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CHAPTER 5
THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC DIGITAL
CONCERT HALL: NEW STRATEGIES OF MUSIC
KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION
ÁLVARO G. DÍAZ RODRÍGUEZ,
UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE BAJA
CALIFORNIA
Today’s society is immersed in a system in which Information and
Communication Technology has been integrated to such an extent that it is
impossible to live, work, research and socialize. It is essential in all areas
of daily life and is part of a global process in which information flows
instantly and without geographic boundaries. It allows communication in
ways unimaginable just five years ago. Statistics of users world-wide show
how the Internet has transformed societies as well as the preferences of
users in their gregarious or isolated lives.
Cyberculture, understood as the link between man and machine, has
become a way of communication in everyday life creating new ties and
new rituals of coexistence. In turn, new forms of community integration
have been generated, in many cases virtual, thus creating a dichotomy
between ideological association and geographic division. It is no longer
necessary to physically meet in order to establish a relationship with
different types of folks.
The basic idea of this utopian world was the provision of information in
cyberspace and through intertextuality. However, it has also generated
diverse types of websurfers as well as new modes of transmission and
reception of information (active or passive) which in turn has given the
option of deciding which road to take within the virtual networks.
Art is not isolated from this process. Since its inception, cyberculture has
conceived and stimulated new audiences who can often recognize the
artistic objects and generate virtual not physical possession of them in a
fleeting space. The audience possesses the work in a virtual way by feeling
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the experience of being the co-creator through the interaction of an entity
that cannot be owned forever because it has an expiry date. All of this is a
result of the speed with which the virtual systems and platforms are
changing.
In the music environment, we have observed how this relationship with
cyberculture has reconceptualized the way of appropriating this artistic
discipline generating new types of knowledge that originate from the
actual experience of the listener. This is the case of the Digital Concert
Hall (DCH) of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra which was first
announced in 2009. It never ceases to amaze that the orchestra with the
greatest tradition, discipline and link to world technology would seek to
penetrate the world of cyberculture. But having delved deeply into the
history of the Philharmonic and its relationship with technology, this was a
natural and logical step that could not have been otherwise.
The Berlin Philharmonic has become a pioneer and a leader in
technological innovations. Although currently the real-time transmissions
of concerts are a common everyday occurrence, the Digital Concert Hall
was the first live transmission project with an unsurpassed quality in video
and audio. It has been an effective catalyst motivating other orchestras and
opera houses to explore cyberculture.
The DCH breaks the paradigms of the listener to create a unique
experience by modifying the conventional rituals of listening to music. Its
reproductions can now occur in any place with no geographic limits,
democratizing the process through the use of social media like Facebook,
YouTube, and Twitter, building a new approach to concert music.
The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra manages to create a virtual audience
that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Websurfers can listen to
concerts of the highest quality online or offline, receiving and reproducing
the music from any portable media with access at any time.
Accordingly it can be seen that cyberculture has had a potent influence on
the transformation of the aesthetic concept of music. This new concept,
likewise, leads the world of the Internet to recreate or even reinvent itself.
Dialogism is the resultant process between the media and the music. The
knowledge of this discipline arises within the context of the growth of
globalization, whose incidence and expansion is democratizing, which was
the goal of the first Internet users.
Digital Concert Hall: Public Virtual Platform
With the creation of its virtual platform, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
continues its efforts to create a new public and to maintain its image as
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leader in the development and innovation using new technology.
According to Herbert Von Karajan, the search for a massive audience
through television and recordings, and the link with the creation of the
media necessary for this end, was one of the wisest decisions of the time.
The arrival of Simon Rattle in 2002 as the Principal Conductor of the
Berlin Philharmonic meant a new scenario for the Berlin group which
entailed planning new possibilities for an audience immersed in the
twenty-first century. The initiative that arose within a number of ideas for
change was Zukunft@BPhil,1 which also began an educational program
for the entire population:
“Zukunft@BPhil should remind us that music in not a luxury but a
fundamental human need. Music should be a vital and essentials element in
the lives of all people,” said Rattle about the program (Berliner
Philharmoniker 2013). The musicians’ awareness of younger generation as
their future audience grew in the process.
Zukunft@BPhil also led to a more in-depth consideration of “new”
technologies. The idea was to use new media as distribution channels in
order to adapt to the consumption behavior of the new generation.2
Within these new possibilities, the Digital Concert Hall (DCH) emerged to
solve two problems that were noticed at this time. The first problem was
the substantial reduction of compact discs and recordings due to the arrival
of the digital formats and platforms which allowed music sharing. The
second was the search for a new market absorbed in social networks and
cyberspace.
In the first case, the creation of mp3 revolutionized the way of listening to
and distributing music and above all, the revenues stemming from the sale
of compact discs and LPs. The music industry would become imminent in
the digitalization of music. Its main enemy was piracy where anyone could
obtain any music by exchanging digital files. At the beginning of the 20th
century, this was a new challenge for the Berlin Philharmonic.3
The Berlin Philharmonic had to create new methods of distribution within
the market. Before the eminent collapse of discography, Robert
Zimmermann, Managing Director of Berlin Phil Media, was asked if the
main objective of the DCH was for the orchestra to reach farther than the
community of Berlin to which he responded:
Yes and no. Yes, we wanted to connect to our fan base because up until
2008, the orchestra did not have any contact to the fan base except for a
few thousand people who go to the hall every two weeks. … As an artist,
you were basically cut off. The [music] labels make the recordings of the
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concerts; you never get any feedback from any fan directly on what you’re
doing. So, yes, one aspect was outreach.
The other important aspect was that the distribution through labels and TV
broadcast were doomed to die. Television stations had less and less slots
for classical music. In the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, there were traditional slots on
television every Sunday afternoon. You had lots of Saturday-evening
classical music or opera or ballet.
