New Sony budget boxes

[Oscar]

Coming later this month:

Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler 7CD
Leopod Stokowki The Stereo Collection, Vol. I 14CD
Leon Fleisher Plays Beethoven & Brahms [concertos with Szell] 5CD
Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD
Erich Leinsdorf Conducts Beethoven Symphonies [with BSO] 5CD
Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
Marek Janowski Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 14CD
Guarneri Quartet Plays Mozart Quartets 6CD
Leonard Slatkin Conducts Tchaikovsky Ballets [with SLSO] 6CD
Paul Crossley Debussy Complete Works for Solo Piano 4CD

[Randy Lane]

Dicussed in a prior thread :

http://tinyurl.com/6sl76x8

[Oscar]

Oops.....

[wkasimer]

On Feb 9, 9:23 am, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com> wrote:

> > Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD
>

> It can't be any cheaper than this set, which I recently bought:
>
> http://amzn.to/zCnaaQ

I think that I'll stick with Kirschnereit on Arte Nova.

Bill

[John Thomas]

Or Schmidt http://tinyurl.com/85956te

[wkasimer]

On Feb 9, 8:19 am, Oscar <oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD

I think that it's about time they issued these in SACD format
worldwide, at a reasonable price. They've been available in Japan for
several years (at a fairly unreasonable price); I have the 3rd, and it
sounds fantastic.

Bill

[Ray Hall]

Randy Lane wrote:

>> Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler 7CD
>> Leopod Stokowki The Stereo Collection, Vol. I 14CD

>> Leon Fleisher Plays Beethoven& Brahms [concertos with Szell] 5CD

>> Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD
>> Erich Leinsdorf Conducts Beethoven Symphonies [with BSO] 5CD
>> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
>> Marek Janowski Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 14CD
>> Guarneri Quartet Plays Mozart Quartets 6CD
>> Leonard Slatkin Conducts Tchaikovsky Ballets [with SLSO] 6CD
>> Paul Crossley Debussy Complete Works for Solo Piano 4CD

Where is a link for these boxes?

Ray Hall, Taree

[Ray Hall]

I have the non-Japanese Sony 3rd and it sounds excellent.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Paul Goldstein]

In article <d96c8405-755a-49d4...@vd8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
Oscar says...

The Guareris' RCA Mozart is excellent - this is an attractive box.

[Gerard]

John Thomas <abras...@gmail.com> typed:

Why is Schmidt to be preferred above Perahia?

[J.Martin]

>
> >> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
>
> > I think that it's about time they issued these in SACD format
> > worldwide, at a reasonable price.  They've been available in Japan for
> > several years (at a fairly unreasonable price); I have the 3rd, and it
> > sounds fantastic.
>
> I have the non-Japanese Sony 3rd and it sounds excellent.

Yes, the 2009 Bernstein/NY Complete Mahler set sounded a bit better
than the 2001 Bernstein/NY Complete Mahler even in RBCD--enough so
that I felt 'justified' (whatever that means) in shelling out for
these recordings yet again. I believe the difference was probably due
to the DSD remastering done for the Japanese SACDs. I can't imagine
they can get much more out of those recordings in RBCD format, or that
they'd bother trying.

[Gerard]

J.Martin <mista...@yahoo.com> typed:

Maybe Ray meant the 1999 issue of the 3rd symphony in the 'Bernstein century'
series. It sounds excellent indeed.

[Oscar]

On Feb 9, 9:20 am, J.Martin wrote:
>
> > I have the non-Japanese Sony 3rd and it sounds excellent.
>
> Yes, the 2009 Bernstein/NY Complete Mahler set sounded a bit better
> than the 2001 Bernstein/NY Complete Mahler even in RBCD--enough so
> that I felt 'justified' (whatever that means) in shelling out for
> these recordings yet again.  I believe the difference was probably due
> to the DSD remastering done for the Japanese SACDs.  I can't imagine
> they can get much more out of those recordings in RBCD format, or that
> they'd bother trying.

That was the result of the work of the estimable Andreas Meyer
http://tiny.cc/khaxu on his final major project, in 2007, as an
employee of Sony Music Studios. Completely remixed from original work
parts, new DSD masters. As good as it will get in 16-bit RBCD.

[wade]

I for one, would LOVE to have that happen!

[John Thomas]

On Feb 9, 8:19 am, "Gerard" <ghendri_nospam-k...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> John Thomas <abrasax...@gmail.com> typed:

>
> > On Feb 9, 6:33 am, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > On Feb 9, 9:23 am, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD
>
> > > > It can't be any cheaper than this set, which I recently bought:
>
> > > >http://amzn.to/zCnaaQ
>
> > > I think that I'll stick with Kirschnereit on Arte Nova.
>
> > > Bill
>

> >   Or Schmidthttp://tinyurl.com/85956te

>
> Why is Schmidt to be preferred above Perahia?

Nicer legs.

[Ray Hall]

Yes. This is the twofer I have.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Thornhill]

JPC lists the box as having the 2008 remastering (2009 box), so I
really don't see the point in this repackaging. especially given that
the price point is only like $10 less. Why not toss in the LSO Mahler
2?

[Alan Cooper]

Thornhill <seth...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:acdf006d-7817-4a80...@m2g2000vbc.googlegroups.c
om:

The ergonomics of the 2009 packaging were awful, so a reissue in a more
conventional format would be welcome (not that I'm going to buy it for that reason
alone). Restoring some notes about the music would be a nice improvement as well.

AC

[Gerard]

John Thomas <abras...@gmail.com> typed:

Thanks. This is very useful.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Randy Lane <randy...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:8ddc0993-15c1-4db4-b9b7-
35b03e...@n7g2000pbd.googlegroups.com:

I wonder if Bernstein's Mahler recordings for Columbia are going to pick up
the slack when they run out of ways to reissue Gould's Goldbergs?

No Charles Ives box among the above, though. Dang!

--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
Read about "Proty" here: http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/proty.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers

[Randy Lane]

On Feb 9, 11:41 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Randy Lane <randy.l...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following

> letters to be typed in news:8ddc0993-15c1-4db4-b9b7-

> 35b03ede6...@n7g2000pbd.googlegroups.com:

> Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I suspect Bernstein or Walter are next in line for a Complete Album
Collection. They are running of artists for those complete collections
where the material already exists in digital format, and I doubt they
will dig into the vaults to fill in the gaps for artists where their
entire legacy has not yet been digitized (ie., Ormandy, Szell,
Juilliard SQ, Serkin(s), Budapest SQ, Reiner, add your own entries to
the list if you like).

[Bob Harper]

On Feb 9, 6:33 am, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:

Seconded. A wonderful set, and great value.

