Purchases Today

[VonStupp]

That's a very nice set.

That is what I have heard. I have relatively few Szymanowski works on record; this should get me going! Thanks.

VS

[Florestan]

Well if Handel was silly enough to give it its own beginning and end in the score, what can you do?

Beethoven --- Beethoven, of all people --- instructed the pianist who was to premiere the Hammerklavier-Sonata to play it either as a whole or to cut it as he deemed convenient.

Rachmaninoff never played his Corelli Variations in their entirety, he always skipped several variations, according to the perceived mood of the audience.

I rest my case.

[ritter]

Just bought from musicexport in Greece, via Amazon.es:



This recent release includes the world première recording of Ravel's short and enigmatic Frontispice from 1918 (originally written for two pianos, five hands), in Pierre  Boulez's orchestration. I understand this is the version for full orchestra from 2007 (Boulez made a first arrangement for ensemble in 1987).

[Wanderer]

[Wanderer]

[Que]

A heads up for all concerned: I will be moving the discussion on streaming sites to an appropriate thread shortly.

[Traverso]

There are some cd/record shops, including big stores like Tower Records and Disk Union, in Tokyo. There are many classical, jazz, and world music discs there. People over 40 years old (some young as well) come there every weekend, and they make friends. There are many coffee shops around the record shops, and these 'weekend friends' discuss about music and discs they have bought at the cafes. Some people even take a bullet train for one hour, pay $50, and come to the stores on weekends.


https://maps.app.goo.gl/hm2ibHsdS3prjrvX6?g_st=ic

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rbGgqNt1C6f3Ht5k7?g_st=ic

That seems heaven to me 

Modern society with all its technological developments has isolated many. Shops have to close because many buy online. We are what we are, social beings who want to meet each other.
With efficiency, the opportunities to meet each other have decreased. In many poor countries, housewives do laundry together, give each a washing machine and see the impact on their social life. This is just an example.

[JBS]

Likely my last order of the year, from Presto.

[Florestan]

9. Track durations, anyone?!

Why would you want to know that? I thought you just listened to the whole thing without pause or interruption.   

[Madiel]

I had never heard of them before, so I did exactly that and: guess what? They don't understand classical music at all, really. They certainly don't seem to understand data management. No worse or better than the likes of Spotify, at any rate. Example in first screenshot below, taken pretty much at random.

1. There's a 'play album' button. I do compositions, not albums.
2. The three entirely separate compositions that are included in that boxed set are just thrown up in one giant listing, as if the CD they came on was of significance, somehow. I'd like separate listings for Billy Budd, Holy Sonnets and Songs and Proverbs. Decca's pairing insanity from the 1980s shouldn't govern my listening experience today.
3. Sir Peter Pears is mentioned, though he wasn't knighted until long after all the recordings on the CD were made. Oddly, Benjamin Britten isn't listed as Lord Britten, even though using his title would be just as valid (and just as anachronistic).
4. The composition name is repeated for every track (bad data normalisation)
5. There are track numbers (not needed when poisitonal placing is already present)
6. The listing of the Billy Budd tracks all have the words enclosed in quotation marks, entirely unnecessarily.
7. They leave the important stuff to the end of track titles (i.e., if I know I'm playing Billy Budd, I might want to find the 'Blow her away' sea shanty songs, but that is listed after "Britten • Billy Budd op. 50 (London 1961) • Act I • 15." Shrink your browser down so it's not displayed full screen and the important stuff you're after disappears off the side of the window. Personally, I wouldn't want to pick out individual tracks like that, but if they're going to provide the functionality, they could at least present the crucial information up-front, not buried in an avalanche of text.
8. For an opera, they list the characters singing in each track. I realise some people will like that, but I don't need to know which character is singing at any given time -and meanwhile, that's even more textual information clogging up the screen unnecessarily.
9. Track durations, anyone?!
10. The date of a recording is of greater cataloguing significance than the date of composition (because you will likely own multiple recordings of the same composition, and the recording year helps you tell one recording apart from another), yet "1945" is much more prominently visible than the 1967 recording date, which is only revealed when you click the 'down arrow' icon at the far right of a track.