The labels were not willing to record the classical orchestral repertoire.
They were gearing more and more towards soloist stars. The orchestra
became a kind of companion.
We had to find a way to compensate, and we decided that the space where
we were going to live was going to be the Internet.
That was the motivation for the orchestra. The revenues from TV and
physical CDs were just disappearing. That was an important part of a
musician’s income.4
The second case was the search for a new public immersed in the social
networks and cyberspace. It should be noted that from their two trips to
Asia, the members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra cautioned that
their success was more from the screens outside the concert hall than from
the live concerts. As was previously mentioned, the first concert took
place in Japan in 1957. The second was in Taipei, Taiwan in 2005 where,
upon exiting the concert hall, a crowd of more than 25,000 people treated
the members of the orchestra like true rock stars5. Olaf Maninger, cellist
and Media Director, observed the fact that there were listeners who
regularly remained outside the concert hall which prompted the idea of a
platform to reach them. Thus the proposal for a digital concert hall was
conceived on the basis of various market studies.
The project’s motivation are according to the main initiator, principal
cellist and member of the media board, Olaf Maninger, a reaction on the
decline of CD sale in the last couple of years, but also a reaction to the fact,
that many of the orchestra’s concerts in the Berlin concert hall are often
sold out and hence difficult to visit. So, in order to enhance the concert’s
accessibility the new web platform enables both the creation of new
audience communities and opens up for an approach to classical music that
you Could call more democratic and non-elitist. Moreover, with help of
this Project the orchestra is strengthening further it´s already strong brand
“Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra” and the important of the place
“Philharmonie”, since all live streaming exclusively happens at/from the
concert hall.6
An example of the importance of the Internet is the 2010 surveys that
show how adults spend their free time. For example, in England:
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The Internet is now the media space where people spend the most leisure
time (even longer than watching TV). The following are weekly averages
for estimated time spent, across the sample of 2,000:
• 25 hours: Online leisure time
• 12 hours: Watching TV (apart from sport and movies)
• 4 hours: Watching movies on TV
• 4 hours: Playing video games
• 3 hours Watching DVDs/Blu-rays
• 3 hours: Watching sport on TV
Additionally, the majority find the Internet ‘important’ (although the nature
and degree of this attachment varies across user types), as this quote from
qualitative research illustrates:
‘When I haven’t got the internet I just feel completely lost… it’s scary how
much you rely on it…’
18-24 year old.7
As mentioned previously, Olaf Maninger was able to develop the idea of
placing one of the most important orchestras in the world in a new,
rejuvenated panorama closely related to global trends, thereby
productively continuing in all areas with the projection of the
Philharmonic. In an interview with Das Orchester in 2011, Maninger
indicated what the origin of the Digital Concert Hall was:
The Digital Concert Hall is still a huge adventure, we have not yet
exhausted the full potential. The popularity of the audience, which has
been very positive from the outset, has increased considerably. The
technical prerequisites have also continued to develop in our favor
worldwide. The handling of Internet technology is becoming ever easier.
That comes very much to us. Because we want to appeal not only to
technicians, but also to all those interested in classical music who want to
visit our virtual concert hall without great hurdles. The artists with whom
we work together also support us sustainably. The enthusiasm of the start-
up phase has by no means faded.8
To live, work and take advantage of new technologies is, in short, a "great
adventure.” The unlimited possibilities offered by the Digital Concert Hall
are based on the immediateness of information that the digital platform for
concerts can provide. On the platform, live concerts can be seen from
almost any device that is connected to the network at any time and in any
place.
A significant part in the consolidation of this project was the identification
of the phases of technological evolution that the Berlin Philharmonic has
had since its origin. Throughout its development, the Philharmonic has
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observed the cyclical model of technological change formulated by
Thusman and Anderson in their 1990 article “Technological
discontinuities and dominant designs: A cyclical model of technological
change”, as cited by Brian Kavanagh. This article claims that after the
emergence of a technological discontinuity, there is a period of replacing
and positioning in the market until the dominant product is positioned and
repeats the schema:
In this schema a technological breakthrough instigates a period of intense
competition (ferment) where variations of the original design compete until
a 'dominant design' (a single architecture that establishes dominance in a
product class) emerges and the era of ferment begins to subside. Following
the emergence of a dominant design, order is restored to the technological
regime, and further improvements to the product class take the form of
incremental changes through relatively long periods of retention (learning
by doing) until the next discontinuity initiates a new cycle of variation,
selection, and retention.9
Faced with the positioning of the compact disc and its withdrawal from
music digitalization, the Berlin Philharmonic has been developing an
alternative to incorporate into its digital systems. In order to consolidate
itself as a dominant and innovative product in its time, the Berlin
Philharmonic has established and constructed a platform where the music
is digitized and reproduced live as well as recorded, allowing it to remain a
technological leader in its sector.
Kavanagh clearly points out that the public really does not want
to pay for a live broadcast, but for a concert experience using new
technologies.
The digital concert hall is a long-term project and any assessment must
consider a number of variables, not least the fact that the target audience
(classical music enthusiasts) represents a relatively small niche market in
the context of the larger music industry. Another consideration is the fact
that, in general, consumers do not feel they should pay for streamed online
content in an era when much online content is free. Lastly, there is the
issue of hardware; how many consumers have a large HD screens on which
to view a concert, broadband speed that can deliver (uninterrupted) HD
audio and visual content, and a sound system that can do justice to the
dynamic range that is so central to classical music performances? There is
a huge distinction to be made between experiencing a live transmission of
an opera in a cinema, with the advanced audio and visual infrastructure in
place, and watching a performance on a laptop with poor audio output.