Bob Harper

[wkasimer]

On Feb 9, 2:55 pm, Randy Lane <randy.l...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I suspect Bernstein or Walter are next in line for a Complete Album
> Collection.

I'd love to have a complete Walter collection. I think that all (or
virtually all) of his recording for Columbia have found their way to
CD already, but most of them are OOP, and a lot of them are pretty
expensive on the used CD market.

Having bought the complete Bernstein Symphony Edition, I have no
interest whatsoever in an Original Jacket set devoted to him.

Bill

[Rich]

On Feb 9, 5:19 am, Oscar <oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:

These have a release date of 21 Feb and neither Sony or Amazon have
done anything to promote the event. Maybe their research shows that
heavy advertising won't make much difference in projected sales.
Still, how much can it cost to give advance notice on the web? I
chanced upon the Perahia issue while searching Amazon.

Rich

[Steve Emerson]

In article <da355$4f33f22d$5356543a$24...@cache1.tilbu1.nb.home.nl>,

Because he isn't Perahia?

SE.

[Mark S]

On Feb 9, 5:19 am, Oscar <oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Coming later this month:
>
> Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler 7CD
> Leopod Stokowki The Stereo Collection, Vol. I 14CD
> Leon Fleisher Plays Beethoven & Brahms [concertos with Szell] 5CD

> Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD

> Erich Leinsdorf Conducts Beethoven Symphonies [with BSO] 5CD
> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
> Marek Janowski Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 14CD
> Guarneri Quartet Plays Mozart Quartets 6CD
> Leonard Slatkin Conducts Tchaikovsky Ballets [with SLSO] 6CD
> Paul Crossley Debussy Complete Works for Solo Piano 4CD

Just pre-ordered the Leinsdorf Beethoven through amazon prime. Thanks
for the heads up.

[wagnerfan]

I just reheard that set and like it more than when I first had a
listen. He often brings out individual instruments coloristic touches
I hadn't heard before, That said I must say some of the
interpretations are a bit too, how shall I say, manicured but in the
whole I enjoyed hearing it.. Wagner fan

[Oscar]

On Feb 9, 9:32 pm, Mark S wrote:
>
> Just pre-ordered the Leinsdorf Beethoven through amazon prime. Thanks
> for the heads up.

I'm only familiar with the Ninth from that set, purchased the Japanese
XRCD last year. Whatever preconceived notions I had about Leinsdorf
(other than his Met recordings, I know very little of his tenure with
BSO), I found a very solid, straight-forward performance with great
RCA sound. What do you think?

[Mark S]

I had the complete set on LPs but sold it off. I also had the 9th on a
BMG CD that I thought was very good. Your description is apt. Looking
forward to reacquainting myself with the cycle.

[Gerard]

Steve Emerson <eme...@n-n-nospamsonic.net> typed:

He?

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Randy Lane <randy...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:5ad86058-ad69-4abe-919b-559d3efb0157
@gi10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com:

> I suspect Bernstein or Walter are next in line for a Complete Album
> Collection. They are running of artists for those complete collections
> where the material already exists in digital format, and I doubt they
> will dig into the vaults to fill in the gaps for artists where their
> entire legacy has not yet been digitized (ie., Ormandy, Szell,
> Juilliard SQ, Serkin(s), Budapest SQ, Reiner, add your own entries to
> the list if you like).

E. Power Biggs. I did find a transfer of ML 5032 (the Toccata from BWV. 565
played on fourteen different European instruments, and the Fugue on the last
one of the group) online. If this had ever been available commercially and
legitimately on CD, I would have been first in line to buy it.

[Steve de Mena]

On 2/9/12 7:15 AM, wkasimer wrote:

> On Feb 9, 8:19 am, Oscar<oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
>

> I think that it's about time they issued these in SACD format
> worldwide, at a reasonable price. They've been available in Japan for
> several years (at a fairly unreasonable price); I have the 3rd, and it
> sounds fantastic.
>

> Bill

Not economically feasible. The enthusiasts will buy it from Japan.

Steve

[pianomaven]

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps you didn't listen
carefully enough in the past, or only had the Dynagroove LPs to judge
them by.

TD

[pianomaven]

I have owned the LPs and CDs for many years. I admire Leinsdorf as a
musician. I have heard him "live" several times and every time he
exceeded expectations. Orchestras hated him but they gave 100% for
him.

The Beethoven is, well, the BSO, you know. Recorded by the same teams
that made the Munch and Reiner recordings legendary. Forget the
Dynagroove business; that was a disc-cutting technique and had nothing
to do with the masters.

TD

[pianomaven]

Correct.

TD

[wkasimer]

On Feb 10, 4:45 pm, pianomaven <1pianoma...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have owned the LPs and CDs for many years. I admire Leinsdorf as a
> musician. I have heard him "live" several times and every time he
> exceeded expectations. Orchestras hated him but they gave 100% for
> him.

I heard the BSO under Leinsdorf once, long after he left his post as
Music Director. It was a concert of Mozart and Debussy, and the
entire orchestra looked as though they were bored stiff, and they
sounded like it, too.

Bill

[Mark S]

I owned the Dyna-warp set when I was in HS. Bought it at one of those
sales when the local library cleared out recordings they were
replacing, so my set was a bit worse for wear - but only in the outer
box, which had seen years of being moved about the shelves. The set
itself had been checked out very few times and the LPs themselves were
in good shape.

I also owned the Toscanini RCA set and the Leibowitz set on Reader's
Digest at the time, and Leinsdorf's set was the one I listened to the
least. When I think about it, that was probably due to the fact that
the Dynawarp sound was so thin and cloudy compared to the other sets
that I seldom opted for it.

[Steve Emerson]

In article <jh0pi...@drn.newsguy.com>,
Paul Goldstein <pgol...@newsguy.com> wrote:

> In article
> <d96c8405-755a-49d4...@vd8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> Oscar says...

> >
> >Coming later this month:
> >
> >Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler 7CD
> >Leopod Stokowki The Stereo Collection, Vol. I 14CD
> >Leon Fleisher Plays Beethoven & Brahms [concertos with Szell] 5CD

> >Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD

> >Erich Leinsdorf Conducts Beethoven Symphonies [with BSO] 5CD

> >Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD

> >Marek Janowski Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 14CD
> >Guarneri Quartet Plays Mozart Quartets 6CD
> >Leonard Slatkin Conducts Tchaikovsky Ballets [with SLSO] 6CD
> >Paul Crossley Debussy Complete Works for Solo Piano 4CD
>

> The Guarneris' RCA Mozart is excellent - this is an attractive box.

