News

On September 26, Sirius Satellite Radio announced the availability of the $350 Stiletto 100, "the company's first live portable radio, featuring WIFI, Yahoo music purchasing software, and the ability to save music subscribers love for playback later."

After a series of unforeseen delays, for which we apologize, the CD of Robert Silverman's performance of Beethoven's monumental work for solo piano, the Diabelli Variations (Variations, STPH017-2), is available for purchase from our e-commerce">http://ssl.blueearth.net/primedia/home.php">e-commerce page today, Monday, October 2.

Telarc, Classic Records, AIX, Cisco Music, Elusive Disc, Reference Recordings, and M•A Recordings have all pulled out of CES 2007, citing new restrictions on sales of merchandise that they feel to be unacceptable. Chesky remains undecided. Music Direct, May Audio, and Acoustic Sounds will exhibit, but will not sell product. Only 5.1 Marketing and Sales is currently committed to selling music.

We all know the refrain. Classical music is losing its audience. With shorter attention spans, the ascent of the iPod, a penchant for music (and spoken word masquerading as music) in the background, and the submergence of audio by home theater, fewer and fewer people in the United States are being exposed to art music of the past and present.

Peter Zylberberg of Audio Excellence in Yorkville, Toronto sends along the following warning:

In a surprising move, the San Francisco Symphony has announced plans to release the next installment in its ongoing Mahler series, the beloved Symphony 5, in download format before issuing the recording on hybrid SACD/CD. The Fifth will first become available on iTunes on September 12, and in hard format three weeks later. Such an unprecedented release schedule, from one of the few symphony orchestras in the world to regularly record in the high-resolution SACD format, can be seen as part of a near-universal recognition among record labels of the importance of online sales.

Naxos, possibly the world's largest classical music label, has taken a leap into the virtual universe of digital downloading. In an unprecedented collaboration—including Naxos of America, the country's largest independent distributor of classical music; eMusic, the world's second-largest digital music service; and bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Borders—Naxos has introduced MPkey, an exclusive series of downloadable classical music collections. Available for purchase only at bricks-and-mortar retailers (and exclusively at Borders stores through December 1), MPkey enables consumers to painlessly download pre-selected Naxos collections of classical music.