What classical music does not need to do


In the Guardian's portentously titled 'What the music industry needs to do with the classical renaissance' Max Hole from Universal Music declares that classical music's problems will be solved if it embraces "the spirit of change". There are others who think the problems will be solved if the Guardian stopped publishing transparently derivative advertorials written by long serving executives on whose watch the record industry has been brought to its knees - particularly one whose carefully spun Wikipedia entry tells us "he was referred to in Billboard as a serious contender for title of most powerful label executive outside America" and he "charted #16 on the Guardian and Observer’s ‘Music Power 100’ in 2011".

Seen above is independent label Mode Record's double CD of Treatise by Cornelius Cardew, a composer who fell out with the BBC over the spirit of change when he wanted the slogan "Apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought in a living way to the problems of the present" displayed at a 1972 Promenade concert. More on that story here.

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