That’s the title of a very fine piece of writing on the current state of classical music, written by Brian Wise, an editor and producer at WQXR, the classical music station in New York, and posted on the WQXR website on December 26. I’ve just caught up with it. (Thanks, Brian, for sending me the link!)
It’s full of things I didn’t know, and you may not either, most notably some stats that show the steep — even drastic — decline in the number of performances some of our largest classical music institutions are giving this season. Which fits hand and glove with what the New York Times reported not long ago, about the drying up of work for freelance classical musicians in New York.
Very important information for all of us to have (and congrats, Brian, on your thorough research), whether we ascribe the drop in performances to the recession, or to the longer-term problems classical music has, or to both.