I agree on their quartets. But here's the thing. The set contains:

--The six quartets dedicated to Haydn (just coming out of a budget
release of their own); and
--The string quintets.

The Prussian quartets that they did (just two? or all three?) have never
appeared on CD, to my knowledge, and aren't included here. Those are at
least on a par with their quartets dedicated to Haydn.

SE.

[Oscar]

On Feb 10, 11:56 am, Steve de Mena wrote:
>
> > I think that it's about time they issued these in SACD format
> > worldwide, at a reasonable price.  They've been available in Japan for
> > several years (at a fairly unreasonable price); I have the 3rd, and it
> > sounds fantastic.
>

> Not economically feasible. The enthusiasts will buy it from Japan.

Correct. Sony abandoned SACD as a company-wide initiative in 2005.

[Doug McDonald]

SACD? SACD is a surround sound medium. Are people
proposing that Sony remix their ultra-multimiked mastertapes
to surround or pseudo-surround? Many of the early ones listed
are certainly 2-channel ... there's no point is SACD for those.

I recently bought about 10 new SACDs including Bis,
Hyperion, Chandos, and Pentatone ones. The surround
sound is highly variable in nature, sometimes near imperceptible,
and even the overall sound quality is variable (especially
the Pentatone ones.)

Doug McDonald

[William Sommerwerck]

"Doug McDonald" <mcdo...@scs.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:jh4i4d$nn2$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 2/10/2012 7:16 PM, Oscar wrote:
> > On Feb 10, 11:56 am, Steve de Mena wrote:

> SACD? SACD is a surround-sound medium.

It can be stereo-only. You can get five hours or so of stereo on a single
disk. BIS has a Bach organ-works set like this.

> Are people
> proposing that Sony remix their ultra-multimiked mastertapes
> to surround or pseudo-surround? Many of the early ones listed
> are certainly 2-channel ... there's no point is SACD for those.

Columbia produced at least 100 -- probably 200 -- surround-sound classical
LPs using the SQ matrix. Only one or two have been reissued in multi-ch
SACD. Most of these haven't even been reissued on CD.


> I recently bought about 10 new SACDs, including BIS,
> Hyperion, Chandos, and PentaTone ones. The surround

> sound is highly variable in nature, sometimes near imperceptible,
> and even the overall sound quality is variable (especially

> the PentaTone ones).

If you shut off the rear channels, you should have no trouble hearing the
reduction in quality.

[operafan]

On Feb 10, 9:00 pm, Doug McDonald <mcdon...@scs.uiuc.edu> wrote:

> SACD? SACD is a surround sound medium. Are people
> proposing that Sony remix their ultra-multimiked mastertapes
> to surround or pseudo-surround? Many of the early ones listed
> are certainly 2-channel ... there's no point is SACD for those.

Yes, SACD can be multichannel, but as you note, there are 2-channel
SACDs. Some of these are remastered old 2-channel (or even mono)
recordings, while others (e.g, the Mahler recordings by Honeck on
Exton) are new. The advantage is that SACDs have much higher
resolution than redbook CDs. This can definitely improve some of the
older recordings. And I think you will have a hard time finding many
redbook CDs that equal the sound on those Honeck recordings.

Concerning older recordings, Sony and Phillips and EMI all made "quad"
recordings in the 1970s (and RCA did a few, too). Some of them have
been reissued as multichannel SACDs (e.g., Ravel with Boulez/NY Phil,
E. Power Biggs playing 4 Bach organ pieces in a cathedral with the
organs in 4 corners. And there were a number of 3-channel recordings
made in the late 50s by Mercury and RCA that have now been reissued as
3-channel SACDs. The RCAs are still easy to find and very cheap, even
though they are out of print--and many of them sound great.

[Alan Cooper]

Steve Emerson <eme...@n-n-nospamsonic.net> wrote in
news:emersn-BC6E2B....@nnrp-virt.nntp.sonic.net:

> In article <jh0pi...@drn.newsguy.com>,
> Paul Goldstein <pgol...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <d96c8405-755a-49d4...@vd8g2000pbc.googlegroups.c
>> om>, Oscar says...

>> The Guarneris' RCA Mozart is excellent - this is an attractive
>> box.
>
> I agree on their quartets. But here's the thing. The set
> contains:
>
> --The six quartets dedicated to Haydn (just coming out of a
> budget
> release of their own); and
> --The string quintets.
>
> The Prussian quartets that they did (just two? or all three?)
> have never appeared on CD, to my knowledge, and aren't included
> here. Those are at least on a par with their quartets dedicated
> to Haydn.

All three, reissued on ArkivCD. The K589/590 coupling was one of their two
debut LPs (the other coupled Smetana #1 w/Dvorak op. 105), and the Gramophone
reviewer's characterization ("distinguished Mozart playng indeed") is no
exaggeration. K575 was recorded about five years later, and I was never as
enamored of it as of the other two works, although it's more than listenable.

AC

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Rich <chon...@comcast.net> appears to have caused the following letters
to be typed in news:7ebae3de-2ae0-443e-a0f1-
92375c...@n8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com:

Maybe they're just dumb and lazy?

[Steve de Mena]

On 2/10/12 6:00 PM, Doug McDonald wrote:
> On 2/10/2012 7:16 PM, Oscar wrote:
>> On Feb 10, 11:56 am, Steve de Mena wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think that it's about time they issued these in SACD format
>>>> worldwide, at a reasonable price. They've been available in Japan for
>>>> several years (at a fairly unreasonable price); I have the 3rd,
>>>> and it
>>>> sounds fantastic.
>>>
>>> Not economically feasible. The enthusiasts will buy it from Japan.
>>
>> Correct. Sony abandoned SACD as a company-wide initiative in 2005.
>>
>
> SACD? SACD is a surround sound medium. Are people
> proposing that Sony remix their ultra-multimiked mastertapes
> to surround or pseudo-surround? Many of the early ones listed
> are certainly 2-channel ... there's no point is SACD for those.

Bzzzzzt. Wrong.

> I recently bought about 10 new SACDs including Bis,
> Hyperion, Chandos, and Pentatone ones. The surround
> sound is highly variable in nature, sometimes near imperceptible,
> and even the overall sound quality is variable (especially
> the Pentatone ones.)

Wow, I would have thought they'd all sound identical.... (?)

