The Life and Death of Classical Music

by Lebrecht, Norman

  Two world stars plopped into his lap. Joan Sutherland was queen of bel canto and Luciano Pavarotti, her fledgling partner, was potentially the tenor of the century. Culshaw had not liked him and Rosengarten had too many tenors on his books-Di Stefano, Corelli, McCracken-but Minshull signed the Italian and McEwen took to him on sight, one man-mountain to another, when Pavarotti came to New York in 1967 as cover for Carlo Bergonzi in a Karajan Verdi Requiem. McEwen took the tenor to be styled and snapped by fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo. ‘Luciano, you’re a nice guy,’ he said. ‘You need a real bastard to do your publicity.’40 Herbert Breslin, a hustler of hype, was hired to put Pavarotti everywhere, and all other singers in the shade. For Sutherland McEwen created an image as grande dame of the grand tradition.

  His achievements were not wholeheartedly appreciated. ‘Ray Minshull was always rather uptight about him,’ said Paul Myers, ‘but most of us suspected that Terry had a strong influence.’ ‘The artists loved him,’ said Breslin, ‘in part, because he was extremely generous: who’s not going to love a generous record promoter? He always hosted after-performance dinners, and parties, and promotions-all, of course, with Decca’s money.’41 McEwen put Solti on the cover of Time magazine in May 1973 as The Fastest Baton in the West, the maestro for Middle America. Other labels, landing with lesser podium stars, found the fame game sewn up.

  Philips started in San Francisco with the young Seiji Ozawa, in a bid to penetrate the over-protected Japanese record market. Ozawa-mop-topped, polo-necked and matey with the Sony bosses Morita and Ohga-was the first Japanese to head a Western orchestra. Photogenic, energetic and slightly off-centre in his musical tastes (CD 65, p. 235), Ozawa moved up from San Francisco to Boston. Philips took over the Boston contract from DGG without difficulty, since the labels were moving to the next stage of union. Frits Philips, nearing retirement, agreed with Ernst von Siemens to pool their labels in PolyGram International. DG (the ‘Gesellschaft’ was dropped) and Philips were allowed to maintain separate identities for the time being but the Dutch, in any clash, were expected to submit to the Germans.

  DG turned its American operation into a Karajan support system. The maestro was appearing seasonally at the Met and his influence on its young music director, James Levine, was considerable-a ‘phenomenal inspiration’,42 said Levine. ‘Karajan will never rest until he is deified in the United States,’ said a record official, 43 and DG’s New York chief Guenter Hensler thrust K rations aggressively into stores. Karajan’s progress, however, was constrained by his Nazi past and DG decided that it needed an American counterweight. When Bernstein was dropped by CBS, DG picked up a Met recording of Carmen, with Marilyn Horne in the title role. It won a 1973 Grammy but unsold sets cluttered record-store dump bins. DG re-signed Bernstein to record Liszt’s unmarketable Faust symphony, followed by his own three symphonies. The clincher was getting Karajan to waive his veto and, in the interests of DG America, invite Lennie to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1975 Salzburg Festival.

  Low farce ensued. Hearing that Lenny was heading for Salzburg, the CBS London office plastered Bernstein posters on every vacant shop window. A mischievous forest of posters sprang up on the route that Karajan took each morning into work. The maestro was not amused, even less so when Lennie staged a triumphal last-minute entry along the front row of Festspielhaus seats, leaning over a balustrade to greet his many pals in the Vienna Philharmonic while Karajan was waiting in the pit to start Verdi’s Don Carlos. The Austrian Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, gave a state party for Bernstein’s fifty-seventh birthday. Bernstein’s Mahler Eighth was hailed in the Austrian press as ‘an incomparable event’. Karajan turned puce, but DG got its man. Bernstein signed exclusively to the Yellow Label in 1981.

  These realignments left three labels holding sway over America’s Big Five orchestras. Cleveland lined up with Decca, Philadelphia with Philips, New York with DG. Chicago’s musicians refused to enter wage talks without a Decca man present. By 1980, the British label with Solti, Pavarotti and Sutherland had almost one-third of US classical sales. The Decca Sound settled on America like an army blanket, minimizing the differences between orchestras, but demand was waning as war vets grew old. Solti, for all his vigour, never matched Toscanini’s fame and, when Ozawa lost his Beatles looks, Boston began along slide into ennui. Levine, Tilson Thomas and Leonard Slatkin maintained their profile but orchestras looked to the European labels for their next music director.

