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Why the Baltic and Slavic countries not promoting their music? A Wonder.

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Author Topic: Why the Baltic and Slavic countries not promoting their music? A Wonder.  (Read 2507 times)
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Jolly Roger
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« on: November 24, 2013, 11:24:56 pm »

I believe the major issue here, from the point of view of Latvia and the other Baltic countries, is money. There is simply a reluctance to fund projects that will not generate as much profit as more mainstream repertoire will. Also, keep in mind that the worldwide economic crisis hit these countries much harder than Western Europe or the USA. While the situation wasn't quite as dire as Greece and the other countries that have been suffering under severe austerity measures, it wasn't a whole lot better, either. Arts and cultural organizations that were accustomed to government funding lost a substantial amount of their budgets.

However... as I've stated here before, another factor in the lack of releases of non-mainstream repertoire by national composers is simply a sense of embarrassment, or a feeling of inferiority. There is such a strong culture of looking to established masterpieces and "major" composers as a benchmark of musical quality, that they just can't quite believe that their own homegrown talent is quite up to that exalted standard, with the possible exception of Vasks and other composers who have been enthusiastically embraced by the West. I know from having talked to students at the national conservatory that they don't even study very much music by Latvian composers. Looking at Latvian Radio playlists in their archive, you'll note that Latvian composers are not as great a part of their programming as they were seven or eight years ago, and don't appear quite as often on concert broadcasts.

And.. the public in Latvia is not as interested in the classics as one might think. Certainly, a greater proportion of the population has more awareness and knowledge of "serious" music than in the USA, but there still seems to be an increasing tendency toward more popular fare.

Copyright issues, as mentioned by one poster in this thread, are likely not a major factor, though the issue of royalties gets back to the financial aspect. Also, I don't know if this is the case in every former Soviet republic, but I do know that in Latvia, the rights to recordings made in Latvia by Melodiya during the Soviet period have reverted to Latvian ownership. Certainly, some audio restoration and editing would be necessary in many instances, but it couldn't be that expensive to reissue some of these recordings on CD or MP3 downloads. But, no one seems to have the money or the inclination to take on such a project.

I'm sure the reasons are more varied and complex than the basic issues I've discussed here, but my experience tells me they are major factors, nonetheless.
Another issue is that Latvian classical music is not often featured in Western concerts and most concert attendees are fed the same old warhorses mixed with the latest
aspiring and well-connected composers. The Proms are a perfect example of this practice. Perhaps the Latvian orchestras need to go on more tours financed by some enterprising corporate sponsors..
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