’Tis the season for belt-tightening
Charlotte Smith
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
It would be foolish to suggest that there’s a huge amount of festive cheer around the UK arts community at the time of writing. I single out the UK because the arts industry here is reeling from the government’s announcement of a little under 30 per cent cuts in Arts Council funding. It is a colossal proportion. Museums have fared better with 16 per cent, suggesting that the music world suffers from being represented by less-able advocates in the highest earthly circles of power, or that the government rates music (and theatre) less highly than it might. And the worry must be that where the UK has gone, others may follow (I should perhaps point out that I’m not objecting to some order of cuts, since we as a nation appear to have little choice, but the arts have taken one heck of a body blow). Make no mistake, companies will close.
That said, the recording industry is somewhat less vulnerable than its live-event cousins. By and large, record companies don’t rely on government grants (there are exceptions to this – orchestras’ own labels obviously have a direct link and countries such as Spain and Portugal traditionally fund recordings). And the various commercial tempests of the past few years (web piracy, closing of high-street record shops) have left them for the most part in lean and cost-efficient shape.
Certainly there are a multitude of rather exciting (amid the usual doses of kitsch) festive releases out for the season. This issue, Fabrice Fitch finds the gems among the, er, well, the gems. Perhaps what we should do is pour the sherry, thank heaven that we haven’t quite faced global meltdown and drink deep of the joy music can bring.
On which subject, the holiday season allows us a chance to look back over the past year and catch up with the great recordings we may have missed. Our annual Critics’ Choice feature allows our reviewers to nominate the one recording each they’d give as a present. Thankfully, CDs and downloads remain affordable even in these straitened times. Stockings at the ready!
