On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog

From the Financial Times via You’ve Cott Mail, more good stuff from our European friends:

The latest, and perhaps most ambitious, innovation in the world of
classical music is that of the digital concert hall. Last year
MonteVerdi.tv established a virtual forum for enthusiasts and
musicologists, offering downloads and a live monthly broadcast, but the
most comprehensive project so far was launched by the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra this January with sponsorship from Deutsche
Bank. Under the tagline “Any Place, Any Time” their website offers live
concert streaming for €9.90 per performance, or a season ticket and
unlimited archive access for €89. So far the project has proved popular
– around 2,500 people tuned into the first concert and more than 10,000
have now registered – but the jury is still out as to whether it marks
the further democratisation of classical music or an added threat to
its future.

The Berlin Philharmonic already had quite a reputation for trailblazing
– in 1980 it became the first orchestra to produce a classical CD,
under conductor Herbert von Karajan – and its current artistic director
and chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, is a technophile. But as Rattle
himself explained in a recent press release, the aim was not simply to
pioneer a new concert-going experience but also vastly to increase the
public’s access to the orchestra, and to music in general: “We’ve been
thinking over these last years: how will people want to receive art in
their own houses? And we more and more thought that it was people just
expecting [it] to be there – like water.”

…Furthermore, there are no rustles and snuffles from neighbours, and
there’s no need to dress up (in fact, there’s a subversive pleasure to
be had from attending a concert in your pyjamas). In short, you can be
thoroughly anti-social, and therein lies the problem: will people still
support their local symphony orchestra if they can watch the Berlin
Philharmonic in their own sitting-room?

Click here to check out the digital concert hall. The site includes a stream test where users can check to make sure they are satisfied with the video and audio quality before buying a ticket.