Juon Rhapsodic Symphony

[adriano]

I agree with you Ilja!
Naxos-Marco Polo are considering since quite some time to switch over one day to downloads only. The full Marco Polo catalogue has already been affected...
If the labels want to continue producing only for online markets, well, why not, but they would save just a little money, since disc and booklet maufacturing is the smallest part of a CD budget.
But I suppose the online market will also be less productive (or more selective), since we have already now a (terrific!) saturation of titles, even as far as unsung music is concerned. We already see that some serious labels like Chandos and cpo are increasing their collaboration with Broadcast stations, since it will be more and more impossible to produce operas and symphonic music purely in a studio.
Many music lovers do not want to have more that 1-3 versions of the same work in their collections. Having all of Karajan's Beethoven, 13 different Sibelius and over 30 Brahms cycles in my collection, this is simply perverse, but I cannot do otherwise. I have learnt more this way than in music schools.
And we collectors always liked holding in our hands a recording with a nice cover design! The physical experience of having a beloved LP lying around on a table or againt a wall cannot be forgotten. CD still achieved to work a bit similarly, faute de mieux.

[Ilja]

If the labels want to continue producing only for online markets, well, why not, but they would save just a little money, since disc and booklet maufacturing is the smallest part of a CD budget.

In one sense that is true; the booklet and case account for between 2 and 3 euros per CD in a case I'm familiar with. There are other factors to consider, however. Keeping stocks and distribution, for instance, takes a lot of time and money. And eliminating the printing and distribution processes makes production far less time-consuming.


The downside is that removal of a physical carrier also gets rid of a tactile factor. And while I have no love at all for the CD as an object, I love playing LPs (even if you have to turn the thing halfway through a Mahler movement). I approach the situation like I do e-books and paper books: disposable literature I buy as an e-book, but things I treasure I get in beautiful hardbacks.