Len Fehskens replies to me:

>>The point is, I guess, you can't love what you don't know, and a shrinking
>>repertoire limits what most people can know because most people don't
>>perform.
>
>But the recorded repertoire is anything but shrinking.  There is a far
>wider diversity of recorded (classical, art) music available now than has
>ever been the case.  And even if the bean counters at the "majors" get them
>out of this business, there will always be small, devoted outfits that
>cater to the needs of listeners like ourselves.  Why you assume that no
>one will rise to the challenge, if not opportunity?

Excellent points.  To take the last one first, I have no good reason and
many bad experiences to assume it.  The fact that I live in a commercial
culture where it takes perhaps $50,000 to produce an orchestral recording
(God knows how much for an opera), that I don't know anyone with $50,000
to spare, and that so many enterprising labels like Koch and ESS.A.Y.
seem to struggle (check out all the cutouts in the Berkshire Record Outlet
catalogue) have all contributed to my pessimism.  It seems to me a heroic
and quixotic gesture to run such an enterprise.  How many heroes and
Quixotes are there? Of course, Naxos seems to have found a way.

Steve Schwartz