Career-building in a Post-recording World

By Bradley Bambarger

It has always been the lucky few among classical artists to have long-term recording contracts with major labels, although these days those artists are luckier and far fewer than ever. The saturation of the classical CD market over the past few years has seen major record companies pull back from their investment in the making and promotion of core classical recordings, long an indispensable tool for most artists in making an international career. BMG Classics (home of RCA), has been rendered effectively defunct through downsizing; Atlantic and EMI stand to merge under the AOL/Time-Warner deal, with unforeseen results. The imprints of Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and Philips are in flux again, as their parent company, Universal, has been purchased by the French firm, Vivendi; and Sony Classical seems to have curtailed catalogue development while it puts increasing emphasis on pop-crossover projects.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America's 1999 tally, classical music's share of the $14.6 billion recorded-music market in the U.S. is 3.5 percent. That figure is up from classical's low of 2.8 percent of the $13.7 billion overall market in 1998 and only down a couple of points from a high of 3.7 percent in 1994 and '92. Still, the '99 percentage includes an ever-increasing number of crossover releases and theme compilations, and a $500 million annual domestic business has become less than attractive for the multinational conglomerates that now own the august trademarks of EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA, Columbia, and Decca. But even though it is obvious that classical music is in a difficult transition phase, the attendant challenges will be balanced by the opportunities inherent in any new era. Or will they?

"We're obviously seeing a door close, and although there are a couple of windows that could open up, no one is sure which one or when," says Alec Treuhaft, senior VP and head of the vocal division at IMG Artists (and formerly an executive at Columbia Artists Management Inc. and a past head of A & R at BMG Classics). "It isn't an easy time."

Perhaps there never has been an especially easy time for classical artists. Agnes Eisenberger, president of management firm Colbert Artists (which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year), points out that an esteemed artist like pianist Alfred Brendel got his start not with a long-term major-label contract but by making a series of discs for Vox, a scrappy American indie label. Those mid-'50s LPs got his name out and earned him a deal with Philips, an association now in its fourth decade.

Yet while indie labels are taking up some of the slack left by the majors these days, very few young artists who have paid their dues on an indie can look forward to long-term tenure on a major. One Colbert client, Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, has made occasional indie recordings; however, they have not led to a higher profile relationship. Another Colbert artist, Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger, has already recorded a handful of well-received Sony solo discs, although follow-ups are few and far between. And, as Eisenberger confirms, it is harder to garner top engagements without regular recordings.

Recordings can provide various benefits beyond the obvious ones. A recording provides an artist with an ace calling card not only for the public but also for presenters, particularly if it is on a major label or a more illustrious indie. A major-label disc, with high-class production values and worldwide distribution, is accompanied by matchless marketing and promotional clout: advertising, publicity, and prime retail positioning. Of course, the major-label core classical recordings that are still being made-core classical being a term to differentiate Bach and Boulez from pop-leaning crossover productions-are mostly released sans fanfare, or just "put out," in the words of Frank Salomon, manager of pianist Richard Goode, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and the Marlboro Music Festival, among others.

"What's happening in the music business is just a reflection of what's happening in society overall," Salomon adds. "Lawyers and accountants are making the decisions-both at record companies and in the media, where the space for arts coverage has dwindled down to practically nothing. It used to be that part of the mission of a record company or newspaper was not only to make a profit but to make a contribution to society. But that's a sentimental notion these days."

Salomon says a symbol of major corporations' drastically diminished enthusiasm for classical music can be seen in the difference between the Sony releases for the Marlboro Festival's 40th and 50th anniversaries. This summer, a two-disc 50th-Jubilee set of archival performances (featuring festival founder Rudolf Serkin) came out via Sony, although Salomon says Marlboro actually had to find an underwriter to finance the production. In 1990, Sony not only brought out 20 new and reissued Marlboro recordings, the label paid for them. "We had to twist Sony's arm to put anything out this time, but you shouldn't think that Sony is the worst out there," Salomon adds. "In recent years, we offered Marlboro recordings to several other labels, which weren't interested at all. There is an expectation in the music business today-and it is a profit-motivated business, first and foremost-that each record should be able to sell in the tens of thousands, not just in the thousands.

According to 35-year industry veteran Douglas Sheldon, a senior VP at Columbia Artists and manager of artists from superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter to up-and-coming trumpeter Sergei Nakariakov, recordings are more important than ever, "far more important than a positive review of a New York recital debut in the Times-those days are over. We're living in a P.R./hype-driven world, and the performing arts have become marketing-intensive along with everything else. Presenters only want to book those artists with wide visibility-the kind of visibility that comes from a major-label push."