With this in mind it is no surprise that the Berlin Philharmonic are working
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closely with both Sony and Samsung, both leaders in the production of
high-definition Internet-enabled televisions.10
The term “new technologies” that we are using to analyze this case is
based on the description of Bakhshi and Throsby who define it as follows:
Although the term ‘new technologies’ in the cultural field could be used to
describe any form of technical advance affecting cultural production from
the invention of the printing press onwards, it is used nowadays as
shorthand for new information and communication technologies arising
from two related late twentieth century sources: the explosion in
computational speed and capacity that has transformed day-to-day life in
countless ways, and the advent of the Internet. These technological
revolutions have affected the operations of cultural organizations in a
number of ways.11
One of the situations that the Berlin Philharmonic had to overcome in
order to use the new technology and implement the project was the
necessity of getting the sponsorship of the Deutsche Bank for more than
25 years:
The Deutsche Bank has supported the Digital Concert Hall from the
beginning. This season the partnership was given fresh impetus with the
joint education initiative “Explore Classical Music”, which makes classical
music more accessible to young people. The extensive concert archive of
the Digital Concert Hall makes it possible to introduce great works of the
repertoire acoustically and visually in the classroom. For this purpose, the
Deutsche Bank provides 500 schools and universities all over the world
with access to the Digital Concert Hall every year. […]12
This initiative to bring the Digital Concert Hall to more than 500 schools
not only consolidated the education project but also gave the Philharmonic
another ally and sponsor, SONY, at the end of 2012. Remember that the
Japanese industry had collaborated in the Karajan period with the
incorporation of the Philharmonic in the compact disc market. On this
occasion, SONY provided the technological equipment for the recordings
and production of the concerts, raising the quality of the transmission from
what it had been initially.13
The contract with SONY ended in 2014. On August 31, 2016, a new
partnership with Panasonic was announced. With this change, a further
development in high-tech audio and video was attempted by installing 4K
cameras and high-impact audio technology.14
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In his book Analysing Musical Multimedia, Nicholas Cook clearly
describes his idea of medium:
The basic idea of a medium, in other words, is that it is just a medium, a
channel of communication, and as such transparent. […]
We are a nowadays inclined to think of ‘the media’ as determining, rather
than reflecting, public opinion. And in the same way, my argument in this
book is predicated on the assumption that media such as music, texts, and
moving pictures do not just communicate meaning, but participate actively
in its construction.15
As noted, the use of media for the Berlin Philharmonic has been a highly
relevant factor in the development of the DCH with the transformation of
the formats and channels for dissemination evolving in recent years in an
accelerated manner. Part of the acceptance and the growth of music lovers
who join the DCH is its portability. The incorporation of the app for
platforms such as iOS and Android has facilitated public access to the
Philharmonic on mobile phones and tablets, and provided the interactivity
that the public wants. Adkins and Adams point out:
What is clear is that the digital consumption of music and other digital
content that accompanies it will become ubiquitous. The level at which the
audiences choose to consume or interact with this ‘content’ is the variable
that seems most likely to develop as interaction design and the ergonomics
of user experience come to play a larger part in the consideration of the
nature of the final product.16
One item that has made this platform different from others is the quality of
the audience’s visual and sound experience from any space in the concert
hall, and this feature of the DCH has improved year after year. In an article
published in 2015, Rebecca Schmid writes about the platforms:
In 2010, Sony worked with DCH to develop an app for its Smart TVs. By
2013 there were apps for Samsung, LG, and Panasonic, covering altogether
about 60 percent of the general smart TV market. “We never could have
predicted that the development of mobile and TV device would be so
rapid,” recalls Zimmermann. “But we had the advantage of having the
content.”
Although 30 percent of users watch on mobile devices, over half of those
do so through a WI-FI connection to their computer or smart TV. The rest
are equally divided between smart TVs and Computers. Zimmermann
considers smart TV the market´s most promising sector. “The usability is
always getting better and faster”, he says. “It won’t be long before clients
are practically unable to tell the difference between cable and Internet”.
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The Hall is also available over TV boxes such as Nexus TV and Amazon
Fire. PC-based application have proved less viable. A Windows 8 app
developed last year has been successful on Microsoft tablets but not on
desk- and laptops. There will be another attempt, however, when Windows
comes out in August.17
This reference fails to mention Apple applications which at that time were
used on both iPhones and iPads. All of this shows the importance of the
development of these apps for all platforms always keeping in mind the
audience’s experience with the DCH. Birgit Stöber goes even further to
point out that this experience affects not only the audience but also the
musicians:
This Project creates several different emotional experiences both for the
audience and the member of the orchestra. For the audience in front of
their computer –theoretically all over the world-, the project offers the
visual experiences of the space of the Berlin Concert Hall as well as the
audiovisual experience of a particular life concert. The live streaming
among others realized by fixed cameras installed in the concert hall opens
up for the possibility to come closer to the musicians than sitting in the
Concert Hall itself. Hence, the audience in front of their Computers gets
emotionally tied to the particular place, event and group of people, the
musicians, in Berlin as well as to the virtual community of a global music
audience. The musicians acting in Berlin might also be affected by being
aware of a much bigger audience than present in the Berlin concert hall.
So, due to the use of high tech new media the understandings of belonging
and social agency are altered both on the side of the audience and of the
artist.18
Stöber continues her reflection on the attitude of the musicians:
The musicians acting in Berlin might also be affected by been aware of a
much bigger audience than present in the Berlin concert hall. According to
[Olaf] Maninger playing a concert while being aware of the fact that there
are a lot more people listening and watching than being physically present
in the Berlin concert hall gives “an extra kick” and motivates eminently. It
is clear, that some orchestra members get an extra exposition depending on
the piece of music and their entrances.19
The emotional factor here contributes to rethinking the model of the
concert ritual where the audience goes to a physical space and the
musicians can see their audience as they perform. Now the audience and
the space acquire traits that move away from the traditional experience.
