400 Subjects,’ the
Age
(Melbourne), 12 July 2002.
21.
In Lebrecht
When the Music Stops
, p. 313.
22.
Interview,
Classical Music
, 13 August 2005, p. 25.
23.
Klaus Heymann, interview, April 2002.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Klaus Heymann, emails to the author, 7 and 14 April 2005.
26.
Klaus Heymann, email to the author, 16 November 2005.
27.
Richard Lyttelton, comment to the author, June 2005.
28.
John Nathan,
Sony: The Private Life
, London: HarperCollins, 1999, p. 244.
29.
Walter Yetnikoff,
Howling for the Moon
, New York: Random House, 2003, pp. 260–61.
30.
Norio Ohga, interview, Tokyo, February 1992.
31.
Michael Haas, email to author, 31 August 2005.
32.
Quoted by the author in the
Daily Telegraph
, 3 April 1995, p. 15.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Confidential interview.
35.
Peter Gelb, ‘One Label’s Strategy: Make It New but Make It Pay,
New York Times
, Arts & Leisure Section, 22 March 1998.
36.
Confidential interview.
37.
Conversation with the author and another, 1993.
1.
Confidential interview.
2.
Roger Wright, interview, July 2005.
3.
Polygram annual report, 1996, p. 7, emphasis added.
4.
Alain Levy, interview 1 April 1997, in
Daily Telegraph
, 3 April 1997, p. 19.
5.
Malcolm Hayes, ‘How to Rock the Classical World’,
Independent
, 1 May 1996, pp. 14, 15.
6.
Paul Moseley, interview, July 2005.
7.
To March 2001 and August 2002, respectively.
8.
Evans Mirageas, email to author, 23 April 2005.
9.
Interview with Heidi Waleson,
Billboard
, 22 March 1997.
10.
Interview with John Eliot Gardiner,
Guardian
, 10 January 2005.
11.
Sue Harris of Bectu, press release, 27 March 1997.
12.
Interview with Simon Tait,
The Times, 26
November 1997.
13.
Fine’s memoir of his DG period can be found online at
www.finesoundproductions.com
.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Confidential interview.
16.
Robert Hurwitz, interview in Alan Kozinn, ‘A Once Proud Industry Fends off Extinction’,
New York Times
, 8 December 1996.
17.
Norman Lebrecht, ‘A Record of Disaster’,
Daily Telegraph
, 5 February 1997.
18.
ASOL figures, quoted by Alan Bostick in the
Tennessean
, 9 April 2005.
19.
Data from Soundscan.
20.
Peter Gelb, interview with Allan Kozinn, 7 November 2004.
21.
Chris Craker, interview, June 2005.
22.
Over lunch with the author, September 2003.
1.
City Paper
, Philadelphia, 12 May 2005.
2.
Paul Burger, interview, December 2005.
3.
Report to Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment Conference, 14 September 2005.
4.
USA Today
, 30 September 2002.
5.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, interview, Amsterdam, 27 October 2005.
7.
Michael Haas, email to author, 31 August 2005.
8.
Berthold Goldschmidt, comment to the author, January 1993.
9.
Elvis Presley is the only other artist to reach 1 billion; the next highest is Abba, with 260 million.
10.
Edgar J. Bronfman speaking in Aspen, Colorado, 22 August 2005.
Masterpieces: 100 Milestones of
the Recorded Century
Charting the summits of classical recording is no different from cataloguing the major works of English literature. The process falls into three categories-the unarguable, the either/or, and the otherwise influential.
The first group is self-selecting:
Canterbury Tales, King Lear, Paradise Lost, Oliver Twist, The Great Gatsby, 1984
, John Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy – works which shaped the world we inhabit.
The second is comprised of tough choices-
Hamlet
or
Othello; Mill on the Floss
or
The Woman in White; Tale of Two Cities
or
Great Expectations;
Edith Wharton or Katherine Mansfield; Philip Roth’s
American Pastoral
or
The Plot Against America;
Salman Rushdie or not. The challenge is to ensure that the titles included are both unarguably important and representative of an author at peak form.
The third section is the most difficult and potentially the most contentious. It contains works that define a genre or epoch but are not of enduring literary merit; obscure works and undervalued authors; slight and unpretentious texts; choices that seem quirky yet, in relation to the whole, add a dimension of completeness. On these terms Thomas Wolfe’s
Bonfire of the Vanities
might perhaps get the vote over Ian McEwan’s
A Child in Time
, its exact contemporary; Jerzy Kosinski’s
The Painted Bird
overrides his better-known
Being There
and Bruce Chatwin’s
Utz
makes the grade in a class of its own. There is a guiding logic, and a great deal of fun, in the act of compilation and the ultimate satisfaction is to reflect an art as a single, continuous artefact.
The tripwire is to play safe and include the obvious. Edgar Allan Poe is undoubtedly a grand master, but is any of his works an unqualified masterpiece? It would take a brave compiler to omit Poe altogether from an anthology of literature in English, but if the compendium is to maintain interest and credibility it must
display the confidence and conviction to omit some celebrity names and include at least a couple of contenders from the outer periphery of consensual wisdom.
These are the rules I have generally observed in choosing the hundred most important classical recordings. I make no claim that the final list contains the ‘best’ classical recordings of all time, for it is inadvisable ever to apply value judgements to works of art. The criteria I applied are not concerned primarily with intensity of performance and clarity of sound, critical as such qualities may be to followers of the art. Rather, I have been guided by the influence these recordings exerted on the public imagination and on the development of recording itself as an accessory to civilized society. Just as
Oliver Twist
introduced social conscience to the canon of English literature so the box of LPs that established stereo as a domestic necessity is a milestone in recording. If that set happened also to be the biggest selling classical record of all time, its presence would be imperative regardless of the calibre of artists and performance (which, as it happens, are pretty close to immaculate in concept and execution).
At the opposite end of the scale, the 181st recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons would not warrant prolonged consideration for inclusion-unless it was played in a little-known transcription for nose flutes, in which case it would stand a good chance of getting into Part III’s alternative list of twenty horrors. Between these two poles lie thousands of recordings that I have listened to, discussed endlessly with musicians, producers and experts, and in many instances over three decades attended the sessions or live performances in which they were made. A set of perceptual criteria emerged from these experiences, helping me to sift wheat from chaff while reinforcing my already robust critical detachment from the intrinsically commercial priorities of the music industry.
Onto these personal impressions I sought and grafted the views of more than a thousand readers from many countries who responded to the series as it appeared weekly in the London
Evening Standard
and on the Canadian-based
www.scena.org
website (the
present text is based on those articles, but greatly expanded with detailed musical analysis). These reader suggestions, heated and voluminous, occasionally apoplectic, recommended me to around 8,000 records, some so esoteric as to be practically unobtainable (or even, in one instance, unrecorded) and others so trenchantly proposed that I was obliged to revise my original scheme and reconsider an artist or a record in light of fresh evidence and advocacy.