Who Will Stand the Test of Time?

Well perhaps serious music will survive in Asia, but when an ensemble as world-class as the St. Paul Chamber Orch., located in perhaps the most sophisticated area between the coasts in the USA fails for lack of an audience, I am not inclined to think it will here.
Not to mention the Minnesota Orch., which is in top form under its present leader, has been on strike for 5 months
trying to maintain a 85-90 k avg. salary, which is not big money where a middle-class home is 350-450 K .

When the live music is gone,recorded music will go too.

Schubert, The subject of orchestras failing or in deep trouble has been discussed previously. I am not familiar with the situation in St. Paul. Is the failure due to lack of audience or scaled back donations from deep pocketed patrons? In any case it is sad that so many top notch orchestras are cutting salaries and full time positions to try to survive.

More food for thought:

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3985/full

Brownsfan, I agree; glaring omission, Britten.

I am an old man, the two worst things I have seen come into being in my long life time are TV and Rock "music".
The medium is indeed the message.

I am an optimist by nature, and while I don't consider myself an old man, I am getting there fast. I do agree, however, with part of your general sentiment (but, only part, damn it! :-) Life is full of ironies, no? I have heard it said more than once, and by credible thinkers at that, that the beginning of the end was, in fact, the very recording technology that we love so much.