Reissuing back catalog material (what the major labels poetically call “secondary exploitations”) has gradually assumed greater importance than producing new recordings, at least among the big corporate players in the world of classical music. The reasons for this are obvious: it’s comparatively inexpensive, there’s tons of great stuff to choose from, and since the productions were paid for years ago, a well-produced series can be quite profitable. So let’s take a look at the most recent entry in the reissue sweepstakes, Universal’s “Panorama” edition, and ask how well it meets the marketing criteria that it establishes for itself. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll focus primarily on five typical entries, devoted to the music of Berlioz, Debussy, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, and Rachmaninov.
The “Look”
Any new series of products begins with its design concept. What is Panorama’s? Each title contains two discs sold for the price of one. Aside from the usual miscellaneous collections (Baroque Favorites, French Favorites, Trumpet Concertos, etc), the folks at Universal have adopted the “composer’s greatest hits” approach. The extra disc permits the inclusion of complete works as well as extracts, with titles chosen across genres (orchestral, chamber, songs, solo instrumental, choral). Generic packaging — all of the covers look pretty much the same — a booklet with a few perfunctory paragraphs in several languages, and an historical timeline complete the picture. There are no texts and translations for music with words, no information about the performers, and no extensive discussions of the individual works.
Who is this for, anyway?
In its repertoire selection, Panorama seeks to answer the musical question: How many times can Universal sell the same performances to the same people? Virtually all of the individual works have been issued (and reissued) on CD before, and in many cases remain available on other Universal imprints, principally DG Originals and Galleria, Decca Legends, Philips Duos, Mercury Living Presence, and Great Pianists. Serious record collectors already own them, and even if they don’t the number of people willing to shell out $18 to buy the single hitherto unissued or hard to find item (such as Maazel’s Prokofiev Fifth Symphony or Abbado’s Boston Symphony Debussy Nocturnes), is bound to be small, particularly when it comes packaged with commonly available material and randomly chosen excerpts. It therefore follows that Panorama must be aimed at that elusive creature, the Holy Grail of classical music marketing, the “beginner.”
Actually, that historical timeline gives the series away. It’s axiomatic in classical music marketing that beginners need “background” information rather than an intelligent discussion of the music itself. How this incredibly stupid theory gained currency, God only knows. Harsh words? Look at it this way. Let’s say I tell you (as the Berlioz timeline does) that in 1821 Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon published his “Du système industriel,” in 1857 Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary, and in 1867 Paris finally got its pneumatic mail system, and then I give you two discs of Berlioz and say: “Doesn’t this help?” How many “beginners” have read Saint-Simon, or Madame Bovary, or care about pneumatic mail delivery? Is it reasonable to expect that they should? In fact, the only thing these “helpful” aids accomplish is the further intimidation of normal people about their lack of education in historical trivia and the non-musical arts. Oh yes, and they also conveniently divert attention from the only thing that matters: the music itself. Of course, this foolishness is only to be expected when the individuals responsible for the design of the series know less about its contents than the people whom they expect to purchase it. If this isn’t a classic(al) case of the blind leading the blind, then what is?
What, in any case, do “beginners” want? That’s easy. They want specific performances of specific works. They want great recordings, beautifully packaged and presented, just like the rest of us. Anyone who has worked in retail can tell you that with few exceptions, the only reason that a non-enthusiast wanders into the classical music section of the store will be because they heard something on the radio, on television, at the movies, online, or read a review in a local newspaper or magazine. And they want EXACTLY what they heard or read about — not another performance by different artists, and certainly not a mish-mash collection of arbitrarily chosen complete works and excerpts. To this extent, most “greatest hits” compilations fail to answer this most basic need, though the traditional all-excerpt titles do have their own special market niche, more often than not outside a store’s classical music section or in “special sales” locations like supermarkets and specialty shops — precisely where you won’t find Panorama. To summarize: anyone who hears, say, Ashkenazy’s Rachmaninov Second Symphony and wants a recording of the piece will always choose Ashkenazy’s if available, and not Maazel’s, irrespective of price and couplings.
