# Just saw this on Spotify. Brings me a lot of hope for the future of classical music.



## pasido (Apr 2, 2012)

23k subscribers to a classical music playlist. I know some are going to just listen to it as study music, but I'm confident that a LOT of people are going to hear that amazing Beethoven piece and get hungry for more.

To add icing on the cake, Spotify has a bunch of advertisements that talk about classical music (it may be my listening history, but I doubt it as I get other ads as well).

To add more icing on the cake, Deutsche Grammophon is lifting their limits on Spotify and a lot more of their albums are fully available. You can now listen to almost all of Pollini's recordings on Deutsche Grammophon! Before this, most of Maurizio Pollini's albums on spotify were grayed out.

Let's all say a prayer to the awesome team who made Spotify!


----------



## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

Does this mean that in the future the best way to listen to classical music will be on Spotify? I always thought that the best way to listen to classical music was live, by going to a concert, but maybe I am just getting old.....


----------



## eorrific (May 14, 2011)

Good. They're on the right track even though they listen to individual movements, at least they don't think Yanni and Kenny G are 'classical' artists.


----------



## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

pasido said:


> You can now listen to almost all of Pollini's recordings on Deutsche Grammophon!


I don't find this to be the case. His Late Piano Sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert--in my opinion, some of his greatest work--have many greyed out track, as does his famous Stravinsky/Boulez/Prokofiev/Webern recital, etc. Most of his Chopin _is _available, but I don't like Pollini's Chopin.


----------



## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

pasido said:


> 23k subscribers to a classical music playlist.


The most recent figure I can quickly find for Spotify subscribers is 2.5M as of November 2011 (source). So, that playlist accounts for 1% of the customer base. Whether you think that is hopeful is a matter of opinion, I suppose.

Sales of prerecorded classical music vary from country to country - in the US it is barely 2% of the market, France it is 9%, S Korea 18%! (source)

Conclusion: classical music on Spotify is at a lower percentage than is paid-for prerecorded music.


----------



## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> France it is 9%


Considering how many musical genres there are out there, I find almost every tenth sale to be fairly uplifting even for a Western European nation.


----------



## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

I have been looking around on such sites and when if it allows you to see what others listen to. The supposed "classical" listeners lots of them list classical music but have never listened to a single track of classical music via whatever service it is. I'm not saying you can't have a diverse taste in music most people including those who use this site do.

In fact I noticed how many people who actually did listen to classical music via whatever site listened to jazz, funk, blues etc. These are not areas I'm keen on but if I saw a jazz musician in their top plays there was a good chance they had listened to some classical music recently.

Contrast this with people who had for instance *Wagner* in their top artists but had no plays of Wagner or very few. The reason I bring this up is I got an message from someone who I think was just one of these people who value how many "friends" they have on said profile/page.

As to what *Jeremy* said I've read before that it was roughly 10% in *France*. Speaking as a *French* person I'm obviously bias but I had or do think that's it's because in *France* the idea of equality is different from *America's*. I get the feeling that in America people are told or at least it's implied that _classical_ music is for the wealthy elite. Where as in *France* (at least in theory) if they can have it we can have it. I don't think anyone here thinks like that but I think this is how it's portrayed in the media.

Classical music has always been by the few for the few though it always has been. 50, 100, 200 years ago popular culture was not classical music and I think it's wrong to think that "something has gone wrong" because most people don't listen to it. When they didn't before and most likely won't without someone pretty on the cover.


----------



## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

I think that's an interesting assessment on Americans and classical music, and it could be a major reason for all I know. But I always guessed that the seeming low percentage is attributed more to the diversity of entertainment markets in the US -- be it sports, movie genres and music.


----------



## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

IBMchicago said:


> I think that's an interesting assessment on Americans and classical music, and it could be a major reason for all I know. But I always guessed that the seeming low percentage is attributed more to the diversity of entertainment markets in the US -- be it sports, movie genres and music.


Although no doubt there is a lot of different entertainment in the U.S.. I don't think it has anymore or any less than anywhere else and if this was the case wouldn't other genres of music etc be less popular than elsewhere due to this?


----------