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Ruth Finnegan raises an interesting panorama of this ritual in her article
Music, Experiences and Emotion:
Amidst the inescapable diversities –part of findings– some points are worth
drawing out. It is striking how often rituals are intershoot with music,
managing fraught situations in human lives and presenting organized
public occasions for emotional deployment. Through music, public
ceremonies can exploit the encompassing capacity of sound to marshal a
sense of communitas, where, as Van Leeuwen suggest (1999, 197),
“listening is connection, communion.” Experience is dynamically co
created too as people dance with each other, beat time, move together,
construct and reexperience their recollections later –realizations of human
sociality that recall Schutz’s “mutual tuning in relationship” (1951, 92).
The collective experiencing of music can divide as well as unite of
course.20
This ritual that Finnegan describes is precisely what is deconstructed with
the DCH. The format of the ritual is the same but what changes are the
conditions and the kind of society that wants the visual and auditory
experience. The DCH manages to create this sense of communitas within a
virtual community. Bakshi y Throsby identify four categories of
innovation that are common to cultural institutions seeking to anchor
themselves in new technologies:
•Innovation in audiences reach: this relates to the generation of new
audiences, including through use of digital technologies such as live
high-definition (HD) broadcasts […]
•Innovation in artform development: one of the most significant
innovative contributions cultural institutions can make is to the
development of the art-form in which they operate, through the
encouragement of new and experimental work in their
programming.
•Innovation in value creation: cultural institutions are searching for
new ways to measure the economic and cultural value they create
audiences and their wider Group of stakeholders, and to translate
these into terms that policymakers, funding agencies, donors and
private inventors can relate to.
•Innovation in Business Management and governance: cultural
organizations face challenges in strategic Management that are
peculiar to the artistic or cultural are in which they operate; dealing
with these challenges requires a constant review of the
organization’s business model and a search for innovative
Financing strategies in response to a changing funding
environment.21
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These categories fit into the model of the Berlin Philharmonic through the
DCH. It had to renew and innovate in a virtual society that perhaps has the
same needs but which needed new tools to meet them. The change has not
exactly been in the type of audience but in the way in which the
Philharmonic approaches the audience. New technological tools are used
to reclaim those who no longer have access to record stores or who have a
geographical barrier to listening to one of the best orchestras in the world.
In October 2016, Google presented a report titled “How People Use Their
Devices” in which they surveyed 1,974 residents of the United States
between the ages 18 and 49. The results revealed that in a single day the
devices used are as follows: 80% smartphones (intelligent phones), 16%
tablets, and 66% computers. More than one in every four people or 27%
use only their smartphones and only 14% exclusively use their computers.
On an average day, users consult their smartphones for 170 minutes, their
computers for 120 minutes, and their tablets for 75 minutes. Thirty-nine
percent of searches are done on smartphones followed by 32% on
computers.22
From the above statistics, it is understandable that the new model of the
DCH live concert transmissions has had to develop an innovative
technology for mobile applications with quick and easy access to live
concerts as well as the archives. An alarm on mobile phones was
developed to alert users ten minutes before live concerts begin. It is
interesting to note that this alarm sounds similar to the sound of the bell
announcing the start of a concert at the Philharmonic.
Other mechanisms to attract an audience to the DCH as well as announce
concerts and news have been the social networks, particularly YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter. As seen in the previous report from Google,
portability has become a major factor in recent years and trends show how
the public is increasingly in contact with the Philharmonic through social
networks. When Tobias Möller, Director of Communications, was asked
what role social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and the video
platform YouTube have on the Berlin Philharmonic, he responded:
In the acquisition of new customers, the social networks are our most
important communication channels. Our audiovisual material fits in
perfectly. In our own YouTube channel, we place three minutes of video
clips, which are also linked to Facebook and Twitter. A very lively
community has been grouped around these offers. Often we realize that we
have an incredibly informed audience. There are questions about an
unknown horn player, for example, who had jumped as a help. Or it is
discussed intensively about Bruckner‘s conductors.23
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The creation of new Internet communities has been a determining factor in
the consolidation of the DCH which is educating new communities of
listeners in cyberspace in a way unimaginable just two decades ago. In this
respect, the “Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” by David Kusek
and Gern Leonhard published in 2005 precisely predicted this
development:
Performers and their managers are beginning to use technology to create
new live forms of Entertainment, and new delivery mechanisms that go
directly to their fans. […] Imagine a virtual concert that was streamed
directly to subscribers, in a pay-per-view model, with the band playing on
a Studio soundstage, and the performance streaming live via satellite, and
then subsequently made available as a digital archive to the subscriber
base.24
It seems that the predictions of Kusek and Leonhard were realized when
years later the DCH format was permanently linked to these “new
mechanisms to attract fans.” Robert Zimmermann, Managing Director at
Berlin Phil Media, responded to the question of what has been the
experience that has been most surprising in the building of the DCH:
The one important thing we did not expect when we started the project is
the impact of social media. When we started in 2007… Facebook and
YouTube were small. WhatsApp and these kinds of communication tools
and community-building tools didn’t exist.
Now [Berlin Phil] clips on YouTube have been watched 45 million times.
For classical music, it’s a lot. And to generate 800,000 Facebook fans you
can inform and contact: that’s a very powerful way of keeping in touch
with your fan base, and building a community around what you’re doing.
It’s very important for the musicians and for the institution.25
As of March 26, 2017, the YouTube page of the Berlin Philharmonic had
had 159,013 subscribers and 56,232,872 views since its creation on
January 19, 2009. 26 With respect to other social networks, there are
currently 1,104,587 followers on Facebook and more than 116,000
followers on Twitter since its creation in May, 2009. There were more
than 750,000 users registered on the DCH as of May, 201627.