>
> Doug McDonald

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

On 2/11/12 12:55 AM, Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> Rich<chon...@comcast.net> appears to have caused the following letters
> to be typed in news:7ebae3de-2ae0-443e-a0f1-
> 92375c...@n8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com:
>
>> On Feb 9, 5:19 am, Oscar<oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Coming later this month:
>>>
>>> Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler 7CD
>>> Leopod Stokowki The Stereo Collection, Vol. I 14CD

>>> Leon Fleisher Plays Beethoven& Brahms [concertos with Szell] 5CD

>>> Murray Perahia Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 12CD
>>> Erich Leinsdorf Conducts Beethoven Symphonies [with BSO] 5CD
>>> Leonard Bernstein The Complete Mahler Symphonies [again] 12CD
>>> Marek Janowski Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 14CD
>>> Guarneri Quartet Plays Mozart Quartets 6CD
>>> Leonard Slatkin Conducts Tchaikovsky Ballets [with SLSO] 6CD
>>> Paul Crossley Debussy Complete Works for Solo Piano 4CD
>>
>> These have a release date of 21 Feb and neither Sony or Amazon have
>> done anything to promote the event. Maybe their research shows that
>> heavy advertising won't make much difference in projected sales.
>> Still, how much can it cost to give advance notice on the web? I
>> chanced upon the Perahia issue while searching Amazon.
>>
>> Rich
>
> Maybe they're just dumb and lazy?

I think browsing new releases on web sites like Amazon, MDT, Presto,
etc is how classical music enthusiasts learn about new releases. If
you're expecting billboards in Times Square or radio or TV spots it's
not going to happen.

Sorry to disappoint you guys but they have them on their web site:

http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters

Steve

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:CsqdneKGmNqZwqvS...@giganews.com:

I don't know about Times Square, but it was something of a big deal when
Capitol Records paid for a billboard on Hollywood Boulevard advertising
Karajan's (stereo) recording of "Die Meistersinger." Of course, that WAS
forty years ago, give or take.

> Sorry to disappoint you guys but they have them on their web site:
>
> http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>
> Steve

Oh, of course, klassik.sonymusic.de is the very FIRST place one should look
to find out about new releases. Why in the name of all that's holy can't
they be bothered to put it at www.sonymasterworks.com as well? And letting
Amazon.com customers know about them wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[Paul Goldstein]

In article <emersn-BC6E2B....@nnrp-virt.nntp.sonic.net>, Steve
Emerson says...

You're right, Steve. That is a dumb omission.

[Mark S]

On Feb 11, 4:28 am, Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> wrote:

> http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>
> Steve


From the number of ongoing new releases in this series, I'd assume
this series has been a success for Sony.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Mark S <markst...@yahoo.com> appears to have caused the following letters
to be typed in news:0aad2aa8-eb88-44a3-864b-5c384652ff86
@h3g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:

They might make even more money if they bothered to publicize it better.

[Mark S]

On Feb 11, 11:39 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> appears to have caused the following letters

> to be typed in news:0aad2aa8-eb88-44a3-864b-5c384652ff86
> @h3g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
>
> > On Feb 11, 4:28 am, Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> wrote:
>
> >>http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>
> >> Steve
>
> > From the number of ongoing new releases in this series, I'd assume
> > this series has been a success for Sony.
>
> They might make even more money if they bothered to publicize it better.
>
> --

It's probably a Catch 22 situation where there isn't enough of a
profit margin to allow heavier promotion.

On the other hand, everybody at rmcr seems well aware of the series,
and I'd assume we are the target audience for this product. Perhaps
Sony is doing just fine with this series through viral marketing.

[Gerard]

Mark S <markst...@yahoo.com> typed:

30 - 40 people are Sony's target?
Amazing.

[Steve de Mena]

I wonder how many less copies of Die Meistersinger they would have
sold without that Hollywood Blvd billboard?

>
>> Sorry to disappoint you guys but they have them on their web site:
>>
>> http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>>
>> Steve
>
> Oh, of course, klassik.sonymusic.de is the very FIRST place one should look
> to find out about new releases. Why in the name of all that's holy can't
> they be bothered to put it at www.sonymasterworks.com as well? And letting
> Amazon.com customers know about them wouldn't be a bad idea either.

This is a European Sony reissue series. I wouldn't expect it to be on
the www.sonymasterworks.com US page.

Amazon.com has a Classical new releases page.

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

I've certainly bought many of them! Via some foreign sources, or from
Amazon marketplace sellers after they are released, the prices are
killer!

Steve

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> appears to have caused the following

letters to be typed in news:GJCdnSYzwv_K56rS...@giganews.com:

Oh, of course, it was just a stunt, probably done to make the artist happy,
like throwing a release party or a dinner in his honor. I'm pretty sure
that Karajan didn't do recreational drugs, so there was room in the budget.

>>> Sorry to disappoint you guys but they have them on their web site:
>>>
>>> http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>>>
>>> Steve
>>
>> Oh, of course, klassik.sonymusic.de is the very FIRST place one should
>> look to find out about new releases. Why in the name of all that's
>> holy can't they be bothered to put it at www.sonymasterworks.com as
>> well? And letting Amazon.com customers know about them wouldn't be a
>> bad idea either.
>
> This is a European Sony reissue series. I wouldn't expect it to be on
> the www.sonymasterworks.com US page.

Too bad, especially as you are fond of pointing out that it doesn't matter
where in the world something is released, so long as we can get it here.

> Amazon.com has a Classical new releases page.

Which seems to be about half "purty gurlz," Bo-Bo the Singing Vibrator, and
the like. But then, sadly, that's the nature of the business these days.

> Steve

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 8:17 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:

> >>> Sorry to disappoint you guys but they have them on their web site:
>
> >>>http://klassik.sonymusic.de/Musik/Serie/TZ/Sony_Classical_Masters
>
> >>> Steve
>
> >> Oh, of course, klassik.sonymusic.de is the very FIRST place one should
> >> look to find out about new releases.  Why in the name of all that's
> >> holy can't they be bothered to put it atwww.sonymasterworks.comas
> >> well?  And letting Amazon.com customers know about them wouldn't be a
> >> bad idea either.
>
> > This is a European Sony reissue series. I wouldn't expect it to be on

> > thewww.sonymasterworks.comUS page.

>
> Too bad, especially as you are fond of pointing out that it doesn't matter
> where in the world something is released, so long as we can get it here.
>
> > Amazon.com has a Classical new releases page.
>
> Which seems to be about half "purty gurlz," Bo-Bo the Singing Vibrator, and
> the like.  But then, sadly, that's the nature of the business these days.
>

But Matthew, isn't the reality that people who purchase classical
recordings with any kind of regularity or in any kind of volume learn
pretty quickly that they cannot depend on mass-market-oriented sources
to keep up with all of the releases available? Don't classical
consumers sort of wear as a badge of honor the fact that they need to
reference obscure sources to keep abreast of the release schedule?

