It’s official: downloads of classical music are growing faster than any other music genre. Warner Classics has become the first big record label to launch an online store on its own website (from April 10). DG and Decca have just announced a new initiative in which concerts from the likes of the New York Philharmonic will be converted to downloads within a matter of weeks.

Are we classical fans happy? Well, you see, we’re a demanding lot. So here’s a manifesto for the record companies to mull over as they drag Debussy and Dvorák into the digital age.

1. We want a dedicated classical music store for downloads.

None of the present online stores is comprehensive. Just try searching for the ten discs that won the 2006 BBC Music Magazine Awards. iTunes stocks four out of the ten titles. This is partly because iTunes is struggling to keep up with releases from record companies — EMI says Apple is “sorting ingestion” of its catalogue, which first went on site in February and will be fully available “in due course”. emusic has just one, while classical.com, which claims to be the largest online classical collection in the world, had none of the discs.

2. We want this store to be organised in a simple, logical way, so that you can search classical music by composer, or artist or work.

Browse on iTunes for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and you won’t find it under Beethoven, the composer. It’s under the “album” Beethoven Symphony No 9. Thankfully, Sony BMG has come to our aid: it’s been working with iTunes to develop a model of data presentation that works for classical music.

3. We want an intelligent MP3 player that doesn’t think Vivaldi is the artist.

Why spend hours retyping the information from a downloaded music file’s “tags” (the text strings that contain the album name or performer) to make it relevant to a classical work? James Jolly, editor-in-chief of Gramophone, suggests that you establish a strict house style when you first get your iPod and organise the information to fit into the small screen. But why should we have to do that ourselves?

4. We want pieces to be wrapped as whole works, not as individual movements.

It doesn’t make sense to break down a sonata into individual tracks. Not many people will want to dip in and grab just a slow movement.

5. We want the same sort of booklet notes as a CD buyer gets, or a link to a site that can provide extra information.

The big sites could learn from the Onyx website, which offers everything a CD buyer would get.

6. We want to be able to download the best possible quality, not compressed and compromised.

Some quality is sacrificed when the amount of digital information has to be reduced as files are compressed for quicker downloading. But Chris Craker, head of classics at Sony, doesn’t believe the average listener minds the difference in quality. “We’ve done research with consumers, and they’re more than happy with the quality of music on iTunes.”

7. We want to know that if our computer crashes, we won’t have to pay for the work again.

Ditto when we upgrade our computers — I’m not planning to spend another month uploading my complete Wagner.

8. We want record companies to make items deleted from their catalogue available alongside the current catalogue.

9. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to download music from Radio 3?

The BBC says there are plans for podcasts, but they will be “music around learning”.

10. We like the shuffle function on the iPod, but only for pop tracks.

I don’t want to hear the cheerful thrashing of the White Stripes’s My Doorbell followed by 15 seconds of Handel recitative. It ruins my exercise routine.

AMANDA HOLLOWAY

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