According to Uhl, Schmid and Zimmerman, in June, 2013 there were
47,000 subscribers on YouTube, 49,000 on Twitter and 390,000 on
Facebook with 135,000 users who had installed the DCH app on their
mobile phones.28 These figures demonstrate that the potential of social
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networks to convince the public to accept music concerts in cyberspace
should be reevaluated.
Innovations in social networks have managed to capture, attract and
increase a public that today lives immersed in the Internet as described by
Bakhshi and Throsby:
However, the more profound innovations come through the far-reaching
potential of new communications technologies that are constantly being
introduced. We can interpret these developments in the first instance as
relating to the first of our innovation categories – expanding the audience
reach. There are three dimensions to this sort of innovation (McCarthy and
Jinnett 2001):
•Audience broadening – capturing a larger share of the population
already known to be audiences
•Audience diversifying – attracting new groups of consumers that do
not currently attend.
•Audience deepening – increasing and/or intensifying the engagement
of audiences. The latter may be achieved through enhanced
interactivity between arts organizations and audiences on social
networks and creative websites on the one hand, and technological
convergence, which is allowing audiences to access cultural
experiences any time, any place and in any form on the other.29
Data presented by Robert Zimmerman in München on May 31, 2016
showed the following information about the contents of the DCH after
seven seasons:
•400 HD concert recordings, including 340 live broadcasts
•1.100 works (650 hours) in the concert archive, plus 270 interviews
•40 documentaries and educational projects
•20 Mill visitors in the Digital Concert Hall website
•5 Mill hours streamed, or 1.200 times the capacity of the
Philharmonic Hall
•750,000 registered users have created an account
•380,000 newsletter subscribers are kept up to date each week
•1,5 Mill Social Media contacts are informed constantly
•30.000 subscribers have a paid ticket30
The following figures show the Digital Concert Hall on social networks in
May, 2016: there were 120,000 subscribers on YouTube which is more
than any other artistic institution, 800 video clips of concerts and
interviews, and 45,000,000 visitors. In the case of Facebook, there were
850,000 followers which is a significant growth since 2009 when there
were only 9,000. There were 4,000,000 impressions31 per month in 120
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publications, and 600,000 Videostreams per month of the published
videos. In Twitter, there were 111,000 followers, 7,500 tweets about
concerts and videos, and 1,200,000 tweet-impressions per month. Finally,
380,000 copies of the Berlin Philharmonic’s electronic bulletin
(Newsletter) are sent every week, and 70 DCH bulletins are sent each year
in German, English, Japanese and Spanish32.
As has already been mentioned, these figures show the potential of the
networks as well as the number and the ages of people who have accessed
the DCH: 13% of 20 to 29 year olds, 16% of 30 to 30 year olds, and 20%
of 40 to 49 year olds. This data closes the generation gap in an emphatic
way. These audiences are found mainly in Germany with 27%, followed
by the United States with 16%, and Japan with 10 %. The rest of Europe
has 28% while the remainder of the world has 19%33.
The advantage that the Berlin Philharmonic has obtained from its
positioning and technology impact is unambiguous. It has gained many
followers in social networks by returning to its origins, paradoxically to
the recordings market which had been considered lost. In April, 2014, the
Berlin Philharmonic announced the launching of a new label called
Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings. These recordings are only sold on
their official website and in their concert hall although digital versions can
be downloaded on iTunes. This project is described on their official
website.
For more than 100 years, the music of the Berlin Philharmonic has been
available in the form of recordings. With the Berliner Philharmoniker
Recordings label, the orchestra is for the first time publishing its own
recordings
One of the particularities of the label is that it goes beyond the usual in the
offering of their products. In most cases, audio recordings are
accompanied with Blu-ray and the associated video version with various
extras. As well, the recordings can be reproduced on CD or for better
enjoyment, in high fidelity, high resolution audio format. For fans of vinyl,
LP versions are also offered. No less luxurious is the presentation offered.
Each recording comes in an exclusive hardcover edition with an extensive,
carefully designed booklet. The aim is to provide a complete musical
experience. These high-quality publications are heard joyfully and also are
pleasant to behold.34
This begs the question of why a company that is succeeding with its
Digital Concert Hall would return to the other almost obsolete formats.
The answer could be a little callous: “and why not”. In an interview about
the creation of the new recording label, Simon Rattle said:
Chapter Title
94
The recording World has changed so much recently we are all on a journey
to somewhere; I think nobody really knows what be that, the major labels
seem to be changing form, shape and even names on a weekly basis. We
don’t know what recording will be. But I think any of us who visited New
York, year after year, after year, and saw that Tower Records was no
longer there must have thought, O.K.; so the model is changing. And what
is it going to be? Surely it is going to be, as it is in other parts of music,
people making their own stuff and simply putting it out there.35
It is pertinent and revealing to analyze a concept that emerges from the
DCH’s new image for a public immersed in daily life and network
connections. The audience is seduced into returning to old formats such as
vinyl and compact disc. However at the same time they continue to receive
the message that the sound quality of the digital download, which is 24
bits, is better than the compact disc. Thus a double dialogism shows
something new in an old format, and this old format comes from digital
techniques. Music lovers who have argued that digital recordings do not
maintain the standards of quality are left without arguments when
contemplating this new label from the Digital Concert Hall. When asked in
an interview who had left a professional footprint on his DNA, Robert
Zimmermann replied:
In the end, probably my deceased partner and companion, Oliver Hermann,
who brought me close to classical music and gave me the stamina and
daringness to start something crazy like this.
A good example of this is probably, we’ve been preaching that the future is
digital and online and that the CD and media industry is dying. But having
said this, two years ago, we started our own physical label with recordings
of the orchestra — because the orchestra wants and needs to be a recording
orchestra. That’s in the DNA of the orchestra. They have to record their
core repertoire. Even if they have recorded it 50 times before, this
composition of this conductor, soloist, and orchestra has to record.
