Classical Music in the Digital Era

By Guillermo Marshall

2019

The consumption of recorded music has experienced profound changes in the last two decades. The introduction of the iPod, the massification of smartphones and today's broad access to high-speed Internet are mainly responsible for these changes. The figures are overwhelming, the CD album sales in the US have dropped 90% since 2000.

The number of downloads of music has also decreased, reaching its peak in 2012. Since then, subscriptions to music streaming services have increased with extraordinary speed. Although classical music represents only 1% of the entire industry, it is especially relevant for its artistic value and legacy. Therefore it is interesting to analyze how these new music formats have affected consumption and preferences in a very short period of time.

On the ArkivMusic.com website, connoisseurs of classical music can find a rich source of information, specifically on album titles, composers, orchestra conductors and performers. The site contains virtually all discs for sale in CD, DVD or other formats of all the record labels dedicated to this genre. The website includes a list of 102 popular composers that coincide largely with the names that connoisseurs would include as the most important in the history of Western classical music. This list has practically not changed in the last ten years. The website also provides the number of albums and available records of these composers. As many might suspect, the three composers with the largest collections are Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, followed at a certain distance by Schubert and Brahms.

During the last ten years, I have analyzed the evolution of these collections and of each of the composers. What has been interesting is to observe important and systematic changes that show that the digitalization of music has had a strong impact on the industry. Surely, we can assume that the collection of available albums that each composer holds, reflects their importance, influence, popularity and their demand in the world of music and in the audience.

Although we are not referring specifically to sales data, one can infer that the available collection of records, the supply, is directly related to the preferences of the public, the demand.

First, let's review the figures. In 2008, these composers combined had a collection of 98,411 records available for sale. The number rose to 110,492 in 2010 and to 121,052 in 2012. This represented an increase of 23% in these four years. This dynamic growth of 6% per year later slowed down and by 2018 the number of available albums for sale fell to 113,868, which represented a decrease of 6% during the following six years.

Secondly, it is interesting to analyze what happened with the three most important composers in history. In 2008, the list was led by Mozart with 6,276 albums, followed by Bach with 5,492 and Beethoven with 4,726. After ten years, the list was headed by Bach with 6,910 albums, followed by Mozart 6,438 and Beethoven with 5,360. During this period, Bach increased the number of albums for sale by 26%, followed by Beethoven (13%) and Mozart (3%).

Although the record collection of these composers increased by 16% during this period, there is one group of composers whose collection of albums decreased by 12%. We are talking about composers whose main works are in the genre of opera. For example, Verdi fell by 13%, Wagner by 5%, Puccini by 13%, Rossini by 6%, Donizetti by 16%, Gounod by 15%, Massenet by 12%, Bellini by 16%, Leoncavallo by 24%, Mascagni by 20%, Offenbach 9% and Delibes 8%. So, while the rest of the composers raised their collection by 20%, those of opera decreased by 12%. In fact, only three other composers on this list of 102, fell during these ten years.

In contrast to what was mentioned above, the 25 composers of the modern and contemporary era who are included in the list and who lived through the first half of the 20th century (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Copland, Bernstein, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Rodrigo, among others), experienced a 35% growth of their albums during the last ten years, but only 4% since 2012. Arvo Pärt stands out among them. His collection grew by 76% during that decade and of 35% in the last six years. In fact, this was the highest growth among all the composers.

In conclusion, the Digital Era and especially streaming services have slowed down the growth of the production of albums in the last years. Today, Bach is the most heard composer among the three largest in history and the popularity of Mozart stagnated. On the other hand, opera composers are the most affected by this revolution, which does not seem to go hand in hand with the increase of audiences in today's opera houses. The good news is that modern and contemporary composers have grown in popularity despite the decline of consumption of recorded classical music.