1.37 million Beethovens and counting

Via ArtsJournal, a good piece by Marc Shulgold on classical downloading. Shulgold writes: "Naturally, we're not talking huge volume here: According to [Naxos's Mark] Berry, classical downloads account for only about 6 percent of the total of all music downloaded on the Internet." But note: classical music has had 3 percent of the CD market in recent years. So it's twice as popular on the Internet, and growing. The death of the death of classical music continues. By the way, Naxos's $19.95 offer — which gives you Internet access to their entire catalogue for a year — is quite a deal. I signed up when I needed to listen to Bruckner's Fourth in San Francisco, and ended up spending an utterly smashing day with Bax.