If you’re reading this blog, you’ve heard of iTunes and its competitors in the legal digital music industry, such as Amazon, eMusic, Deutsche Grammophon, etc. iTunes has switched from DRM (digital rights management), 128 kilobits per second MP3s to DRM-free 256 kbps AACs. Unfortunately the bump in quality and freedom from restrictions have come with a price: many pop tracks are now $1.29, rather than $0.99.

Being the hard-headed journalistic types, unswayed by rumour and hearsay, the intrepid editorial team at ClassicalWatch.com has investigated iTunes, and we are pleased to report that most classical tracks remain fixed at $0.99. Yes, even tracks with soulful artists in designer gowns and young men in tuxedoes. There are upsides to unpopularity.

Many Apple competitors also appear to have changed their pricing schemes. Due to laziness time constraints, the collection at other sites have not been assessed. If any readers would like to write in with their experiences with other sites, please let us know!

The last few concerts and gatherings I’ve attended have shaken my faith in the concert hall. Not that I was much of a believer to begin with.

First, the observations:

• Miserable, drab locations with poor acoustics and minimal creature comforts hurt most small-scale, ‘intimate’ venues. Anything on the street, or in a mall is drowned out by the pointless cacophony of the background traffic; anything in a poorly designed church deadens the sounds before it even arrives. 
• Many performers seem, well, like they could use some more rehearsal time before appearing on stage. This is particularly true in any chamber or orchestral music. Aligning various musical visions takes time. 
• Lack of specificity in the programmes detract from the performance. Going to a Mozart concert to hear Random Piece X is not nearly as exciting as going to a Mozart concert to heard the Jupiter Symphony. 
• Live performers make mistakes. Part of this ties in with the practice time.

This boils down to value for time and money. If I spend $80 and two hours of time — which can never be returned — on any artist, I would like to get my money’s worth.  The live music experience is a luxury in the day of high-fidelity speakers and high-quality recordings. I don’t wish to spend my resources on missed notes and sulky performers and dubious interpretations when I could just as well be home, enjoying definitive recordings from the masters of the last eighty years. 

Furthermore, classical music has lost much of its cultural and social relevance. In the day of the great composers, classical music was the dance music (of the middle and upper classes). Operas and major concerts served not only as entertainment, but also as social gathering points. Much of that has been lost in the modern classical music establishment in North America. Most attendees are older couples, perhaps with some children, and these units do not seem to socialize with each other. Somehow classical music is no longer a group phenomenon, but something disconnected and increasingly hard to justify in the present-day world.