  EMI, out of the US running, was mired in a British decade of oil crisis and labour stoppages. Lockwood retired, handing over to John Read, an accountant from Ford Motors, who looked at the Beatles profits, rising year on year, and said ‘the music business can run itself. Read went looking for external money spinners. CAT body scanners were the hot item in medical diagnostics and Read spent a mint on buying marketing rights. Record producers, hauled out of studios, were despatched to hospitals. ‘I was appointed head of the East European business,’ related Peter Andry. ‘I remember flying off with John Read to Russia to sell CAT machines, but we couldn’t get the Russian women into the things. Their thighs were too big.’44

  Read splurged further on buying defunct film studios with a view to revitalizing British cinema. He lost touch with music, so much so that when the Sex Pistols punk band expleted four-letter words on family-time television, he sacked them. ‘Our view within EMI,’ intoned Read, ‘is that we should seek to discourage records that are likely to give offence to the majority of people … EMI should not set itself up as a public censor, but it does seek to encourage restraint.’45 Restraint never sold a record and EMI’s youth-cred went down the drain.

  Classics were becalmed under Peter Andry who, aseptically patrician, hitched his hopes to André Previn, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, a man once married to a pop singer (Dory Previn) and now to a film star (Mia Farrow). In strikebound, power-cut Britain, such secondhand celebrity passed for sex appeal and Previn, nicknamed Andrew Preview, was a fixture on three-channel television, whether as a musician or as a salesman for EMI household goods. He was regarded as ‘a first-rate conductor of second-rate music’, outstanding in showpieces like Carmina Burana and Rachmaninov’s The Bells. Some LSO players, craving profundity, tried to oust him for Eugen Jochum, but Previn clung on for eleven years, inflicting a breezy superficiality on London’s musical ecology.

  Peter Andry, alert to his shortcomings, had a secret weapon up his sleeve. ‘I had always kept in touch with Karajan,’ said Andry. ‘His secretary, André von Mattoni, would let me know when he was passing through, and I’d be there at the airport to have a few words, talk music, say how wonderful he was.’ Karajan was having a falling-out with DG, which paid him a flat fee per LP at his request, in order to keep royalties out of the grasp of his second wife, Anita, whom he had replaced with a French model, Eliette. But the records sold immensely and Karajan worked out that the alimony dodge had cost him 6 million Deutschmarks. He asked DG to make good. The Germans, unwilling to accede to an unjustified demand, dithered. The Berlin Philharmonic, sensing discord, chipped in with demands for an increased session fee of 65 Deutschmarks per player hour, as much as Decca were paying in Chicago. Not viable, said D G. The atmosphere was turning acrid when Andry, with exquisite timing, offered to take over one-third of the next DG contract, fifteen sessions a year, meaning more money for maestro and musicians. Karajan, pleased to have made his point, signed for both labels. He then punished the Berlin players by diverting several EMI sessions to the Orchestre de Paris.

  ‘My policy,’ reflected Andry, ‘was to keep the English-speaking world happy with Previn, and Europe and Japan with Karajan. My achievement was to keep classical business going within the milieu of a greatly expanding pop business. It obliged me to sit in dreary meetings and click my fingers to their noisy stuff. But Karajan and Previn made a wonderful team.’ So wonderful, in fact, that Ernst von Siemens secretly approached Andry to become president of DG and Phil
ips. Unwilling to move his family to Germany, Andry declined. Siemens returned with a bigger offer. ‘Each time, I managed to improve my position at EMI,’ laughed Andry, a dealmaker to his bones.

  Where Legge loathed all rivals, Andry was eager to trade. He let DG record Carlo-Maria Giulini ‘since he wasn’t selling much on EMI’, as well as Placido Domingo who misjudged his record career by appearing on too many outlets, none of which promoted him as Decca did Pavarotti. Exclusivity was the coinage by which labels did their deals. Typically, two executives would meet for lunch at a blushingly expensive restaurant in London or Salzburg where, after a liberal imbibing of rare vintages, the talent was laid out over coffee. ‘I’ll give you an Arrau and two Brendels for Previn to play Rhapsody in Blue with Haitink,’ Philips might say to EMI, like two kids with cigarette cards in a playground.

  ‘We want the Vienna Phil for Previn’s Tchaikovsky,’ EMI would reply.

