Andrew Clements of The Guardian UK posted an article today about the lasting power of classical music labels over the past decade. Despite the many shifts in the music industry overall, classical labels have managed to adapt and continue to move forward. The article highlights two recently Grammy nominated labels, San Francisco Symphony and Mariinsky. Clements writes:
“Right across the world, from the San Francisco Symphony (whose Mahler cycle with their music director Michael Tilson Thomas has been widely admired, particularly for the exceptional quality of the recorded sound) to the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, which launched its own label earlier this year with an outstanding version of Shostakovich’s opera The Nose, conducted by Valery Gergiev, orchestras and opera companies have set up their own brands, over which they are able to exert complete artistic control.”
Clements also adds that the London Symphony Orchestra was the label to lead the way. “..the orchestra that led the way here was the London Symphony, which cannily played to its built-in strengths from the very start, by releasing a whole Berlioz cycle with its principal conductor for much of the decade, Colin Davis, that complemented and in some respects surpassed the series of Berlioz studio recordings that Davis had made for Philips a quarter of a century earlier, including an outstanding set of The Trojans.”
Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Orchestra
“Symphony No. 1″ (mp3)
from “Mahler: Symphony No. 1″
(LSO Live)
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Tags: London Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, San Francisco Symphony
