Commentator Norman Lebrecht says the classical recording industry is worse off than the pop industry, and for a surprising reason:

You may wish to jot this in your diaries and upbraid me with it in twelve months' time but I am about to make the rock-solid prediction that the year 2004 will be the last for the classical record industry.

The unravelling has run faster than prestissimo. Major labels which, a decade ago, pumped out 120 new releases a year are now reduced to a trickle of two dozen. Epochal concerts are no longer recorded for posterity. Classical stars have lost their license to twinkle.

Where labels once fought bidding wars over shimmering talent they now compete in shedding it. The latest on the dump pile is the tenor Roberto Alagna, once trumpeted as the next Placido Domingo, now a victim of poor sales. EMI has declined to renew Alagna's contract which expired earlier this year. His wife, Angela Georghiu, remains under contract but has no further recordings planned.

The words 'record' and 'contract' can no longer be juxtaposed in any meaningful way. EMI recently announced an exclusive seven-year deal with the fine-toned Norwegian, Leif-Ove Andsnes. All it means is that the hottest of current pianists gets to cut one disc a year, just the one, if he's lucky.

....Life has been no easier for cottage labels. The German firm Haenssler, which employed Sir Roger Norrington and Sir Neville Marriner to conduct symphonic cycles, ran into financial difficulties and had to be restructured by its parent company, a Christian books publisher. Andante.com, a French-financed venture which sold archive recordings and internet access to live performances, stumbled into a protective alliance with another French group, Naive. Hypothermia set in to classical sales. The lone exception is budget label Naxos, which plans 150 new releases in the coming year, plus 60 historical remasters. 'We are no longer in the same industry as Decca and DG,' laughs its founder, Klaus Heymann. Naxos apart, there is almost no activity left that is coherent enough to be described as 'industry'. The day of classical recording is done and the post-mortem has begun.

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