Greg Stepanich

NY, LA orchestras set for downloads

A couple breaking-news things today from the world of technology (fitting, as I'm writing this off a wireless connection at an Offerdahl's).

According to this story from Reuters, Universal Classics is teaming up with the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics to offer four digital-only albums (and possibly one standard album) from their seasons of concerts. You should be able to get the Deutsche Grammophon releases starting next week through iTunes for $10, the story says.

The New York Phil bows first, releasing a recording of the three great 1788 symphonies (39-41) by Mozart on Tuesday. The LA Phil concerts (from its Minimalist Jukebox series) are being recorded even as I write (music by Reich, Pärt, Andriessen, Monk and Torke are on the programs), and will be turned around by Friday for download.

Here's a perfect example of the kind of thing that will keep classical music in the pink for many, many years to come. With this kind of distribution, and the total avoidance of the old genteel-culture trappings non-initiates think would be necessary to take it in at the concert hall, there's nothing to keep the listener from the music except — well, nothing, really, except choice. And I think there will be much more willingness to exercise a different choice (especially if individual movements are available) than there would be as things stand now.

I also like that Universal has recognized that there are many great concerts being done routinely by our orchestras that don't get put down in permanent fashion for everyone to enjoy. That this means that most people were missing a large part of the musical culture of our country was the original inspiration for NPR's successful Performance Today series. Now digital downloads will make all this music available, and this is wonderful news.

Also from the music and tech beat: Bloomberg News reports that the American Composers Orchestra is trying to raise money for its programs by offering original classical ringtones written expressly for cellphones by people such as Philip Glass and Danny Elfman. The ringtones will be sold at auction beginning April 10, according to the story.

The ringtones will be 20 to 30 seconds long, which means they fall into the fascinating and growing category of Writing Small. Not altogether modestly, I'll take that cue to point out that I've been writing very tiny works for the Post's Top Story Rewind podcasts, and it has been a good thing for my composing chops to have to write for an extremely limited time frame and small instrumental resources.

But what I've found is that if you approach it the right way, a 20-second piece can contain a lot of music. I don't know that a ringtone would be as satisfying because of the generally metallic sound you get, but if you write a catchy enough tune, it could work beautifully.

The ringtone compositions are a good idea, too, though it's too bad that the ACO is offering them as something of a premium; you have to make a winning bid to get the special tone written just for you. It might behoove them to sell other ringtones at their site and hope that bunches of folks download them (it's been my experience that people change their ringtones a good bit, so it can't hurt to have more rather than fewer).

Maybe some of the composers will write more than one ringtone, and those could be widely disseminated. It could work. Anything to get the word out, as I like to say.