Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. The thing is there's nothing unique about string quartets or orchestras. Prior to the availability of recorded music, you couldn't listen to music without musicians, and for something complex like a symphony or an opera that meant you had to go buy a seat.
But nowadays there are lots of orchestras, whereas the number of consumers who can tell the difference between a good performance and an outstanding performance is pretty low. This has been good for orchestras in places like Eastern Europe, who in recent years have made money by playing music for sample libraries, movies and videogames for much less money than it would cost to book a similarly skilled orchestra in the USA.
On the other hand, as the number of recordings increase, consumers have less and less need for new ones. In terms of pure sound quality recording techniques have largely ceased to improve - the fidelity modern recording gear far exceeds the resolving power of the human ear, so if you go out and buy a great surround recording of a Beethoven symphony, that's pretty much as good as it gets, technically. You won't get a better recording in 5 years; you can only hope for a better performance.
But very few consumers care so much that that they want to accumulate multiple different recordings of the same music, deriving pleasure for the individual interpretations of different conductors and orchestras. Most of them will either buy 'all the classic hits you'll ever need' (performed by some hack orchestra, but hey, it's 99 tunes in a box), or else go for what most people agree is the best (Pavarotti singing Pagliacci or whatever).
And the supply of new orchestral tunes, and the audience for them, is very small...film soundtracks are probably the main source of orchestral raw material, and the payments for that are generally a fixed fee.
One issue I do have with the Baumol thesis is that saying that wages of musicians have risen is sort of meaningless, because so have prices for other things. It's unclear to me whether the purchasing power of musicians has risen relative to the cost of goods and services, or whether it has merely kept pace with inflation...but I blame the summary nature of Wikipedia for that.
Elite string quartets like the Emerson or Takacs earn far more than the average string quartet. Perhaps the market for their music is small compared to that of pop artists but you can't argue that they're interchangeable.
But nowadays there are lots of orchestras, whereas the number of consumers who can tell the difference between a good performance and an outstanding performance is pretty low. This has been good for orchestras in places like Eastern Europe, who in recent years have made money by playing music for sample libraries, movies and videogames for much less money than it would cost to book a similarly skilled orchestra in the USA.
On the other hand, as the number of recordings increase, consumers have less and less need for new ones. In terms of pure sound quality recording techniques have largely ceased to improve - the fidelity modern recording gear far exceeds the resolving power of the human ear, so if you go out and buy a great surround recording of a Beethoven symphony, that's pretty much as good as it gets, technically. You won't get a better recording in 5 years; you can only hope for a better performance.
But very few consumers care so much that that they want to accumulate multiple different recordings of the same music, deriving pleasure for the individual interpretations of different conductors and orchestras. Most of them will either buy 'all the classic hits you'll ever need' (performed by some hack orchestra, but hey, it's 99 tunes in a box), or else go for what most people agree is the best (Pavarotti singing Pagliacci or whatever).
And the supply of new orchestral tunes, and the audience for them, is very small...film soundtracks are probably the main source of orchestral raw material, and the payments for that are generally a fixed fee.
One issue I do have with the Baumol thesis is that saying that wages of musicians have risen is sort of meaningless, because so have prices for other things. It's unclear to me whether the purchasing power of musicians has risen relative to the cost of goods and services, or whether it has merely kept pace with inflation...but I blame the summary nature of Wikipedia for that.