So we said, “We have to establish our own recording label but we do it in a
completely different way than all the others.” The packaging doesn’t look
like a standard CD. It doesn’t only contain the CD [but also] everything
around the concert experience … in this one physical package. You get the
videos, documentaries, and download codes.
The retail doesn’t know what to do with us. Critics say, “Well, this is a
lavishly wonderful packaging, but I can’t do anything with it because it
doesn’t fit into my usual CD shelf.” In the end, that was the point. You
have to break the common understanding and make something new.
By doing this, we also got out of the usual pricing mechanisms. Usually
you say, that’s an in-consumer price: 30 percent remains with the retail; 30
percent remains with the distribution; the labor gets so and so much; and
the artist, if he’s lucky, gets 5 percent of the revenue. By creating this big
Chapter Number
95
online community, we were suddenly in a position to address our fans
directly and say, “… Look what we’ve made: It’s craftsmanship, it’s
special.”
That’s only possible because the orchestra is managing itself. They love
trying out new things. They love being experimental. They love going new
ways. They don’t care about industry standards. That’s not their world.
Their world’s the creative world.36
Starting with the "great online community", the Berlin Philharmonic has
been able to set up this facet. More and more people are joining the project
and having the experience of listening to a music concert from both a new
business model and a new methodology of music knowledge.
An important aspect that draws attention is the DCH experience with
virtual reality. In April 2015, it began experimenting in collaboration with
We make VR, and in October of the same year with the Google Cultural
Institute. Robert Zimmerman’s idea for the future of the DCH covers three
main points. The first point with respect to technology is to continue the
development of recordings and transmissions (4K/VR) by changing the
transmissions to 5.1 format and the recordings to 3D. In addition, improve
the administration of the relationships with customers (CRM) through
social networks. The second point relates to the exclusive content aiming
to increase the attractiveness of the DCH through the archive of concert
recordings as well as the inclusion of “behind the scenes” content with
information about the musicians and the orchestra. Also produce more
master classes and educational content. The third point to be covered in
the future refers to distribution which will allow new markets in
accessories and applications to open to the public, the achievement of
greater institutional access in schools and universities, and the opening of
the large Chinese market for the DCH.37
When asked what he has learned in this whole process, Robert
Zimmerman replied:
I think the most important lesson is that the opportunities developed
through the change of technology are always bigger than you can ever
imagine. We never imagined when we started that, just one or two years
later, every television set was suddenly Internet-enabled. We never
imagined that social media would explode like they did. We never
imagined that these iPhones suddenly were able to play high-resolution
video and audio, which is immaculate. We learned that it is wise never to
underestimate what will happen.
Today, we sit here and we think, “Wow, three, four, or five years ahead,
how do we imagine the time to be?” … Just imagine what will happen to
virtual reality, for example … and what will happen to 3D sound or high-
Chapter Title
96
resolution sound replication, where you suddenly have an immersive
feeling of actually sitting in a concert hall. You will be able [to] decide, “I
want to go to Carnegie Hall,” “I want to go to the Royal Opera House,” or
“I want to go to the Berliner Philharmonic,” and say, “I would like to sit in
block A.” You put on your glasses and your headphones and you have the
feeling that you are there. … I think we still have a lot of interesting
technological developments in front of us.38
The obligatory question after this narrative is to what degree the
Philharmonic is attempting to replace itself with technology in which it
does not physically need musicians. The initial response is that it is
impossible to substitute the experience of a live concert and it is evident
that this is not the intention of the DCH. Their intention is to take the
Berlin Philharmonic to the public that does not have direct access to the
concert hall in Berlin due to geographic or economic issues. In the second
place, the music continues to be the same music executed by the musicians
belonging to the Philharmonic. Although the way in which the music is
heard is different, it’s not just the sound quality but also the ritual of the
experience that was previously mentioned. The music has a portability that
had not reached that degree of sound fidelity and would have been
unthinkable just ten years ago.
The Digital Concert Hall has come to change the established paradigms
for listeners. We are far from an argument about sound quality because
this has already been achieved with richness through the Internet. Now the
Digital Concert Hall will continue to seek new experiences and
innovations as occurred more than a century and a half ago when Emil
Berliner invented the phonograph.
References
Adkins, Monty and Adams, Tom. “Digital Music, Digital Distribution”
presented at Proceedings of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network,
Conference Electroacoustic Music Beyond Performance. Berlin: June,
2014. Accessed January 31, 2017, http://www.ems-
network.org/IMG/pdf_EMS14_adkins_adams.pdf
Art Council England. Digital audiences: Engagement with arts and
culture online. London: November, 2010. Accessed January 25, 2017,
http://www.aandbscotland.org.uk/documents/2012-05-28-13-11-39-10-
Digital-audiences-for-arts-and-culture-november2010.pdf
Bakhshi, Hasan and Throsby, David. “New technologies in cultural
institutions: theory, evidence and policy implications.” International
Journal of Cultural Policy 18, no. 2, (March 2012): 205-222.
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Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings. “About us”. Accessed February 17,
2017, https://www.berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com/about-us/
Chen, Christie and Cheng, Sabine. “Taiwan's love for music is rare: Berlin
Philharmonic conductor” Focus Taiwan, News Channel, May 5 2015.
Accessed January 13, 2017,
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201605050032.aspx
Colbe, Korina. “Digital Concert Hall. Der Markt ist noch längst nicht
gesättigt”. Das Orchester, June, 2011.
Cook, Nicholas. Analysing Musical Multimedia. New York: Oxford
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Finnegan, Ruth. “Music, Experience, and Emotion” in The Cultural Study
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Herbert and Richard Middleton, 353-363. London: Routledge, 2012.