Sheldon says the problem is that "it's far harder now for a classical artist to get a major contract to make real classical recordings. Companies are insisting on crossover. I think Anne-Sophie Mutter is the only artist around with a major international career who hasn't made a single crossover album-and if she were starting out today, I don't think I'd be able to say that. I think that it's terrible what the majors are doing, actually. Under the guise of expanding an audience, they may just be finding a different audience. And I'm afraid that it isn't an audience that will come to the concert hall or even eventually collect classical recordings."

Albert Imperato, a principal with the new classical promotion and artist development company 21C and a former senior VP of Universal Classics, decries the degraded state of arts coverage in the U.S. print and broadcast media as the key contributing factor to the relatively low appetite for classical recordings. "Great classical recordings are still being made-there is far more supply than demand," he says. "But there is a sore lack of media opportunities to take the message of that music to the people, and that has actively precipitated the cutting of recording contracts. To maximize the few opportunities we do have, the various arms of the classical industry-labels, managers, presenters-have to work together more closely to build a great story for the music."

Although Treuhaft also laments the hyper-commercial stance of record companies and the mainstream media-along with the lack of arts education in America that troubles nearly everyone-he does see some positive developments. "We in the business of classical music don't live in ivory towers any more," he says. "People are more mindful of the need to meet the audience halfway. And I think the younger generation of artists is especially attuned to outreach. They're more self-reliant and savvy about new technologies. They realize that they have to generate their own excitement."

Twenty-year-old violinist Hilary Hahn is an ideal example of this new spirit, with her habit of staying after concerts to sign autographs and her Web site, which she uses to apprise fans of her far-flung travels. Although Hahn's prodigious musicianship is the crux of her appeal, Sony obviously values the sort of energy she is willing to put into cultivating an audience. Edna Landau, IMG managing director and manager of Hahn, says Sony has invested an enormous amount in the violinist's future. "Sony sent her first record, of Bach solo pieces, all over the world at their expense, introducing her to presenters and people at the various festivals," she says. "Then they commissioned another of their artists, Edgar Meyer, to compose a piece for her. And we always leave space in Hilary's schedule to help promote her recordings, which sometimes even takes time away from playing concerts. You have to do that today."

Beyond those artists with a superstar aura like a Mutter or an Evgeny Kissin, "it's those who are open to new ideas and are versatile who are going to get the most attention," Landau adds. "Look at Sony's support of Josh Bell, who can play Gershwin arrangements and bluegrass with Edgar Meyer, but also Sibelius and Corigliano. And, obviously, it doesn't hurt that he's telegenic. But a soloist who isn't so telegenic and not so young anymore, who isn't so flexible and only wants to play Mozart and Beethoven-that artist is going to have a harder time these days. I also think an artist on a less glamorous instrument faces an uphill climb. Take Heinz Holliger: I don't think he would be able to obtain the high profile he has as a solo oboist if he were starting his career these days."

Young talents less marketable than Hahn obviously stand to suffer more in the current climate, with major labels concentrating their artist-development dollars on just a few and sticking with those investments for a shorter term than in the past. Still, there are some forward-minded operations out there. Five years ago, French indie label Harmonia Mundi launched its Les Nouveaux Interprètes series in league with Radio France, which gives young singers and instrumentalists the chance to record their specialties. The discs have helped propel such European players as violinist Isabelle Faust to a higher rung on the international ladder. At the major-label level, EMI's similar Debut series has given scores of young musicians, European and American, the chance to make top-quality recordings with wide distribution.

One American EMI Debut artist is cellist Alisa Weilerstein, whose first recital album on the label came out in the late summer in the U.S. and in the spring in Europe. The 19-year-old Cleveland native has benefited greatly from the exposure afforded by the disc, according to her manager, Pat Winter, a senior VP with ICM Artists. "In Europe, it has been tremendous for her. I think the reviews the record has been getting in Gramophone, BBC Music, and The Strad have turned into more and more invitations. Since it's a U.K.-based series, we'll see how the album will help her in the States, but there was already a real buzz about her at the American Symphony Orchestra League conference this summer. We realize that this is something relatively rare nowadays, and it's very exciting."

Weilerstein is the exception rather than the rule; most artists-veteran and up-and-comer alike-now have to turn to smaller independent labels for the chance to record. And if things are tough for instrumentalists, it's exponentially tougher for conductors-especially those with American orchestras, whose high fees are anathema to record executives. Harmonia Mundi, ECM, Hyperion, and Chandos are stalwart indie operations whose great reputations for quality and innovation have earned real loyalty from critics and consumers alike. Still, Jay Hoffman-principal of New York publicity firm Jay K. Hoffman & Associates, whose clients include Richard Goode, conductor Christoph Eschenbach, and guitarist Sharon Isbin, as well as the Finnish indie Ondine-cautions that independent productions can never really take the place of what a major label provides.

