Den klassiska musikens framtid ligger måhända, som med övrig industri, i outsourcande av produktionen till Kina. New York Times rapporterar:

China, with an estimated 30 million piano students and 10 million violin students, is on an opposite trajectory. Comprehensive tests to enter the top conservatories now attract nearly 200,000 students a year, compared with a few thousand annually in the 1980s, according to the Chinese Musicians Association.

The hardware side has also exploded. As of 2003, 87 factories made Western musical instruments. By last year the number had grown to 142, producing 370,000 pianos, one million violins and six million guitars. China dominates world production of all three.

The Communist Party, which three decades ago was trying to wipe out classical music, now deems it an essential component of the “advanced culture” it vows to create to make the country a true great power.

[Ett problem är dock att flera av de rekordmånga konserthus som de kosntmusiktokiga kommunisterna smällt upp är dåliga fuskbyggen - The government has a complex bordering on mania when it comes to building concert halls. Some are white elephants, constructed hastily with little attention to programming or economic viability. [...] There are other concerns. While government support for classical music is clearly strong, critics say China has misallocated hundreds of millions of dollars on elaborate concert halls. That money might have been better spent, they suggest, on music education and affordable performances.]

Och Guardian skriver om nedgången inom den klassiska skivindustrin, om nu det är något att sörja:

The only dispute about classical recording is whether it is dying or dead. The glut that by the end of the 20th century had generated at least 276 recordings of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, and more than 435 recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, has given way to a famine. Yes, EMI and the DG-Decca group continue to record, but at a reduced level, and for how much longer? Yes, the budget-price Naxos and a cluster of independent labels (and a few "own brands" such as the London Symphony Orchestra's LSO Live) are still producing. But, as Lebrecht recently argued in Prospect magazine, the "chain of interpretation" that was such an integral part of classical recording has now been ruptured.

What went wrong was partly the glut: with 435 versions available, who needs number 436?