And there’s another thing we know about beginners. They need more information about the actual music, and not less. Particularly galling in this respect is Panorama’s total absence of texts and translations. What kind of idiocy is it that takes over an hour of Mussorgsky songs and opera excerpts, huge chunks of Wagner’s Ring, Puccini and Rossini opera highlights, Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and vocal excerpts from The Damnation of Faust, and presents them without a single reference to what all the screaming is about? What makes matters even worse is that the geniuses that put this series together have actually chosen vocal works where none were necessary. For example, the Rachmaninov discs include his choral symphony “The Bells.” Why not choose instead some solo piano music (not a note of which appears in this purported “panorama”) or, failing that, the Symphonic Dances? Similarly, the Prokofiev collection includes a single gratuitous vocal excerpt from Alexander Nevsky. To what purpose? Would this disc be somehow less “panoramic” had it included instead a popular chamber work such as the Overture on Jewish Themes?
Muddle and Contradiction
It’s transparently obvious that Panorama follows the entrenched policy that budget or reissue product must skimp as much as possible on quality of presentation. The fact that this directly conflicts with the series’ purpose and defeats its attempts to serve its target market only highlights the corporate confusion endemic at the major labels. Beginners need help, yes, but not in ways the major labels would have you believe. They need to see that manufacturers stand behind their products, promoting them consistently and vigorously. They need to learn who the labels are, which artists they record, and if the catalog is repertoire rather than artist driven. They need guidance making choices, catalog stability over time to act on those choices, and a reason to pursue their listening experience beyond an initial purchase. Knowing comparatively little about the music itself, superior packaging and presentation assures novices that they are buying the highest quality product, and not some collection of generic junk. There’s no mystery about any of this, and the abject failure of the major labels to address these basic needs points, not to the difficulty of marketing and selling classical music, but to a corporate culture that actively discourages anything like a coherent, systematic, serious attempt. It’s much easier to simply churn the catalog and reissue the same old stuff, thereby avoiding the real marketing questions altogether.
Panorama raises another, even more problematic issue, the understanding of which requires a little historical perspective. For years one of the underlying theories behind those “greatest hits” collections of excerpts was that they served as introductory samplers, leading beginners to purchase at least some of the complete works represented. Today’s classical music marketing experts will tell you that there’s little credible evidence that this theory holds true. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,” right? Wrong, or rather, this truism misstates what has actually happened. In reality, the labels themselves are so screwed up in catalog management that half the time the titles on the “greatest hits” CD aren’t even in print should the beginner want to buy them. Add to this the fact that there has never, EVER been any marketing money spent in helping purchasers to “follow up” by promoting the so-called “deep catalog,” and it’s clear why the promise remains unfulfilled. What’s the point of leading the horse to water if you’ve dried up or diverted the stream before the thirsty animal arrives? Yet this is exactly what the major labels are doing today. Is it any surprise that consumer frustration and declining sales inevitably result?
Rather than seeing this absurdity for what it is and learning how to effectively promote and sell their current catalogs, another trend has emerged. A few years ago RCA issued something ominously called “The Only Classical CD You Will Ever Need,” or words to that effect. The existence of this particularly appalling admission of complete marketing defeat begs the question of what the other thousands of titles in their catalog are for. Panorama runs the risk of accomplishing much the same thing as that RCA abomination, only on a composer-by-composer basis. The series seems to say, “Why buy anything else by this composer if we can give you a representative overview?” Why indeed.
Rather than leading the listener to the large and varied Universal catalog, Panorama undermines every other reissue series and much of the full price line as well, all of which are better packaged and annotated, and certainly more appropriate for beginners. How ironic, then, that the comparative failure of Panorama (which seems a near certainty given its faulty underlying premises and their confused, self-contradictory realization) might actually be in Universal’s long-term best interest! Indeed, if Universal had taken the money invested in Panorama and instead used it to promote their numerous existing reissue and full price lines containing exactly the same performances, they would find their dollars much better spent. As it is, perhaps they should rename their reissue department simply “exploitation,” and leave it at that.
David Hurwitz
