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....Although the numbers are obviously skewed due to the number of CDs in the set, it's nonetheless reassuring that classical music can still do well in today's marketplace.
I'm all for this doing well, but want to reiterate what Scotty said above. Assuming they really are counting every individual CD in the set (there are 200), then 6,250 sets have sold in the past five weeks.
"Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition has shifted 1.25 million total CDs in the five weeks since its Oct. 28 release, according to Universal Music Group. The collection is formidable in every sense. It comprises a whopping 200 CDs, presenting every work by the classical great...."
So this is one of this headlines that obscures rather than clarifies the story. But it certainly does show that there is a healthy niche market for these massive Classical sets, which have been coming out for years now, which itself was proof that it works.
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One might suspect this of being aimed at music faculties where a one-off set of references is needed. Many of these CDs will not be heard.
Great for the true music lover, but for the OCD collector, the perverse pleasure of collecting is removed.
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Good point about music faculties. But Arkiv Music promotes these complete sets to individual consumers frequently, including weekend sales (I get all their email communications).
Though I should note that many times the complete sets are of an artist's complete recordings on a label. Here's a representative sampling.
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/listPage.jsp?list_id=4664&page_size=100
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Following up on Scotty Boy's post comparing the Classical sales niche to the score sales niche, I thought it would be interesting to find a couple of articles about Classical sales. The most recent I can find are from 2014.
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/05/14/business/classical-music-sales-enter-survival-mode
"Classical music sales have been struggling for years now. They make up just 1.4 percent of music consumption, compared to 29 percent for rock, according to a Nielsen survey last year."
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/classical_music_sales_decline_is_classical_on_death_s_door.html
"In 2013, total classical album sales actually rose by 5 percent, according to Nielsen. But that's hardly a robust recovery from the 21 percent decline the previous year. And consider the relative standing of classical music. Just 2.8 percent of albums sold in 2013 were categorized as classical. By comparison, rock took 35 percent; R&B 18 percent; soundtracks 4 percent. Only jazz, at 2.3 percent, is more incidental to the business of American music."
You'll notice this says "soundtracks 4 percent" - but we need to keep in mind that doesn't count the kind of score that we mostly focus on around these parts, especially not older scores or collections. Big song albums and almost exclusively new movies is what that's about.
I just point these out to show that even Classical is a very small niche, whereas the archival score community niche is maybe a couple of magnitudes smaller. That's just the way it is.
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