CLASSICAL FRINGE

There’s nothing particularly “classical” about Canada’s Top Ten classical recordings bestseller list – Bocelli and Church and some crossover stuff. “So how many copies does a real classical album sell? On average, 300 in Canada. (And for reasons that remain obscure, 40-50% of those sales will be in the province of Quebec.) A few albums, of course, do much better than that – Heppner’s Great Tenor Arias has almost gone gold. But BMG’s 94-CD set of Rubinstein’s complete recordings sold only 30 copies in Canada – which is not entirely surprising given the price tag of $1,500. – National Post (Canada)