From today's Chicago Tribune:

   For the record, more bad news for CSO

   John von Rhein.
   Tribune wire services contributed to this report
   Published October 5, 2001

   This has not been a banner fortnight for the Chicago Symphony
   Orchestra.  Last week, the orchestra lost its national syndicated
   radio broadcast series after the funding fell short.  This week, the
   CSO posted a $1.3 million deficit for fiscal 2001 -- and reportedly
   found itself without a record company affiliation practically for
   the first time since it began recording 85 years ago.

   Music director Daniel Barenboim is the latest casualty of the campaign
   by the big European conglomerates, citing high costs and dwindling
   audiences, to gut their classical rosters.His contract with Warner
   (corporate parent of Teldec International Classics, for which he and
   the CSO currently record) has ended and will not be renewed, according
   to a report in the London Telegraph.  Henry Fogel, CSO Association
   president, said there has been no official notice yet, and the CSO
   has one further project on its current contract beyond a scheduled
   recording of Wilhelm Furtwaengler's Second Symphony for Teldec in
   December.  An already recorded Barenboim-conducted disc of Stravinsky,
   Debussy and Boulez has yet to be released.

   Barenboim has built up a sizable CSO discography, beginning in the
   1970s, when he appeared here regularly as a guest conductor.  He made
   his first CSO discs for Erato, the French wing of the Warner stable,
   in 1990, one year before beginning his tenure as music director.
   The CSO apparently now joins Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland among
   other major U.S.  orchestras orphaned by the record companies.  At
   a time of falling classical CD sales, the Los Angeles Philharmonic
   and San Francisco Symphony are virtually the only leading American
   ensembles that still make records.  In its heyday under Georg Solti
   during the '70s, the CSO was the most recorded orchestra in America,
   rivaling the Berlin Philharmonic in number of best-selling releases,
   garnering more Grammy awards than any other ensemble.  From 1970
   until shortly before his death in 1997, Solti and the CSO recorded
   extensively for London Decca.  During that period the orchestra also
   undertook recording projects for Angel, RCA, Philips and CBS.

Scott Morrison
Prairie Village KS
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