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devices-2016.pdf
Kavanagh, Brian. “Art in the Age of its Digital Reproduction:
Organisational Responses to Digital Music in the Classical Music
Industry”. Lecture DRUID Academy 2012, January 19 - 21, 2012.
Cambridge: The Moeller Centre University of Cambridge.
http://druid8.sit.aau.dk/acc_papers/nt3x9nxqlqg2hia1tqcvfvb4dybb.pdf
Kusek, David and Leonhard, Gerd. The future of music. Manifesto for the
digital music revolution. Berkeley: Berkeley Press, 2005.
PALMER, James. “The Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall
Expands,” Musical Opinion. London: England. Accessed February 14 ,
2017. http://musicalopinion.com/berliner.html
Plackis-Cheng, Paksy. “Robert Zimmermann on the Berlin Phil Digital
Concert Hall,” Impactmania, 2016. Accessed January 13, 2017.
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media/
Rhythm is it!. Directed by Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch.
2004. Berlín: Kultur, 2004. DVD.
Schmid, Rebecca. “The Berlin Philharmonic performs in three different
spaces: The Philharmonie, the Philhanmonie´s Chamber Hall, and the
DCH,” Musical America Worldwide, June 2, 2015.
http://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?archived=0&storyid
=34012&categoryid=7
“Simon Rattle about the new label of the Berliner Philharmoniker”.
Youtube Video, 02:49 Published by Berliner Philharmoniker,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXB-gVHzXZ0&feature=youtu.be
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Stöber, Birgit. Berlin Phil goes global – the ”Digital concert hall” -
Überall und jederzeit. 2009. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School.
Accessed July 30, 2016.
http://begivenhedskultur.dk/_events/2009/motion_emotion/proceedings/St
oeber.pdf
Teranishi, Kasuro. “Panasonic to aid online streaming of Berlin
Philarmonic,” The Asahi Shimbum, September 1, 2016.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201609010077.html
Uhl, Axel, Schmid, Alexander Y Zimmermann, Robert, “Digital renewal
of 130 years of World class music” in Business Transformation Essentials.
Case Studies and Articles, edited by Axel Uhl and Lars Alexander
Gollenia, 39-50. England: Gower Applied Business Research. 2013.
Witt, Stephen. Como dejamos de pagar por la música. Translated by
Damilà Alou. Barcelona: Contraediciones, 2016.
Notes
1 A translation of Zunkunft@Bphil would be Zunkuntf=future, @=in,
BPhil=Berlín Philharmonic, “future in the Berlín Philharmonic”.
2 Axel Uhl, Alexander Schmid & Robert Zimmermann, “Digital renewal of 130
years of World class music” en Business Transformation Essentials. Case Studies
and Articles, eds. Axel Uhl & Lars Alexander Gollenia, 44 (England, Surrey:
Gower Applied Business Research, 2013).
3 Stephen Witt, Como dejamos de pagar por la música, trans. Damilà Alou
(Barcelona: Contraediciones, 2016), 125.
4 Paksy Plackis-Cheng, “Robert Zimmermann on the Berlin Phil Digital Concert
Hall”, Impactmania, 2016, http://www.impactmania.com/2040/robert-
zimmermann-berlin-phil-media/.
5 Rhythm is it!, directed by Thomas Grube & Enrique Sánchez Lansch (Berlín:
Kultur, 2004). DVD, 1:22’15-1:37’00; Christie Chen, & Sabine Cheng “Taiwan's
love for music is rare: Berlin Philharmonic conductor” Focus Taiwan, News
Channel, May 5, 2015, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201605050032.aspx.
6 Birgit Stöber, Berlin Phil goes global – the ”Digital concert hall” - Überall und
jederzeit. (Copenhagen Business School, 6, 2009),
http://begivenhedskultur.dk/_events/2009/motion_emotion/proceedings/Stoeber.pd
f.
7 Art Council England, Digital audiences: Engagement with arts and culture
online, November, 2010 (England: Art Council, 14).
http://www.aandbscotland.org.uk/documents/2012-05-28-13-11-39-10-Digital-
audiences-for-arts-and-culture-november2010.pdf.
Chapter Number
99
8 Korina Colbe, “Digital Concert Hall. Der Markt ist noh längst nicht gesättigt”
Das Orchester, June, 2011 (Mainz: Schott Music), 30.
9 Brian Kavanagh, “Art in the Age of its Digital Reproduction: Organisational
Responses to Digital Music in the Classical Music Industry”,Paper presented on
DRUID Academy January, 2012, 9 (Cambridge: The Moeller Centre, University of
Cambridge),
http://druid8.sit.aau.dk/acc_papers/nt3x9nxqlqg2hia1tqcvfvb4dybb.pdf.
10 Kavanagh, “Art in the Age of its Digital Reproduction: Organisational
Responses to Digital Music in the Classical Music Industry”, 19.
11 Hasan Bakhshi & David Throsby “New technologies in cultural institutions:
theory, evidence and policy implications” en International Journal of Cultural
Policy 18, no. 2, (March 2012): 208.
12 James Palmer, “The Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall Expands”,
Musical Opinion (London: England) http://musicalopinion.com/berliner.html.
13 Idem.
14 Kasuro Teranishi, “Panasonic to aid online streaming of Berlin Philarmonic”,
The Asahi Shimbum, sec. culture (September 1, 2016, Japon)
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201609010077.html.
15 Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (New York: Oxford University
Press. 2001), 261.
16 Monty Adkins & Tom Adams, “Digital Music, Digital Distribution”
Proceedings of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network, Conference
Electroacoustic Music Beyond Performance (Berlin, 8, June 2014)
http://www.ems-network.org/IMG/pdf_EMS14_adkins_adams.pdf
17 Rebecca Schmid, “The Berlin Philharmonic performs in three different spaces:
The Philharmonie, the Philhanmonie´s Chamber Hall, and the DCH” Musical
America Worldwide, June 2, 2015,
http://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?archived=0&storyid=34012
&categoryid=7.