  ‘Tricky, D G have got Vienna tied up for the next Tchaikovsky. Still, DG want Elly Ameling from us, so I might get a deal. You wouldn’t take a Dutch fiddler off my hands in the Brahms concerto?’

  ‘Not unless you borrow our English cellist for the Delius.’

  Callous as this may sound, these exchanges often worked in an artist’s best interest. A soloist failing twice on Philips might have better luck with a third shot on EMI. If Ashkenazy (Decca) insisted that only Previn (EMI) understood him in the Rachmaninov concertos, Minshull and Andry would cut a deal that kept both artists happy. These swaps reassured the majors that their artists were an elite and that they were protecting the consumer from a flood of charlatans.

  Talent was trawled nightly at recital halls, opera rehearsals and conservatoire graduations. Producers pooled new names at monthly meetings, making their decisions on the basis of passionate conviction. ‘Andry said we were going to do Italian operas and it was a choice between Riccardo Muti and James Levine,’ said producer John Mordler. ‘I was sent to Vienna and heard Muti conduct Aida at the Staatsoper – it was electrifying. After that, there was no more talk of Levine.’46

  On 2 December 1970 EMI brought Muti over to conduct the New Philharmonia in Croydon, on the unreviewed outskirts of London. The players, alert to a record deal, asked him to become principal conductor. For Muti-coal-black hair, razor-sharp tailoring and just past thirty-Christmas came early that year. After recording Cherubini’s Requiem, he stamped his authority on Aida at Walthamstow Town Hall. The first take was desultory, too many musicians dispersed around a vast building. Muti listened to the playback with a brow darker than thunder. He stormed back into the heart of the hall and fired up a performance that left the cast sweat-soaked and uplifted. ‘The magnetism was irresistible,’ said Mordler, and the set (Montserrat Caballe, Domingo, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicolai Ghiaurov and Piero Cappuccilli) was hailed as a classic. Sales, though, were stubbornly slow. In the thick of the oil crisis few would risk £12 (the price of a good restaurant meal for two) on a young maestro. An ‘anonymous admirer’, apparently the General Electric Company chairman Arnold Weinstock, chipped in £25,000 to get EMI to record Muti again in Bellini’s I Capuletti e I Montecchi at Covent Garden.

  He was not an easy colleague. Seducing an EMI blonde, he used her to demand the sacking of an executive he disliked. After the early buzz, Philharmonia audiences fell and the players were relieved when the aged Ormandy offered Muti his Philadelphia post. Muti livened up the old town with a dazzle of stars-Pavarotti, Renata Scotto, Maurizio Pollini and the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, with whom he enjoyed an innate understanding-and dragged EMI warily into recording in America. Although his sales were low and his Beethoven symphonies bombed, Muti, newly head of La Scala and talked of as the next Karajan, kept EMI and Philips flinging ever more despairing wads of cash at his combustible career.

  EMI kept its door ever open to options. Simon Rattle, a wire-haired kid from Liverpool, twenty-one years old, won a cigarette-sponsored conducting competition with an EMI recording as part of the prize. He asked to perform Mahler’s tenth symphony, a deathbed work completed in 1964 by a BBC producer, Deryck Cooke, with the emigre composer Berthold Goldschmidt. Senior conductors had scorned the score, Bernstein and Kubelik rejecting it for their cycles. Ormandy made a premiere recording on CBS and Kurt Sanderling another in East Germany, but the case for the Tenth was yet to be made. Rattle studied with Goldschmidt and expanded the more speculative passages with the brother-composers Colin and David Matthews. The music, he wrote, ‘requires an unusual degree of creativity from the conductor … one comes face to face with the bare material in a way that a conductor of Mahler’s generation would have been’47 (CD 71, p. 242). The record, blazing with conviction, would fix the symphony in the canon. Before it was out, Rattle was named principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Britain’s second city. He was on a vertical curve.

  It took EMI fifteen years to break even on Rattle and he was not the toast of the tearoom when one of his enthusiasms, Nicholas Maw’s Odyssey, sold just ninety copies on release. But EMI held firm and Rattle repaid the label with dogged exclusivity and, ultimately, the supreme trophy of Berlin.

