> American economists William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as

> American economists William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century—in other words, the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. However, the real wages of musicians have increased substantially since the 19th century. This raises the question of what counts as productivity, and by what metrics is it measured. Yes, the number of required performers for a given symphony is static, but that symphony is now able to reach far more people, be it in real-time (via live broadcast, and via larger auditorims (auditoria?) with capacity for more people) or after-the-fact (via recordings). Quality is also a consideration here: better instruments, better acoustic design in the venues, better recording equipment, better playback equipment, better storage media (allowing better lossless recording quality), possibly even better performers. In short: attempting to measure the productivity of an artistic endeavor is unlikely to result in anything coherent.