On the whole, though not an out-and-out materialist, I quite like Things. And until now, I’ve been quite happy with a library of recorded music that consists of Things, mostly in the form of those little silver discs in their absurdly brittle plastic cases. But now these objects seem to be rather passé, at least as far as the youth-driven pop market is concerned.

The threat to their predominance as carriers began with the infamous rise of Napster, a natty piece of software that enabled users to exchange MP3 files. At first, the music companies cried foul, but then they saw that this file-swapping between teenagers could form the basis of securing the future of an industry in which sales figures were slumping. Apple came up with the concept of iTunes, an online music shop that seamlessly integrates into a media player and organiser; it still dominates this new market.

At the same time, Microsoft made huge improvements to its Media Player software, and now offers the MSN Music store. There are rivals springing up all the time. Universal Music is about to launch a free download service called SpiralFrog. All are trading on the sea change that broadband has effected on the internet industry. Downloading is fast, and sound quality has been transformed to a level where it is quite possible to achieve true high fidelity with relatively small file sizes.

This way of acquiring music is fine for the technologically savvy young, and it’s to that market that software- and hardware-makers are principally appealing. Indeed, the portal of the MSN shop seems, at first sight, to ignore classical music altogether. The initial menu options are pop, rock, indie/alt, rap/hip-hop and dance. A thousand years of rich cultural heritage are acknowledged only on clicking the option “All genres”. I expected middle-of-the-road offerings on the front page, but not so. Instead, I’m tempted by Marc Minkowski’s 1994 recording of Lully’s opera Phaëton, Harnoncourt’s ancient version of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea, even Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing Elliott Carter. Perhaps this clever software knows more about me than I have wittingly told it.

The search mechanism, however, is inadequate, with boxes for entering only artist and title. What matters most to classical buffs is the composer (apparently, he or she is included as part of the title). Inputting “Beethoven Symphony No 5” in the title box returns all available recordings of all Beethoven symphonies, which is tiresome. We need to be able to browse by composer. But I’m impressed that there is a bit of Xenakis to be had here.

The iTunes shop’s navigational aids are more classical-friendly, although, again, the genre is absent from the main list at the top of the page. This time, the search engine includes a space for composer, though it’s an irritating act of philistinism that every piece is called a “song”. I searched for Boulez conducting Boulez in Pli selon pli and scored an instant bull’s-eye, which is impressive: £5.49 for the lot. Once again, however, there is little room for serendipitous experiment. The browse feature includes performers and artists in the same list without telling the user which is which, though its subgenre category is quite useful.

Both sites need the services of a professional music librarian familiar with classical music’s myriad categories. Neither iTunes nor MSN Music allows one to seek out wind quintets from the 1860s, or music for percussion ensemble from 1972, for instance — and, frankly, they should.

More and more classical recording companies are joining the revolution by advertising availability through iTunes on their own websites. While it remains to be seen if Universal’s classical labels (Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Philips) will be part of the free SpiralFrog project — the youthful, even childish image of its prelaunch holding page suggests otherwise — there are signs that they are slowly coming round to the idea of downloads. Janine Jansen’s new Four Seasons on Decca is available via the company’s website on iTunes; new EMI Classics releases are available through iTunes, as is the entire LSO Live catalogue. And the independents are slowly going the same way. Gimell is promoting the sale of its latest release, Playing Elizabeth’s Tune, through iTunes. Chandos is part of a five-label setup at www.the classicalshop.net.

Avie, I know, is seriously considering adopting a downloading facility. Others, such as Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi, have been slower off the mark, limiting themselves to MP3 or Real audio- streaming excerpts, if that. But it seems to me that the tide, if slow-moving, is unstoppable; that, in the long run, those who love their Things will be convinced to adopt downloading and hard-disk storage as a new norm, as long as the sound quality is fine (it assuredly is), and as long as they get the equivalent of the all- important liner booklet, too (they don’t tend to, as yet). And, surveying the chaotic piles of CDs that surround me even as I write, I think that this may be a very good Thing indeed.

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