18 Stöber, Berlin Phil goes global – the ”Digital concert hall” - Überall und
jederzeit, 3
19 Ibid. 10-11.
20 Ruth FINNEGAN, “Music, Experience, and Emotion”, in The Cultural Study of
Music: A Critical Introduction. eds. Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert & Richard
Middleton (London: Routledge, 2012), 358.
21 Bakhshi & Throsby, “New technologies in cultural institutions: theory, evidence
and policy implications”, 208.
22 GOOGLE, How People Use Their Devices, September, 2016,
https://storage.googleapis.com/think/docs/twg-how-people-use-their-devices-
2016.pdf
23 Colbe, “Digital Concert Hall. Der Markt ist noch längst nicht gesättigt”, 30.
24 David Kusek & Gerd Leonhard, The future of music. Manifesto for the digital
music revolution (Berkeley: Berkeley Press, 2005), 159.
25 Plackis-Cheng, “Robert Zimmermann on the Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall”.
Chapter Title
100
26 The first video uploaded was a 3.02 minutes of Beethoven’s Symphony No.7
recorded during a concert on October 18, 2008. This video refers only to the
Internet page of the Berlin Philharmonic. This information can be seen on the same
YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/BerlinPhil/about
27 The figures can be found on social networks. The number of users of the DCH
was obtained from the May 31, 2016 report submitted by its General Director
Robert Zimmerman.
28 Uhl, Schmid & Zimmerman, “Digital renewal of 130 years of World class
music”, 47.
29 Bakhshi & Throsby, “New technologies in cultural institutions: theory, evidence
and policy implications”, 209.
30 Robert Zimmermann, “The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall”,
lectured on Münchner Medientage TV - Apps – The World of Connected TV, 9
(München, May 31, 2016)
http://www.medientage.de/fileadmin/user_upload/weitere_Veranstaltungen/Smart_
TV_Special_2016/Zimmermann_Robert.pdf.
31 Impressions are the number of times a post from your Page is displayed. People
may see multiple impressions of the same post. For example, if someone sees a
Page update in News Feed and then sees that same update when a friend shares it,
that would count as 2 impressions. [source: Facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/help/274400362581037?helpref=related]
32 Zimmerman, “The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall”, 12.
33 Ibid, 11.
34 Berliner Philarmoniker Recordings, “About us”, Berliner Philharmoniker
Recordings, https://www.berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com/about-us/
35 Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle about the new label of the Berliner
Philharmoniker (April 23, 2014, 0:05 al 0:52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXB-gVHzXZ0&feature=youtu.be.
36 Plackis-Cheng, “Robert Zimmermann on the Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall”.
37 Zimmermann, “The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall”, 17.
38 Plackis-Cheng, “Robert Zimmermann on the Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall”.
Sound in Motion
:
Cinema, Videogames,
Technology and
Audiences
Edited by
Enrique Encabo
Sound in Motion: Cinema, Videogames, Technology and
Audiences
Edited by Enrique Encabo
This book first published 2018
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6
2PA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Copyright © 2018 by Enrique Encabo and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-5275-0874-9
ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0874-3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ....................................................................................................... vii
Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1
Why there is Not Such a Thing as Popular Music
Simon Frith
Part 1: Music and Technology: New Horizons
Part 1: Music and Technology: New HorizonsPart 1: Music and Technology: New Horizons
Part 1: Music and Technology: New Horizons
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 16
Sound Hyperreality in Popular Music:
On the Influence of Audio Production in our Sound Expectations
Jordi Roquer González
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 40
The Influence of ‘Audio Correctors’ in the Creative Process:
Between the Performative Reality and the Artifices of the Digital
Musical Production
Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 58
Mimetextuality: An approach to Cultural Studies from
the Phenomenon of Music in Streaming
Rubén Fernández Fernández
Part 2: New Audiences
Part 2: New AudiencesPart 2: New Audiences
Part 2: New Audiences
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 80
The Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall:
New Strategies of Music Knowledge and Conception
Álvaro G. Díaz Rodríguez
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 102
Music, Sound and Persuasion in YouTube Advertising
Preface ii
Diego Calderón Garrido, Josep Gustems Carnicer
and Caterina Calderón Garrido
Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 111
How to Learn with Symphonic Metal lyrics: An Analysis of Different
Songs and their Relationship to Literature
Eduardo Encabo Fernández, Isabel Jerez Martínez
and Lourdes Hernández Delgado
Part
Part Part
Part 3
33
3:
: :
: Identities in Movement
Identities in MovementIdentities in Movement
Identities in Movement
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 128
Phonographic Industry and Classical Music in French Modern Cinema:
Image and Sound of Long Play (LP) Vinyl Records in Films
Luiza Alvim
Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 144
The Tragedy of Fado in Portuguese Cinema of the 40’s and 50’s:
Amália Rodrigues and the Cult of Pure and Delicate Women
Pedro Miguel Oliveira Nunes
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 155
Theoretical Proposal for the Study of Enunciation and Focalisation
within the Framework of Film Music Narrative
Celia Martínez García
Part
Part Part
Part 4
44
4: Videogames &
: Videogames & : Videogames &
: Videogames & TV
TVTV
TV
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 172
Scoring for Exploration Gameplay
Luka Lebanidze
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 182
Music Mediatisation as a Matter of Valorisation: From Performance
to Background Music in French TV Programs (1953-2015)
Guylaine Gueraud-Pinet
Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 197
Hugo Niebeling and Herbert von Karajan: Experimental Music Films
from the Perspective of Artistic Musical Tradition
Ramón Sanjuán Minguez