Back in the pre-internet days, lots of American classical music buffs
read Stereo Review and High Fidelity, both of which contained a
handful of classical reviews and a few print ads featuring new
classical releases. But to really keep up, one had a subscription to
Gramophone, which was jammed packed with classical reviews and also
featured the invaluable release schedule from all the record companies
in the back pages, many of which were featured in ads printed in the
magazine.

In the past, I took a look at the Sony Classical USA website. It was
pathetic and worthless, so I wrote it off. Why bother going there
again? Why waste my time surfing to a website that I know is useless
unless I sort of enjoy getting pissed off over and over again by the
same thing?

Steve is correct in stating the obvious - that these days one can
order whatever they want from almost anywhere in the world when it
comes to CDs. So why bitch about the way a particular release is or
isn't promoted in a particular territory? Why get pissed off when one
can simply order a disc from outside the USA and have it in their
hands within a few weeks time, at most? That's a lot quicker delivery
time than a month of Sundays of complaining will ever get you.

These days. I check the "Future release" sections at MDT and Presto to
learn what's scheduled for release. One can even check on amazon
simply by doing a search for "classical in music" and sorting the
results by Release Date. Truth is, I'm really not concerned whether or
not the classical labels aren't marketing to some imagined audience
that exists outside of the knowledgeable collector. I'm busy finding
out what interests ME by referencing sources that get me info I want.
I'm comfortable with that because I know that any $ the classical biz
spent at this point in time to attract some new or expanded audience
for what are at best esoteric recordings would never be recouped by
sales of the same, and that would only serve to undercut what I want
from the classical labels, which is a steady stream of choices at
reasonable prices.

With such easy and well-known methods available to keep up on releases
today, why should the labels spend (waste?) advertising dollars on
promotional efforts that are going to be missed by 90% of their
intended audience and ineffective on the hoped-for new audiences that
do happen to see them? I'd rather they put that money back into more
new releases.

[wagnerfan]

Back in the good old days High Fidelity had more "than a handful" of
revews. No they didn't have the listing of things to come that
Gramophone had but they and Stereo Review did have Fall previews of
new releases . FWIW I found the reviews in High Fidleity far superior
to to those in Gramophone. Wagner fabn

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 9:16 am, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>  Back in the good old days High Fidelity had more "than a handful" of
> revews. No they didn't have the listing of things to come that
> Gramophone had but they and Stereo Review did have Fall previews of
> new releases . FWIW I found the reviews in High Fidleity far superior
> to to those in Gramophone.  Wagner fabn

HF never had more than a handful of classical reviews when compared to
Gramophone. How could they? They - along with SR - existed basically
to promote/review stereo equipment, not music. And a Fall preview of
expected new releases (many of which never were released or recorded,
BTW) can hardly compete with the old monthly Gramophone listing of
actual releases.

I read all of those magazines, but I always looked to Gramophone to
keep up with the release schedule, and to read reviews of new product
in a more-timely manner, as HF & SR reviews of the same recordings
often lagged months behind what Gramophone offered (mainly because so
many classical recording got released in Europe first back in the day,
with the US release coming some time later).

[wagnerfan]

Well I just did a quick check though some High Fideilty magazines
from the mid 60s -

Jan 64 - 94 reviews
Feb 64 - 132 reviews
March 110 reviews

So if this was just a "handful": compared to Gramophone, i can only
assume that magazine had about 1,000 reviews per issue???? Wagner Fan

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 10:24 am, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>  Well I just did a quick check though some High Fideilty magazines
> from the mid 60s -
>
> Jan 64 - 94 reviews
> Feb 64 - 132 reviews
> March 110 reviews
>
> So if this was just a "handful": compared to Gramophone, i can only
> assume that magazine had about 1,000 reviews per issue????  Wagner Fan

Wow! And those were all classical reviews? If so, I stand corrected, I
guess.

BTW - did you actually sit there and count those? I don't know how
that would compare to Gramophone from the same era, but I'd think
Gramophone would still come out ahead.

[Kip Williams]

Mark S wrote:
> In the past, I took a look at the Sony Classical USA website. It was
> pathetic and worthless, so I wrote it off. Why bother going there
> again? Why waste my time surfing to a website that I know is useless
> unless I sort of enjoy getting pissed off over and over again by the
> same thing?

I got a gift certificate for iTunes and have spent more time in the last
couple of days looking for something to buy than I had in my life up to
now. They don't believe in making it easy. You have to go in through
your iTunes app, and navigating is a slow process from one unhelpful
screen to the next. You can't open a second window, just slowly click
back (using the mouse, of course — who could EVER want to navigate with
their KEYBOARD?) and then move forward on a different path.

Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen and
the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn money at
all.


Kip W

[wagnerfan]

I have a complete bound set of High Magazine magazine from its
inception through about 1984 when it was already near dead.I included
everything since Gramaphone also reviews non-classical but if you want
to stick with just classical - the 1964 High Fidelity compendium
Records in Review has almost 600 reviews. Now these are just new
reviews and do not include many reissues or reviews scattered in other
artcles which were in the magazine that year. I just needed to correct
the impression you were giving that High Fidelity hardly reviewed
anything compared to Gramophone - just ain't so McGee!!! Wagner fab

[Kip Williams]

Kirk McElhearn wrote:

> On 2012-02-12 18:38:02 +0000, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> said:
>
>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>> money at all.
>

> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.

I can search. I just need to know exactly what I'm searching for. I can
browse by artist, if it's one of the artists they offer in a large dump
of performer and group names — which it seems to think are all
classical. Ha. Or I can search by the artist.

What I can't do is wander freely and let serendipity take place. There
will be NO serendipity on their watch.


Kip W

[Ray Hall]

Kip Williams wrote:
> Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>> On 2012-02-12 18:38:02 +0000, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>>> money at all.
>>
>> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>
> I can search. I just need to know exactly what I'm searching for. I can
> browse by artist, if it's one of the artists they offer in a large dump
> of performer and group names — which it seems to think are all
> classical. Ha. Or I can search by the artist.

I only look for what I need, which is becoming increasingly more
difficult with a large collection. The industry have worked this out
very well, and so don't spend heaps on advertising to a very small
market, many of whom know what they want, and what they don't.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Kirk McElhearn <kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com> appears to have caused the

following letters to be typed in

news:4f382fa8$0$637$426a...@news.free.fr:

> On 2012-02-12 21:26:26 +0000, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com>

> said:
>
>>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>>> money at all.
>>

>> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>

> And, by the way, you mentioned not being able to open new windows. I
> think what you want to do is hover your cursor over an album cover,
> then click on the i to display the contents of an album and listen to
> previews. That way you don't have to change windows at all, unless you
> want to read reviews.
>
> Kirk

Who would want to read those reviews? They're worthless.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:fGTZq.15426$DZ1....@newsfe07.iad:

Sheesh! Has Apple still not replaced Andy Doe, who was hired by Naxos?

