Donald Satz wrote:
>If the Piladelphia Orchestra did consider recording for Naxos beneath them,
>it deserves nothing but an instant demise.
That feels a bit harsh to me (the death penalty for the Fab Phillies?), but
I agree that they should not feel any snobbish superiority to Naxos--it's
a perfectly respectable label.
However, this raises the question of what has happened by now to the old
idea of "prestige images" attached to certain labels. I must confess, for
instance, that I felt a bit strange at first seeing the Sony name, which I
associated with portable radio/tape players, TVs, and blank tapes, on
classical disks, but by now I am at a point where I really don't pay much
attention to the name of the company that puts out a disk. The composer,
work, and performers are what I care about (and to some extent the
price)--the product could be manufactured by Uncle Bob's Classical-o-Rama
as far as I am concerned.
>The above route would be much superior to the Philadelphia Orchestra
>having its own label - enhanced visibility and stature. I realize that a
>few list members think well of the "own label" notion; I do not. It would
>be inherently limiting without a distribution apparatus, and it's unlikely
>these recordings would be in the retail stores or web sites; that's where
>the money is. The stature and visibility of the orchestra will just
>stagnate through its own label.
Well, I haven't heard much recently about this "own label" option emanating
from the direction of the orchestra itself--it may have been put on the
back burner for just such reasons as you mention. But I wonder whether
there might not be a lot of potential buyers with the attitude I described
above, who would be attracted by the orchestra's reputation itself, and
especially by the specific works on the disk, if they were more compelling
choices than the usual "n-th Beethoven 9 set." It's not as though we are
talking about gigantic sales figures anyway (unless they do the music to
"Titanic," I guess).
Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]
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