The Life and Death of Classical Music Read Online Free Page B

dislikes were luxuries that he kept out of the office. Scratch him hard and you would find a conventional German
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founded on the three Bs, but if the bottom ever dropped out of Beethoven Heymann would not scruple to scrap his output. Driven by opus numbers rather than any brilliance of interpretation, his catalogue bulged out into remote corners of repertoire, gaining Naxos anorak appeal. Each national office was given a licence to record local composers. There was a series of British music from Bournemouth and Glasgow, an American line from Nashville and Seattle, with conductors Marin Alsop, Paul Daniel and Dennis Russell Davies. ‘The cost of recording an orchestra today is cheaper than it was in the beginning in Slovakia and Hungary,’ exulted Heymann. 22 Early eastern Europe CDs were replaced with western versions and binned at two or three dollars under hypermarket labels of convenience.
    Klaus Heymann was on a high, hitting the industry where it hurt most, in the slow-burning backlist. BMG tried to buy a stake in his company for $10 million. Tim Harrold, a Polygram executive, got on a plane to Hong Kong and presented himself to Heymann with two suitcases filled with high-denomination dollar bills. Richard Lyttelton, head of EMI Classics, offered $30 million. Heymann has a letter on file offering $100 million. In every case, the answer was No. ‘I was having too much fun,’ he laughed. 23 Jazz, nostalgia, talking books and educational CDs joined the Naxos roster. When the internet kicked in, he offered website access to the entire canon of Western classical music, threatening to corner the market in classical downloads.
    The only thing that could have stopped him, he confessed, would have been a swift move by the majors to swamp the market with cheap reissues. Klemperer, Szell and Kubelik for six bucks would have killed stone dead the likes of Gunzenhauser, Wit and Halasz. 24 But the labels were in a war with Sony and could not afford to reduce revenues from their grateful dead. Alain Levy issued a prohibition on price-cutting. By the time he relented, the century was over and Heymann had a $50-million turnover and 2,500 masters in his vaults.
    With merciless effrontery he proceeded to raid the recorded past for epics that had lapsed from circulation. Success with Kreisler, Casals and Rachmaninov emboldened him to nibble at the margins of mechanical copyright. Richard Lyttelton, on a New York trip, found a Naxos Callas recording on sale, copied from an EMI LP. After issuing a ‘cease and desist’ letter that Heymann ignored, EMI sued. Naxos won the first round but lost in the Court of Appeals at Albany, which vested all rights in the original producer. EMI demanded exemplary damages. Heymann took the case back to the lower court fighting, he said, on a matter of principle. 25 Months later he withdrew 150 historic titles from sale in the US ‘as part of an amicable settlement’. 26 EMI claimed victory and other majors cheered a debacle for Heymann, who turned seventy in October 2006. ‘I wouldn’t give five million for his catalogue now,’ said Lyttelton scornfully, 27 but Heymanncontinued to prove that it was possible to succeed in classical recording without a dazzle of stars or a tower full of salary-guzzling executives.
    The madness had to end; it was just a matter of who blinked first. Ohga was clearly not having as much fun as he had hoped. Classics was haemorrhaging cash and the rampaging Walter Yetnikoff was proving a painful embarrassment. On 29 June 1991 Ohga wrote to Yetnikoff: ‘you are my old friend and we will stay as friends forever’. 28 Ten weeks later Yetnikoff was called to Ohga’s New York office. ‘I’m sorry,’ said his old friend, ‘but this hurts me more than it hurts you.’ ‘Please exit through the side door,’ said the security guard. 29
    Yetnikoff’s sacking was the signal for slim down. His successor was sharp-suited Tommy Mottola, an A&R hustler who had romanced