[Steve de Mena]

If that is supposed to be a valid argument, I think it fails.
Amazon.com is the venue for advertising and selling recordings from
anywhere in the world. It's not the role of a U.S. arm of Sony to
promote recordings from Europe or Japan or Korea or Australia that
will potentially take away from sales that are recorded on their own
country's profit & loss statements.

>
>> Amazon.com has a Classical new releases page.
>
> Which seems to be about half "purty gurlz," Bo-Bo the Singing Vibrator, and
> the like. But then, sadly, that's the nature of the business these days.

So Amazon doesn't list all classical new releases? I thought it was
simply a database query based on genre and date.

This search for new releases of classical titles for the week of
February 21st:
http://amzn.to/zASPJr

Are you claiming releases featuring artists who are not attractive are
filtered out? I see Bruno Walter and Leon Fleisher on Page 1, are they
"purty guyz"?

Or is this in fact a pretty all-encompassing list of classical
releases Amazon carries, regardless of country of origin, popularity
of repertoire, or size of the record label?

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

On 2/12/12 10:53 AM, wagnerfan wrote:

>> BTW - did you actually sit there and count those? I don't know how
>> that would compare to Gramophone from the same era, but I'd think
>> Gramophone would still come out ahead.
> I have a complete bound set of High Magazine magazine from its
> inception through about 1984 when it was already near dead.I included
> everything since Gramaphone also reviews non-classical but if you want
> to stick with just classical - the 1964 High Fidelity compendium
> Records in Review has almost 600 reviews. Now these are just new
> reviews and do not include many reissues or reviews scattered in other
> artcles which were in the magazine that year. I just needed to correct
> the impression you were giving that High Fidelity hardly reviewed
> anything compared to Gramophone - just ain't so McGee!!! Wagner fab

"I included everything since Gramaphone also reviews non-classical."

Now come on .... you know that is a half truth if not a downright lie.
Gramophone had small sections devoted to some lighter music,
soundtracks, etc, but this was a definite minority. If Elton John or
David Bowie or one of the ex-Beatles had a new release in the 70s I
didn't look in Gramophone to find a review, and I doubt they reviewed
any recordings by those artists except perhaps at the beginning of the
Compact Disc era in their audiophile section.

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

Type a composer and/or artist in the search box and you're done.
Voila! Was that hard?

I'm sure you were one of the ones who loved brick and mortar stores,
which involved making a trip to a physical store and trying to find
releases by their crude Composer filing system which had trouble
dealing with multiple works on an album (Schubert 8th and Mendelssohn
Italian on one album... where would you find it? Mendelssohn?
Schubert? Compilations under the conductor's name? Under Beethoven
because someone decided not to buy it so stuck it in the first bin
they saw??)

Itunes, a breeze.

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

On 2/12/12 1:26 PM, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
> On 2012-02-12 18:38:02 +0000, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> said:
>

>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you
>> start, or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash
>> screen and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend
>> the damn money at all.
>

> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>

> Kirk

Kirk, some people just like to complain....

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

I "cross-search" a lot with multiple browser tabs. For example, I'll
browse eBay's classical listings randomly and if I see interesting
titles I'll search for them on Amazon and often pick it up new or used
cheaper. I look at ArkivCD's newest CD-R release list and do the
same. I'll see an OOP title they've reissued at $15 and then look
elsewhere and find a Like New actual CD on Amazon for $5.

If you want to buy some iTunes downloads & don't like their search or
browse methods, browse/search listings from Amazon or another service
and then see if they're available on iTunes.

Think outside the box!

Then tell me how the old brick and mortar days were better....

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

Sounds like pilot error. We have the entire WORLD now on the internet
to search from. If you think things were better or more easier 20-30
years ago then I don't know what to say.....

Steve

[wagnerfan]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:24:12 -0800, Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com>
wrote:

Easy there cowboy - I later amended it to just classical by going thru
Records in Review. The notion that High Fidleity reviewed a handful of
recordings next to gramophone is clealry wrong but if you want to
believe it, go for it. Wagner Fan

[Gerard]

Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> typed:

That's quite easy.
You have a look at what that have; and if there's anything you like, you buy it
and take it with you.
Next time you visit the store, you can do the same.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Ray Hall" <raymon...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:jh9oce$spa$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> I only look for what I need, which is becoming increasingly more
> difficult with a large collection. The industry have worked this out
> very well, and so don't spend heaps on advertising to a very small
> market, many of whom know what they want, and what they don't.

Advertising on the Web costs almost nothing.

It's odd that Arkiv -- or for that matter, any of the other classical Web
retailers -- doesn't invite record labels to set up their own pages within
the retailer's site.

[Steve de Mena]

Like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Deutsche-Grammophon-Music-Label-Collection/b?ie=UTF8&node=886976

http://amzn.to/w2uGiZ

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

Don't twist my words. This "cowboy" said Gramophone contains
predominantly classical genre reviews. Period.

I made no comment on High Fidelity's review content.

Steve

[William Sommerwerck]

"Steve de Mena" <st...@demena.com> wrote in message
news:aOOdnRrcOIezlqTS...@giganews.com...

>> It's odd that Arkiv -- or for that matter, any of the other classical Web
>> retailers -- doesn't invite record labels to set up their own pages
within
>> the retailer's site.

> Like this?
>
http://www.amazon.com/Deutsche-Grammophon-Music-Label-Collection/b?ie=UTF8&node=886976

Yes and no. The Amazon 20/21 page shows only currently available titles. The
DG Website's page shows (apparently) every title.

[wkasimer]

On Feb 13, 8:38 am, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:

> Yes and no. The Amazon 20/21 page shows only currently available titles. The
> DG Website's page shows (apparently) every title.

Why would DG want their Amazon site to show titles that aren't
available?

Bill

[Kip Williams]

Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> Kirk McElhearn<kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in
> news:4f382fa8$0$637$426a...@news.free.fr:
>
>> On 2012-02-12 21:26:26 +0000, Kirk McElhearn<kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com>
>> said:
>>
>>>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>>>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>>>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>>>> money at all.
>>>
>>> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>>
>> And, by the way, you mentioned not being able to open new windows. I
>> think what you want to do is hover your cursor over an album cover,
>> then click on the i to display the contents of an album and listen to
>> previews. That way you don't have to change windows at all, unless you
>> want to read reviews.
>

> Who would want to read those reviews? They're worthless.

