A Digital Symphony

There are quite a number of music publishers / labels which publish classical music for download, some small and some very large. In addition there are a number of download stores with a focus on classical music. This article considers how the downloads provide for the needs of the classical music lover. There are three main requirements here:

1. A variety of available formats. MP3 is commonly available, but if you want full CD quality (plus flexibility of tagging) then FLAC is much better. Audiophiles with superlative hearing may want even higher quality formats (e.g 24 bit FLAC).
2. The full sleevenotes automatically included as a high quality pdf.
3. All the relevant information stored in tags in a consistent structured manner.

The table below considers various publishers/labels/download stores. Most provide the opportunity to listen to music samples. Some publishers operate music download stores which carry other labels (e.g. Chandos with The Classical Shop and Naxos with Classics Online). Albums may be available at multiple sites, therefore, at different prices and in different formats sometimes. As the author is based in the UK, that influences the list below. Note that stores which do not publish downloads in FLAC are not listed below (see http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2012/jun/14/digital-music-flac-sources for further commentary on this - bottom line is that, if it seems too cheap to be true, then it is). For another view, see http://carstenknoch.com/2012/02/where-to-buy-classical-music-downloads-updated/ .