Hi guys - first, to answer a question Rok posed: "If the LP is not released, how does the artist get paid or make money?" Answer: the artists are paid for their work in the recording sessions themselves - in fact, this is the biggest single payment they receive, unless the album does incredibly well and they end up making a fair amount of royalties over many years. Most albums don't sell that much, though, and the royalties do not usually add up to what the original payment for the recording sessions were. Only the very biggest artists make a significant amount of money in royalties - also the studio musicians who do most of the movies in LA and London. Also guys that play for TV and radio commercials that end up getting used over and over again for years and years do very well if they are lucky enough to have done one of those (for instance, think of those Motel 6 radio ads that may have the voice-over changed up, but it is that same music that they originally recorded and gets re-used in otherwise new commercials - those guys that did that session still make very good money in re-use payments, but that is unusual nowadays). For orchestral musicians, the upfront payment we get for the session itself is much bigger than anything we ever get afterwards in the way of royalties, if there even are any. It also depends, for us, on the type of recording and the agreement it is recorded under. Many orchestras now self-produce their recordings, and they have a limited, local release, which makes it cheaper for them.
The Academy of Early Music Berlin is one of the finer early music ensembles going right now, and that is a very nice performance. The very best early music groups are still in England, though, which is sort of where that whole movement got started. There are some good ones here in the states, too. To answer Frogman's question on my opinion of the natural horn playing - I think those guys are pretty good, though there is definitely better around the world, both here and in England. The best performance of the Water Music on natural horns that I know of is John Eliot Gardiner's group (The English Baroque Soloists) - those guys that play for him are really great. That is something I have always had an interest in doing but have never pulled the trigger on - I don't own a natural horn. I really should, as there is a need for it where I am - I could easily get enough work with it to justify the purchase and learning the technique. Part of it is that I am a low horn player, and much of the solo natural horn work would be high, quite a bit different from what I normally do. I have always wanted to find a good high horn player to do it with me as a pair, so it would suit me better, but that hasn't happened yet.