The hovertext is marginally helpful, at least, by making track listings
available. You still have to guess a lot about composers and performers
apart from whichever one they decide to mention.

At any rate, I found enough stuff to use up the gift cert, and since
they're pretty expensive in general, I don't think I'll be going back much.

Don't know why I didn't intuit that I was supposed to hover over an
album cover until a tiny "i" became visible and then click on the tiny
"i." Thanks for pointing it out, Kirk.


Kip W

[Kip Williams]

Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> Kip Williams<mrk...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in news:fGTZq.15426$DZ1....@newsfe07.iad:
>

>> I got a gift certificate for iTunes and have spent more time in the last
>> couple of days looking for something to buy than I had in my life up to
>> now. They don't believe in making it easy. You have to go in through your
>> iTunes app, and navigating is a slow process from one unhelpful screen to
>> the next. You can't open a second window, just slowly click back (using
>> the mouse, of course — who could EVER want to navigate with their
>> KEYBOARD?) and then move forward on a different path.
>>
>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start, or
>> be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen and the
>> one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn money at all.
>

> Sheesh! Has Apple still not replaced Andy Doe, who was hired by Naxos?

No idea. If I was allowed to look at the iTunes page through my browser
instead of it determinedly pushing me to look at it through the
application, I'd have a somewhat easier time of it, at least. I could
keep windows open while I go look at other ones. I finally started
wishlisting everything I was somewhat interested in and then adding to
or trimming from the list until I could spend the card, more or less. I
think they still have eleven cents of mine to blow on frivolities when
they're sure I'm not coming back for it.


Kip W

[William Sommerwerck]

"wkasimer" <wkas...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:47d60311-3e74-4596...@j14g2000vba.googlegroups.com...

By the same reasoning... Why would they show out-of-print titles on their
own Website?

[Kip Williams]

Steve de Mena wrote:
> On 2/12/12 10:38 AM, Kip Williams wrote:
>>
>> I got a gift certificate for iTunes and have spent more time in the
>> last couple of days looking for something to buy than I had in my life
>> up to now. They don't believe in making it easy. You have to go in
>> through your iTunes app, and navigating is a slow process from one
>> unhelpful screen to the next. You can't open a second window, just
>> slowly click back (using the mouse, of course — who could EVER want to
>> navigate with their KEYBOARD?) and then move forward on a different path.
>>
>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>> money at all.
>

> Type a composer and/or artist in the search box and you're done. Voila!
> Was that hard?

It wasn't what I wanted to do. Notice how I said "have to know exactly
what you want to buy before you start"? Hmmm, I think I'll go buy
something by Loren Hollander today! Yeah, that's how I shop.

> I'm sure you were one of the ones who loved brick and mortar stores,
> which involved making a trip to a physical store and trying to find
> releases by their crude Composer filing system which had trouble dealing
> with multiple works on an album (Schubert 8th and Mendelssohn Italian on
> one album... where would you find it? Mendelssohn? Schubert?
> Compilations under the conductor's name? Under Beethoven because someone
> decided not to buy it so stuck it in the first bin they saw??)

Yeah, I liked that fine. I could work my way through the stacks pretty
efficiently, and I often found things I had no idea existed. It's true I
had to get home before I could start listening to my LPs, and it was
still pretty much true of CDs, but the in-store experience was more to
my liking.

> Itunes, a breeze.

If you know what you're looking for, and don't mind being forced to look
at one thing at a time and not having more than one window open. Even in
terms of what I'm used to from emusic, iTunes is a shuffle down a dark
corridor that's only lit in the spot where I'm actually standing. I
can't even navigate with the keyboard, I have to take my hand off of it,
go to the mouse, go up to the corner and use the little bitty arrows up
there. How fucking hard would it have been to let me use left or right
arrows, perhaps along with a command key?

Who needs it? emusic costs less anyway. As far as having to search out a
place to discover names of artists and composers (used to be Amazon, but
they seem to have fired the guy who put that info up), they're about equal.


Kip W

[Kip Williams]

Steve de Mena wrote:
> On 2/12/12 1:26 PM, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>> On 2012-02-12 18:38:02 +0000, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you
>>> start, or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash
>>> screen and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend
>>> the damn money at all.
>>
>> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>

> Kirk, some people just like to complain....

No, I like to browse. Racking my brains for names of artists or etc. is
not my idea of fun. It's shocking, I know, but artist name is not what I
shop by.


Kip W

[wkasimer]

On Feb 13, 9:06 am, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>

wrote:

> >> Yes and no. The Amazon 20/21 page shows only currently available titles.
> >> The DG Website's page shows (apparently) every title.
> > Why would DG want their Amazon site to show titles that aren't
> > available?
>
> By the same reasoning... Why would they show out-of-print titles on their
> own Website?

People go to Amazon to buy things. The expectation is that if it's
listed on DG's Amazon site, it's available for purchase. I don't have
that same expectation when I visit DG's own site.

Bill

[Kip Williams]

Steve de Mena wrote:
> On 2/12/12 1:55 PM, Kip Williams wrote:
>> Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>>> On 2012-02-12 18:38:02 +0000, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> said:
>>>
>>>> Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
>>>> or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
>>>> and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
>>>> money at all.
>>>
>>> Or search. Or browse by artist, etc.
>>
>> I can search. I just need to know exactly what I'm searching for. I
>> can browse by artist, if it's one of the artists they offer in a large
>> dump of performer and group names — which it seems to think are all
>> classical. Ha. Or I can search by the artist.
>>
>> What I can't do is wander freely and let serendipity take place. There
>> will be NO serendipity on their watch.
>

> I "cross-search" a lot with multiple browser tabs. For example, I'll
> browse eBay's classical listings randomly and if I see interesting
> titles I'll search for them on Amazon and often pick it up new or used
> cheaper. I look at ArkivCD's newest CD-R release list and do the same.
> I'll see an OOP title they've reissued at $15 and then look elsewhere
> and find a Like New actual CD on Amazon for $5.
>
> If you want to buy some iTunes downloads & don't like their search or
> browse methods, browse/search listings from Amazon or another service
> and then see if they're available on iTunes.
>
> Think outside the box!

I did searches (at iTunes) on "piano transcription" and "piano version"
and similar phrasings, which gave me pages of stamps that were at least
partly relevant. Then I used Kirk's suggestion of hover, find the speck,
and click on it to read the partial information they had and click on
their (sometimes generously long) audio samples. I used the wishlist
feature to hold things for later consideration.

> Then tell me how the old brick and mortar days were better....