"It's distressing when you think that conductors like Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner really owe their international careers to major-label recordings and all the time and money that went into promoting them," Hoffman says. "Where are conductors like that going to get that kind of support now? I think the independents show the sort of dedication to artists that the majors used to, but they just don't have the resources. If I were an artist below the rank of a Mutter or a Simon Rattle, I would be very worried."

No one is producing more classical discs than busy budget label Naxos; its appeal to consumers is undeniable, but Hoffman feels that its efficacy for artists is questionable, since the repertory-driven company dedicates its promotion to developing label identity over the profile of any individual musician. Marin Alsop-music director of the Colorado Symphony, principal guest conductor with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and leader of California's Cabrillo Festival-has made recordings for RCA, EMI, and Atlantic, as well as for such smaller labels as Koch, MusicMasters, Albany, and now Naxos. Her new Naxos disc is the first of five in a Samuel Barber cycle with the Royal Scottish National for the label's lauded American Classics series.

"Never having had a long-term contract, I'm used to being more of a scavenger-yet I've always felt that a sense of urgency never hurts an artist," Alsop says. "And maybe it once wasn't necessarily a prestigious thing to record for a budget label, but today it's different. And I loved recording for Naxos. I'm happy with the quality, and after all, the goal is that people listen to the records you make. With Naxos's marketing, distribution, and low price, it seems more likely to me that more people will hear them."

High-rent American orchestras are those most left out in the cold these days. The Philadelphia Orchestra hasn't made a major-label recording in years, and the Boston Symphony's work is sporadic. Chicago still records for Teldec thanks to the label's relationship with music director Daniel Barenboim, but the New York Philharmonic's Teldec contract expired last year. Yet necessity has proved the mother of invention, as new fiscal models of shared-risk/shared-reward have developed that allow orchestras to produce their own recordings on a limited basis. The New York band learned the virtues of self-reliance after the enthusiastic acceptance of its series of deluxe archival boxed sets, which the orchestra issues on its own Special Editions label and sells via its Web site and gift shop as well as through Tower Records locations worldwide. The savvy New York model has proven such a success that Philadelphia followed up with its own boxed set marketed in a similar manner, and Boston will join the party soon.

Upping the ante a bit, New York has also issued a two-disc live recording of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, which the orchestra produced itself after Deutsche Grammophon backed out of the project at the last minute. Philadelphia has been buoyed by the success of last year's 12-disc boxed set-which, according to orchestra president Joseph H. Kluger, broke even in nine months, with 3,500 copies sold at $200 each (1,250 through Tower and 2,250 through its Web site, gift shop, and mail order). Now Philly has formed a media center with its musicians to develop future recordings. In the short term, those may take the form of joint-venture discs, such as the recent Dvorvák/Liszt title the orchestra recorded for indie Water Lily Acoustics; in the long term, the projects will undoubtedly revolve around Internet broadcasts and future forms of digital distribution.

So much for sound-what about vision? Such prescient artists as Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein amassed considerable catalogues of concert films in the 1970s and '80s, and the head of one of the majors was quoted in Billboard saying, "Video will save classical music." But the video revolution never really embraced classical music, even in the realm of opera and ballet. Still, the necessity of visual stimulation is increasingly considered a given when reaching out to a younger generation. With advances in Internet and DVD technology, perhaps the time has come for a new, complementary medium for classical music-one that's audiovisual and interactive.

The conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has always prided itself as being a new paradigm, musically and organizationally, and now the group is energetically pursuing the realm of new media. Orpheus has made more than 50 major-label recordings since the early 1970s, most during a long relationship with Deutsche Grammophon. Although the pace has slowed significantly, the group still has major albums in the works with Sony, Nonesuch, and Deutsche Grammophon. But Orpheus manager Harvey Seifter is looking forward to the cutting edge with the group's upcoming Web casts and other multimedia projects in the works.

"Coming back to classical music after some years in the theater, it was like I was Rip van Winkle and woke up to find that the audience for recordings had vanished," he says. "You can blame it partly on a lack of arts education. I also think it's just an accident of history and evolution, and I don't think the classical industry has adapted well. People's ears haven't changed-classical music still has the power to excite and really move-but intense real-time concentration is harder to come by these days.

"Because listening to music has become such a background activity, we are looking for ways to return it to a foreground experience," Seifter adds. "People make more time for integral audiovisual experiences today, and I think that only by incorporating visuals and some element of interactivity with the music can we cultivate new demand. You can only go so far in changing the concert experience. But despite all the challenges right now, developing technology means the recording field is wide open."

Bradley Bambarger is the classical columnist and a contributing editor with Billboard magazine, based in New York. He is also a regular contributor to Gramophone, Stagebill, Pulse!, and the rock magazine Revolver, among other publications.