Recently I had a rather sharp exchange with a manager of a label specializing in “historical” recordings. The gentleman took exception to one of our reviews of his product, particularly when it suggested that releasing sub-par, unauthorized (by the deceased artist in question) performances in bad sound was not exactly a tribute to this great performer’s reputation — doubly the case when the awful live performance competes with excellent, personally authorized recordings issued by labels having large and ongoing investments in their extensive catalogs of recordings by major artists. There is no doubt whatsoever (in my mind anyway) that the label in question releases its recordings solely on the basis of “fame”, with scant (if any) regard to the musical quality of the product in question. They do this because they know that some artists have a following which will purchase the discs irrespective of how good or bad they actually are.
Is there anything inherently wrong with this from a purely capitalistic point of view? No, there isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with meeting a demand, and fans of any great musician certainly have a right to clamor for every recorded scrap they can get their hands on, and labels in a position to meet that demand have every right to act accordingly. The problems begin when you move beyond the niche group of “fandom” and into the world that the rest of us inhabit. We all know that the market today is extremely fragmented, not just in classical music of course, but in music of all varieties. This fragmentation is reflected in a general lowering of expectations in terms of how many copies of any new release can be expected to sell, and also in terms of what audience such new releases serve. In a sense, the “niche” mentality suits classical music very well: it has always been, and always will be, a comparatively specialized interest carrying with it a certain patina of elitism. But what are we to make of a situation in which serving a market niche — one that prides itself on assumptions of inherent cultural superiority and artistic greatness — means releasing garbage?
You see, beyond all of the subjectivity inherent in one’s own personal enjoyment of any recording, there really are genuine standards — of sound quality, technical virtuosity in performance, and even of interpretation. Traditionally much ink has been spilled over the question of what constitutes “greatness,” but in this particular example the issue hardly arises because we have the performer’s own definition of what this means in terms of his own art: a large and distinguished legacy of personally authorized recordings, many of which continue to enjoy general acclaim and have been recommended, indeed cherished, for decades. So the process of determining what does or does not meet this particular musician’s highest standards is often a simply matter of making a real-time listening comparison between the authorized product and the “historical” competitor in the same repertoire (foolish use of the term “historical”, by the way, as many such issues actually post-date the better known commercial issues and most, if not all, are relatively modern, stereo recordings).
Of course, it’s always possible that an unauthorized release can improve on a commercial recording in innumerable ways, so each case has to be evaluated individually. So let’s keep in mind the original premise here: that “name recognition” and serving the needs of a small but vocal niche interest (the artist’s “fans”), and not musical quality, is the primary consideration in determining the release program. Can you see the irony? Here we have, by general acclamation, a great artist. And because of that perception, certain record labels believe they have carte blanche to issue dreadful performances that certainly never would have been approved by the artist in question were he alive to have a say in the matter. They are, in effect, destroying his reputation by taking advantage of it.
The damage is also done in many other ways, one of which I have already touched on–the fact that such releases undermine the often decades long support that the artist has received from the labels which are the custodians of his personally authorized legacy. This point is so obvious I should hope that it requires little further discussion. But there are more subtle harms as well, the most significant of which is the dilution of the artists “uniqueness”, which is of course the foundation from which our perception of “greatness” arises. Having one great (or even very good) commercial recording of a particular work by a great artist is not the same as having one commercial recording and two or three (or a dozen) mediocre to terrible unauthorized “historical” recordings of the same artist playing the same work, or a raft of lousy performances of pieces “new” to his discography. In such circumstances our perception of the quality of the artist’s legacy as a whole necessary declines (assuming, again, that standards of musical quality remain paramount in making this determination).
Nor does it do any good to say, as an artist’s fans invariably will, that they are prepared to forgive any number of errors in execution for the thrill of hearing an interpretation “live” and that such problems simply don’t matter. The simple fact is that one of the other pillars of “greatness” is consistency over time. An artist who is shown to be “off” as often as “on” will inevitably come to have his reputation questioned by anyone who cares about music first and name recognition second. Furthermore, an ongoing glut of “new” recordings by old, dead artists can only stifle the incentive to release new performances by living artists active today, and while fans fret over differences in phrasing from one performance to the next of bar 173 of some symphony or sonata, entirely different and fresh conceptions of the whole work go unacknowledged and unheard. This nostalgia for things dead, this refusal to accept or recognize the obvious failures that fail to uphold the highest standards as defined by the artist himself, this automatic assumption that everything a “great” artist does must somehow be inherently “interesting” — or at all events more interesting than anything happening now (often accompanied by a delightfully impenetrable ignorance of what actually is happening now) — is cultural decadence at its very worst.
But at a far deeper level, what’s at stake here is the assumption, until very recently a pillar supporting the industry, of classical music’s relevance and universality. We know that the audience for classical music will always be relatively small. Still, the case for the medium as a hobby — one at least potentially enjoyable by anyone — and its value as something desirable has always been expressed in terms of audible standards of quality: as great performances of great music by great artists. Obviously not all commercial releases achieve this ideal (though surprisingly many do). Nevertheless, this was and to a large extent remains the standard that governs the work of most labels, critics, and (we hope) the taste of the listening public. And remember this: normal people aren’t stupid. They may not relish, in the same way that a true aficionado may, the difference wrought by 15 seconds plus or minus in the timing of a single movement of a symphony in two performances by the same conductor. But lousy sound is lousy sound, and wretched ensemble, wrong notes, badly tuned instruments, miscues, and various other interpretive perversities of the moment are obvious blemishes that matter to those who care about quality, and particularly to neophytes who want to begin their listening experience with “the best” and are banking on the artist’s reputation to deliver accordingly.
I am sometimes asked if ClassicsToday.com is “for” or “against” so-called “historical” recordings. The answer is simple: we are for great recordings — period. This means no excuses or apologies when it comes to pointing out that some “historical” emperor is actually naked, however much his courtiers may protest or deny the obvious. At bottom, the question is this: who should the industry serve? Mind you, I believe it is quite possible to balance the demands of fans with the desire to issue top quality “historical” product that holds its own when compared to the best currently available, and which anyone can enjoy without apology. It happens all the time. But the converse also happens all the time, and this trend seems to be on the upswing, particularly with the opening of the great European radio archives and the push for artists and ensembles to produce their own recordings. And that is not necessarily a good thing for the music loving public, for our classical music culture, and God knows, for the performers whose reputations will continue to be eroded until every bad night and unfortunate lapse has been lovingly restored and offered to an increasingly skeptical public as an example of “great” art.
David Hurwitz
