On Las Ramblas, that beautiful, broad, tourist-filled boulevard that runs from the port to Plaça de Catalunya, a small store has managed to survive for decades despite what must be, these days, sky-high real estate values.

Casa Beethoven sells mostly sheet music, mostly for piano, but some for other solo instruments, voice and even full orchestral scores. You know it's a serious music lover's place because it has busts of classical composers and boxes and boxes of music for you to take home and play.

A hundred years ago, the most common way you got to hear music was to perform it yourself. Actually, the bulk of classical music—a vast heap of sonatas, rondos, trios and the like—was written for performance by amateurs.

The twentieth-century advent of recorded music changed all that. Many in my generation still took obligatory piano lessons, and also learned another instrument for the school orchestra—mine was the clarinet. My children picked up guitar (what else) on their own. What will their children do?

In the 19th Century and earlier, they had recorded music too. But the technology was primitive.

Casa Beethoven sells music-box movements. They have 60 on display for you to try. Turn a little red crank, and out comes chimey music.

The selection is eclectic. Check out some of the titles:

– The Internationale (the Communist anthem)
– Luces en la Ciudad
– Happy Birthday
– The theme from Doctor Zhivago
– El Golpe
– John Lennon's Imagine
– Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender

What Casa Beethoven doesn't sell is CDs. If you want to hear it, you have to play it yourself. Even if that means only turning a crank.