  And still the door stayed open. An East German refugee, Klaus Tennstedt, made an explosive US debut with a Bruckner Eighth in Boston. ‘Once in a lifetime,’ gasped the Globe. Lanky, weak-willed, and prone to alcoholic consolation, Tennstedt collapsed in tears in a Philadelphia rehearsal and suffered a complete breakdown soon after, unable to cope with success. He found an empathy with Gustav Mahler; an EMI producer, John Willan, nursed him through an unforgettably intense cycle (CD 89, p. 262). Tennstedt, said a wide-eyed Rattle, ‘has the effect of energising an orchestra in his own way quicker than almost anyone’.48 He was a one-off, not long for this world, but Willan captured the best of Tennstedt and when the bedraggled anti-hero returned from illness to the Royal Festival Hall, banners waved from the balcony: ‘Welcome back, Klaus.’ Even Karajan was impressed.

  Amid EMI’s thicket of batons, Karajan was never the main event that he was on DG. His ill-judged EMI comeback featured the Soviet dream team of Richter, David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich (see p. 283). There followed a Dresden Meistersinger and the late symphonies of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. EMI made a £652,719 profit on Karajan in the 1970s, plus a fixed overheads contribution of almost £1 million.49 Andry, to stroke Karajan’s vanity, assigned a red-haired lad from marketing to work on his image. Peter Alward flew to Berlin to arrange a fresh set of cover photographs. Given the runaround by Karajan’s minder, Emil Jucker, he turned to Michel Glotz, the maestro’s independent recording consultant, who stole half an hour of D G time for the EMI shots. Afterwards Karajan said to the young man, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ ‘Going back to Munich, Maestro.’ ‘No, you will come to dinner with me.’

  Back in London, Alward was called in to see Andry: ‘I’ve just had Karajan on the phone. He wants you to be involved in all his recordings.’ Half-English, half-German-Jewish, a fount of minutiae and industry gossip, Alward formed a bond with Karajan that proved crucial for the classical division when EMI finally fell apart in 1979 after a run of Read depredations. In crisis, Andry sent Alward to tell Karajan that EMI could not fulfil a long-cherished Tosca. ‘We’ll have to see about that,’ retorted the litigious Karajan. After a moment or two he said to Alward, ‘What if my next record for EMI was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Anne-Sophie Mutter?’ The combination of old master and German teenager in a surefire hit left EMI with a million seller and Alward with the impression that the wily maestro understood the record business better than any of its bosses.50

  Woe betide anyone, though, who took him for granted. ‘He never forgot a slight,’ said the soprano Birgit Nilsson.51 Emil Jucker, who did his dirty work for decades, was destroyed by a multi-million Karajan lawsuit. Told that Jucker had suffered a stroke during one of his performances, Karajan said, ‘People who go against me always come to harm’ (he also bragged that he had caught Rosengarten stealing royalties and won a hug
e settlement, an assertion hotly denied by the Decca man’s heirs52).

  The more records Karajan made, the more he sold, and the more critics took against him. Even Gramophone struggled to find praise for his fourth and fifth Beethoven cycles and musicians muttered that his seamless perfectionism was simply boring, though few spoke out. An exception was the free-spirited Richter, who avoided Karajan after a contretemps during the Beethoven triple concerto when the conductor refused his request for a retake in order to pose for photographs. ‘It’s a dreadful recording,’ wrote Richter, ‘and I disown it utterly … And what a nauseating photograph it is, with him posing artfully and the rest of us grinning like idiots.’53 That image defines its era, a picture of the captive state of classical recording at the heyday of Herbert von Karajan.

  The last formative figures slipped away in sorrow or disgrace. In March 1975 Decca sacked Gordon Parry, after an investigation for abuse of expenses. ‘Once Culshaw left Decca there was no controlling hand and Gordon’s talent for excess took over,’ said James Mallinson. ‘He walked out on me in the middle of a session-you can’t have that,’ said Christopher Raeburn. The creator of the Decca Sound went on to work as a sound consultant at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Released within months he was jobless until a friend in the garment trade put him to work on the cutting floor. ‘I’m a member of a team again,’ he beamed, ‘which is how I always saw myself at Decca.’54 A visitor to his bungalow, in the featureless east of London, noticed that he had no record player. His death, in February 2003, passed unrecorded in the British press.

  Rosengarten kept his hands on the reins to the last, his eye on the bottom line. He told producers to lash out on expenses, which were covered by London; their salaries, paid from Zurich, were tiny. A Decca producer in the mid-1970s earned £100 a month in take-home pay, but sat in £36 seats at the opera,55 travelled first-class and stayed in five-star hotels.