After breaking the Decca-DOA story last week, Norman Lebrecht drives the final stake through the company's shriveled heart. And invokes righteous vengeance by the zombies of the great musicians of the past:
"The death of Decca may be inevitable in present economic circumstances
and it is certainly very sad. But, by covering up with
factoids, euphemisms and simulations of continuing life, the
bonus-seekers at Universal merely sustain the corporate make-believe
that brought Decca to its knees in the first place. Some
day Universal's head of classics and jazz will be called to account for
demolishing a sub-culture by a thousand cuts over a dozen years. Maybe
Georg Solti will come back to haunt the vandals from his Hungarian
resting-place. Or Pavarotti's ghost will rise to sit on them. He knows
where they live".