On Apr 3, 2007, at 2:05 PM, joanna wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>
>> More than partly. By the mid-1960s, recording technology had gotten
>> very good, and things from the 1950s weren't so bad either. So we've
>> got 40 or 50 years of very high quality performances of what is a
>> large but nonetheless limited canon. Do we really need contemporary
>> re-interpretations of the minor works of Telemann?
>>
> Well, the short answer is yes. Every generation interprets classical
> music differently, hears different things in it, rediscovers it in a
> different way.
For sure, but when it comes to the economics of classical music recording, the marginal value of a new recording of a double viola concerto by Telemann just doesn't justify the marginal cost. The audience just isn't there for that sort of thing. It's true even of truly great stuff - how many versions of the complete Beethoven string quartets can the market bear? And I don't think it's merely a question of the stinking capitalists.
Doug