redefined the classical market.
year - to make the first indisputably classic classical record.
More than a century later, the performances Caruso committed to disc in 1902 remain benchmarks. Luciano Pavarotti has called them themselves.
But for how much longer will this be true? A century on, fewer and fewer classical records are being made. Twenty years ago, the were turning out about 700 releases a year.
Today, just two are in the business. Production is down to about 100 new discs a year - "classical" at all - and falling. If some new Caruso were to arise, sounded.
Over the past decade or so, this once vibrant and profitable listeners - has been quietly sliding into oblivion. For all but a handful of stars, the days of the recording contract disappeared in the 1990s. The great companies have since merged, closed or abandoned classical altogether.
cultural critic Norman Lebrecht, who has made it his life's work to demystify the classical music business. In a new book, Maestros, classical recording industry. If that is true, what went wrong?
And what, in the broader sense, has been lost, for musicians and for music lovers? If there is to be no more classical recording in the digital age, how do classical music and its public adjust?
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 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 producing.
But, as Lebrecht recently argued, the "chain of available, who needs number 436? A byproduct of the glut was the very special to be better than Carlos Kleiber's 1974 disc, so why look further? Classical recording companies became an increasingly entertainment companies that had acquired them.
Because they generated small profits compared with pop, it is hardly surprising that the corporations lost their nerve, especially as the internet began to expand.
In retrospect, it was the Three Tenors' 1990 concert in Rome that marked the watershed. When the recording of that performance sold 14 million copies, the industry went aggressively in search of other marketable middle-of-the-road packages.
Classical was redefined as Charlotte Church, Vanessa-Mae and Andrea Bocelli. The result is the mainstream decline. A handful of favoured serious artists continue to be able to make studio records, Simon Rattle and Christian Thielemann among them.
In general, though, the days decline of classical music itself. The Russian pianist and in the mid-20th century. Remarks such as this bring yelps of indignation from modernists and specialists, yet such howls are not a counter-argument.
The second is the difficulty of restoring the ruptured interpretative tradition. Just as tenors measured themselves against Caruso and pianists against Artur Schnabel, so, World War I, conductors have had benchmarks, too. Until Nikisch, the art of interpretation was wholly subjective.
After Nikisch, it became more objective. Under Arturo Toscanini in the 1940s and Herbert von Karajan in the 1970s, hubris set in, in the form of the search for the "definitive" performance. But the process generated of the world.
The final problem is the technology. It is too easy to say the internet will fill the gap. There is no guarantee of this.
As Lebrecht points out, the quality both of performance and audio on the internet is still generally inferior. The iTunes bit rate is less than one-tenth that of a classical CD, while even high-tech downloads are below CD standard.
danger of nostalgia.
But only a fool would deny that change can bring loss as well as, perhaps, gain. The recorded era fostered music. The means of exchange for this beneficial and desirable process was the recording.
Now that means of exchange is disappearing. You would have to be very brave to argue that civilisation is the gainer, not the loser.
Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: the Secret Life and Lebrecht is published by Penguin.
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