The frustration of the classical music industry

I have been a very great admirer of Simon since being able to make a very small contribution by arranging one of the first ever classical recording sponsorship deals for his Mahler 10 with the Bournemouth Symphony in the 1970’s. But we have to accept that he is a truly fine musician who has been very cleverly promoted by his agent who starred in my story No such thing as an unknown Venezuelan conductor. This was about agent and power-broker Askonas Holt's wunderkind conductor Gustavo Dudamel, whose advocates include Askonas Holt artist Simon Rattle. There has also, perfectly understandably, been vigorous promotion, with Simon's full participation, by his record company EMI, by his Berlin orchestra (also Askonas Holt artists), and by innovative, and deserving, projects such as the film Rhythm Is It!
The problem is that despite all this promotion Simon’s performances, and recordings, are more often very fine than truly great.

The shouts from the Berlin critics are not an attack on Simon Rattle. They are the collective cries of frustration of the short-term fixated classical music industry which has found once again that there is no fast-track to musical greatness. Simon Rattle is just 51. Musical greatness will come. But whether the Berlin critics and orchestra, his record company, and Simon himself will have the patience to wait for it remains to be seen.
Photo credits: Simon Rattle - Doris Wild, Klaus Tennstedt - Klassika.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Berlin Philharmonic plays inconsequentially and Berlin Philharmonic is in superlative shape
Comments
It is a sadness to me that my article 'Glorious John' in New York doesn't attract more readers, perhaps 'Glorious John' needs an Askonas Holt?
Wasn't Bizet a more brilliant pianist than Liszt, but less good looking?
Yes, artistic greatness and insight can come from the most peculiar and irritating of sources. I still don't think many conductors can touch Karajan when he was at his very best in repetoire he closely identified with such as Bruckner, Sibelius and Strauss. For all his eccentricities, dubious personality traits, and mostly pointless digital re-recordings he was the end of an era.
Nevertheless Karajan's eccentricities and dubious personality traits do give almost endless possibilities for future articles ...
Are you taking bets?