Beethoven and the 21st Century: Download Sales.

I came across an article on the net relating to the internet download sales of Beethoven's music which were recorded after the BBC played all of his complete symphonies during Beethoven week in June. The final figures realised by the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies were downloaded from the website 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times. After coming across this article I started to become interested in the ways in which Beethoven formed a direct relationship between his audience and the music he composed. This maybe an interesting area to research and develop ? When studying the statistics it is clear that Beethoven's music still remains popular indicating that his music has become a set of timeless masterpieces which still connect and communicate to different people in different ways. It would be interesting to investigate these stats further by collecting some primary research maybe through eithar a questionnaire or a set of interviews, It might even require finding out whether poeple still recognise his music when it is played to them and then filming thier answers or reactions, All I know is that it requires going out and interacting with the public......Im not sure quite how Im going to develop this just yet.

Here are the stats based on Beethoven's download sales.....Im suprised to find the Eroica (Symphony No 3) is in at No 8 considering this was one of his most recognisable work's, Its wasn't all that popular at the time of it's premiere but deos these stats prove that it seems to remain that way even today? :

Symphony No 7

185,718

Symphony No 1

164,662

Symphony No 9 (Choral)

157,822

Symphony No 2

154,496

Symphony No 8

148,553

Symphony No 5

139,905

Symphony No 4

108,958

Symphony No 3 (Eroica)

89,318

Total

1,369,893