Bernard Coutaz
© AFP/File Anne-Christine Poujoulat

ARLES, France (AFP) - "We hear everywhere that the CD is disappearing, but the disc is not dead," insists 83-year-old Bernard Coutaz, the founder of Harmonia Mundi. "In the classical music field, CD sales still account for nearly 95 percent of the market."

He worries that "catastrophic predictions" are reducing the number of disc sellers when there in fact there "exist customers inclined to buy CDs as long as they can see and touch them."

Sales of CDs have nonetheless plummeted in the last five years, victims of rampant online music piracy and -- to a lesser extent -- a trend toward digital music sales from online stores.

But classical music in general appears to be resisting the overall CD slide, thanks largely to sales of attractively priced box sets.

Sales of classical CDs increased for the second year in a row in 2006, up 13.3 percent in value.

Coutaz's optimism regarding the health of the CD could be dismissed as a flight from reality were it not for the solid success of Harmonia Mundi over the past 49 years.

The company saw its sales rise from 42 million euros (54 million dollars) in 1997-1998 to 60.5 million euros in its last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2006. Harmonia Mundi reported a net profit in the period of 1.9 million euros.

The company sold more than 5.3 million CDs in 2005-2006, several of them selling in excess of 200,000 copies. Harmonia Mundi today produces the work of more than 40 artists, operates subsidiaries in six countries, including the United States, Britain and Spain, and employs around 300 people globally.

Bernard Coutaz
© AFP/File Anne-Christine Poujoulat

Coutaz, formerly a novelist and an editor with left wing publishing venture, got his start in the classical music field in 1958, travelling through Europe with a sound engineer and a music-loving doctor and organ specialist to put together a collection of recordings of ancient and historical organs.

The venture proved to be a success and was followed by a profitable association with the great English counter-tenor Alfred Deller.

"We revived pieces of music that until then had been reserved for castrati," from Elizebethan songs to Handel operas, Coutaz said.

The artists whose careers were launched by Coutaz tend to be loyal. German counter-tenor Andreas Scholl, for example, returned to Harmonia Mundi after a spell with the Decca label of the multinational group Universal.

"Harmonia Mundi is not quoted on the stock market, it's not under pressure from shareholders looking for immediate gains," he said last year.

"In leaving Decca I gave up certain advantages but with Harmonia Mundi I have much more freedom."

Artists are not the only ones to be well looked after. Employees share some of the profits, with the rest reinvested in new productions. As a result the average length of employment at Harmonia Mundi is 10 years.

But the company has also taken some hard knocks over the years, notably a bill for a million euros following the collapse of Tower Records in the United States and losses sustained several years ago by the German subsidiary.

Coutaz has named his son to be commercial director while his wife Eva, dubbed "the queen of classical music" by the German newspaper Tagespiegel, heads the production department.

"They'll inherit the business and I am sure they will maintain the same spirt," Coutaz said.

"I don't want things to fall apart when I'm gone."

©AFP