Online has some advantages, not least of them the fact that I can listen
to stuff right away. The only brick and mortar store that compares in
selection is probably the Barnes & Noble here, which is kind of sad.
Clearly, brick and mortar won't come to my rescue, and it's probably
just as well. This way, I'm just putting new stuff into digital storage
places instead of filling up another shelf somewhere. That may turn out
to be the biggest advantage of all, some day when I've dropped dead and
my daughter will only have two tons of junk to get rid of instead of four.


Kip W

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following

letters to be typed in news:6O8_q.17098$Ep3....@newsfe08.iad:

But you're SUPPOSED to buy according to artists. The Recording Industry
High Command has issued that order time and again. Have you been an
obedient money-generating-object and bought your "Adele" recordings yet?
The constant drumbeat of "This is the artist whose songs you are required
to buy" reached its height last night, and will only die down after a new
flavor-of-the-month has been determined.

The pop music world is like an alien race sometimes; they work by some
logic that I don't seem to be able to understand. The idea of choosing a
composer, and then a work, and then being able to decide from a variety of
different performers (or even the same performers in a variety of different
circumstances) is utterly alien to them. They just don't seem to like it.
And Steve Jobs, rather than lead the way, blindly followed the same path.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:ZP-dnZ0Q8KxZSqXS...@giganews.com:

Did I just hear my name?

[Matthew B. Tepper]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzle...@comcast.net> appears to have caused
the following letters to be typed in news:jhb5an$ser$1...@dont-email.me:

And of course we all know that, as with books, when a recording goes out of
print it is supposed to vanish from the collective consciousness as though
it had never existed.

[Mark S]

I didn't comment when you made that post, but IIRC you said that RiR
contained 600 classical reviews. That works out to 50 classical new
release reviews per month, which is a pretty paltry sum when set
against Gramophone.

[wagnerfan]

Ok how many did Gramaphone review during that period per month and
was it that much more that Hi Fidelity could be deemed a "handful"
Wagner Fan

[Mark S]

On Feb 13, 3:14 am, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>

> It's odd that Arkiv -- or for that matter, any of the other classical Web
> retailers -- doesn't invite record labels to set up their own pages within
> the retailer's site.

Why would they do that and risk losing a sale at their site by giving
customers a click-thru to purchase a CD at some other site?

One of the big challenges to e-tailing is getting customers to stay on
your site and to make a purchase. It's just too easy for people to get
distracted on the web. You're on archiv music looking for a recording,
you find it, read the review...and then head over to read other
reviews at another site. Eventually you end up voting in a poll on
whether or not Paula Abdul should have been fired from her TV gig, and
a week later a set of Ginsu knives that you don't even remember
ordering shows up at your door.

Archiv music does have an associate program where arts organizations,
for instance, can put a hyperlink from their site to archiv music. I
set up one of those accounts when I worked at the Las Vegas
Philharmonic. Our patrons would come to our website where they could
find a list of recommended recordings of the rep we were playing that
season. They would click thru and end up at archiv music. We'd get a
cut of any purchase made that had a tag from our website in the drill
down.

[wagnerfan]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:54:34 -0500, wagnerfan <ivanm...@gmail.com>

All right I went to the Gramophone website and browsed throught he
June 1964 issue. I counted the reviews which would appear in the High
Fildiety Records inn Review, that is only independent reviews, not
embedded in other larger articles and only classical. I came up wth
approximately 60 reviews - there were quite a few more in Spoken word
and folk and others.
Now Gramophone may have had more one month than High Fidelity and less
the next - my point was that I wanted to correct the impression you
were giving that High Fidelity reviewed next to nothing compared to
Gramophone. Having gone through many of those back issues when I was
growing up (since the writing is leagues better than today) it just
didn't sound right - thats all. Can we call it a day???? Wagner Fan

[Gerard]

wagnerfan <ivanm...@gmail.com> typed:

The day that you growed up?

[Kip Williams]

Matthew B. Tepper wrote:

> The pop music world is like an alien race sometimes; they work by some
> logic that I don't seem to be able to understand. The idea of choosing a
> composer, and then a work, and then being able to decide from a variety of
> different performers (or even the same performers in a variety of different
> circumstances) is utterly alien to them. They just don't seem to like it.
> And Steve Jobs, rather than lead the way, blindly followed the same path.

I made use of the "search" feature, which is sophisticated enough that I
could say "bach piano" and get (I think) all the ones with bach AND
piano in the name and immediate descriptions, though it failed on "gould
brandenburg" for some reason. This beats emusic, which will ignore the
first word and bring up 4,233 matches for the second.

It just happens, though, that I'm not usually even organized in my
desires to want to search for a composer, unless I've been fired up by
something I read here or stumbled over by accident somewhere else. Alas,
I am not -efficient- in my shopping habits.

If I wasn't busy with this class, maybe I'd go to the cheap (and
somewhat smelly!) used book store and poke happily about some of the
shelves in a pleasant, low-stakes sort of way.


Kip W

[richard...@gmail.com]

On Feb 13, 4:27 am, Steve de Mena <st...@demena.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/12 10:38 AM, Kip Williams wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> > Mark S wrote:
> >> In the past, I took a look at the Sony Classical USA website. It was
> >> pathetic and worthless, so I wrote it off. Why bother going there
> >> again? Why waste my time surfing to a website that I know is useless
> >> unless I sort of enjoy getting pissed off over and over again by the
> >> same thing?

>
> > I got a gift certificate for iTunes and have spent more time in the
> > last couple of days looking for something to buy than I had in my life
> > up to now. They don't believe in making it easy. You have to go in
> > through your iTunes app, and navigating is a slow process from one
> > unhelpful screen to the next. You can't open a second window, just
> > slowly click back (using the mouse, of course — who could EVER want to
> > navigate with their KEYBOARD?) and then move forward on a different path.
>

> > Either you have to know exactly what you want to buy before you start,
> > or be willing to go for whatever they throw up on the splash screen
> > and the one or two after it. I might never manage to spend the damn
> > money at all.
>

> > Kip W

>
> Type a composer and/or artist in the search box and you're done.
> Voila!  Was that hard?
>

> I'm sure you were one of the ones who loved brick and mortar stores,
> which involved making a trip to a physical store and trying to find
> releases by their crude Composer filing system which had trouble
> dealing with multiple works on an album (Schubert 8th and Mendelssohn
> Italian on one album... where would you find it? Mendelssohn?
> Schubert? Compilations under the conductor's name? Under Beethoven
> because someone decided not to buy it so stuck it in the first bin
> they saw??)
>

> Itunes, a breeze.
>
> Steve

I bought a lot of classical LPs at the Wherehouse, where they were
arranged by label and number. Schwann catalogs were widely available
around the store to help find stuff.
For a while J&R in New York operated similarly.
Richard