THE modern symphony orchestra has thudded out of bed, stretched its lumbering limbs and woken up to the new reality of recordings: the industry has faded away. It’s do-it-yourself time.

On top of that, the old dual way to receive classical music is dead. Before you could only hear a broadcast or purchase music on a commercial label’s record; now the means to hear an orchestra concert outside a concert hall have proliferated to a dizzying degree. Orchestras offer an array of often direct channels to your eardrums: selling their own CDs and DVDs; providing live streams to your computer; making those streams available for some time after the fact; offering downloads to be owned permanently.

Orchestras are moving into these areas largely out of necessity. The commercial classical recording industry, as it was configured in its late-20th-century heyday, is vastly diminished, and there is little money to be made in the business. The New York Philharmonic, for instance, a giant of the recording industry in the Leonard Bernstein years, has not had a long-term contract with a commercial label for a decade.

But orchestras have always needed recordings as marketing tools. Records spread their fame and bestow their musical interpretations on a worldwide audience. Audiences should have new interpretations of classics to fall in love with, as well as exposure to new or unfamiliar works. Conductors, soloists and orchestra members want a way to leave a legacy (and earn royalties).