The "market forces against ivory tower" debate has been a revealing spat;
but as musicians at least from Haydn onwards have found, there's no
straightforward, simple answer to it.

However, in a necessarily grey area, we should all be very wary of one
peculiarly modern aspect to the ole debate.

This is the increasing influence of the multi-national Grey Suit Brigade on
concert and recording programming, and on the editorial independence of the
media.  These things have little to do with "market forces", and everything
to do with corporate blackmail and the feathering of cosy administrative
nests at the expense of imaginative programming.

The "Editor's Choice" section in Britain's Gramophone Magazine,
for instance - fairly universally loathed by the readership on its
introduction, judging from Letters to that same Editor - has by now of
course magically transformed itself into "Ten Best Records of the Month" on
the free CD.  And I'm afraid the majority choice of disks ties in far, far
too often with the features and advertisement sections of the magazine to
retain any credibility.

Adventurous programming and the level playing field for emergent talent
are threatened alike by the blanket acceptance of inappropriate advertising
and journalistic models and mindsets.  Of course music has its economics -
but global uniformity and economies of scale have resulted in a demoralised
business where ludicrously inept financial structures, added to
unimaginative block funding from government (the British National Lottery)
and corporate potentates alike, threatens to ossify the whole thing from an
economic point of view.

One of the grossest dangers to global economy in general is the squeezing
of small and middle-sized concerns by the Global Bullies, and the Music
Business is certainly not insulated against its sterilising utilitarian
effects.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"