Commentary: Classical streaming has arrived. How do the new services stack up?
The history of classical music is that of progress, be it advancements in harmony and form, the invention and development of instruments, or the technological innovations of recording and broadcasting.
The first bankroll-able recording stars were classical artists such as the operatic tenor Enrico Caruso. The LP came about because symphonies, sonatas and operas required dozens of 78-rpm discs. The Walkman was the brain child of a Sony executive who wanted a private way to drown out his kids' pop music and listen to chamber music in peace. The CD digital sampling rate was selected so that a specific Herbert von Karajan Berlin Philharmonic recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony could fit on a 4.72-inch disc.
But that leadership came to an end with the iPod and iTunes, with mp3 digital downloads and the streaming that was to follow. For primarily commercial reasons, technological transformation was no longer democratically genre-neutral. The download/streaming infrastructure was conceived specifically to accommodate the pop