All that said, they get their tempo markings correct (i.e., Allegro con brio, not Allegro Con Brio), which is refreshing. They also seem to link to the booklets associated with CDs (though not always, sadly), which makes them a very useful resource. I also like that when you click on 'Browse the Catalogue', you get a nicely curated set of composers by full name and with appropriate thumbnails (probably because that's exactly how I organise my own collection!). I could argue with the way they present the information, though: what's the difference between a 'popular composer' and 'more composers', for starters? I found it somewhat surprising that Claudio Monteverdi counts as 'popular' and Janáček is just a 'more', for example. And what sort order is applied, since 'Antonio Vivaldi' is listed after 'Johann Sebastian Bach' but before 'Ludwig van Beethoven' (which might make you think 'sorted by first name'), but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is listed before Joseph Haydn, which means it's not doing that at all.

Sad, too, to see that if you click on a composer from that list, you're taken to a page where suddenly the composer's name is presented in Librarian Card Index order (i.e., click on Igor Stravinsky and the next page will list him as Stravinsky, Igor.) Why? No idea: it doesn't appear to affect the listing order (see second screenshot below, where the order is 'Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Stafford Smith, Miscellaneous') so it can't be that they're trying to order the data in composer surname order. And what are those other names there for, anyway? I'm guessing they wrote music which is included on CDs where Stravinsky's music is also included, but it's not obvious why you'd want to know that, given you'd earlier made a positive choice to listen to some Stravinsky.

I also am not keen on the lack of selectability by genre unless you first select by composer. Suppose I want a violin concerto, but am not fussed whose? It may be do-able, but I couldn't find a genre filter until after I'd said 'something by Sibelius please'. I think that's inflexible.

So: thank you for the shout-out for Idagio, because I certainly think people should check them out for themselves. I'll definitely use them in the future for auditioning recordings before I buy them elsewhere. But I wouldn't want to depend on their metadata, which doesn't seem to me a great improvement over other similar services'. I also think €10 a month is a bit rich for a music rental service, but that's just because I'm mean, I guess. The ad-interrupted free plan seems good enough for a spot of auditioning of recordings, though.

Now, before you charge in with guns blazing: these are my findings for me. I'm not suggesting that the things which matter to me ought or must matter to anyone else; and I don't propose to debate them here, either. I thought it an intriguing recommendation of yours, so I checked it out and I'm glad I did ...but I won't be giving up music ownership any time soon, is all.

They also have the option to play compositions. Which is exactly what I do. The fact that you viewed an album and found a play album button just means you looked at albums rather than looking at composers and compositions.

I only mentioned it precisely BECAUSE it lets you view and play compositions. That box set? Can be viewed as entirely separate listings for each composition. But you saw it as the whole box set BECAUSE YOU SEARCHED FOR THE BOX SET. If you were on a composition page rather than album page you wouldn't be seeing an album.

After that I cannot be bothered. If you can't figure it out because you are so determined to be contrary, that's your problem.

[Florestan]

Of course I want to know how long a piece of music lasts. I can tell the other half 'tea is on the table at 7:15pm', for example; or 'I can't go to the shops for another 17 minutes'.

I should have thought that you already knew exactly how long Britten's Billy Budd lasted without relying on Idagio for that, and that you never started listening to it five minutes before tea or ten minutes after your other half told you to get dressed for going to shops.   

[Madiel]

@absolutelybaching a search for Billy Budd in Idagio readily brings up the page for the work. Listing 8 recordings of the work. Which will play as a work, not an album.

You're welcome.

[Madiel]

@absolutelybaching The top search result for Billy Budd when I search is the composer. The second search result is the work. You literally had to go past those to click on an album and get an album page.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

That seems heaven to me 

Modern society with all its technological developments has isolated many. Shops have to close because many buy online. We are what we are, social beings who want to meet each other.
With efficiency, the opportunities to meet each other have decreased. In many poor countries, housewives do laundry together, give each a washing machine and see the impact on their social life. This is just an example.

There are also some cafe bars playing classical music or Jazz with very good amps in Tokyo (and Osaka and Kyoto). Coffee costs around $5 and beer $8. Many people go there. I visit many of them when I am in Tokyo and Kyoto, drink a lot and spend a lot. 

[Traverso]

There are also some cafe bars playing classical music or Jazz with very good amps in Tokyo (and Osaka and Kyoto). Coffee costs around $5 and beer $8. Many people go there. I visit many of them when I am in Tokyo and Kyoto, drink a lot and spend a lot. 

No tea with a Geisha ? 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

No tea with a Geisha ? 

That's about $ 2-5000, only after a geisha approves your class (and looks). 

[Florestan]

That's about $ 2-5000, only after a geisha approves your class (and looks). 

I'll have a good ol' harlot, thank you!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I'll have a good ol' harlot, thank you!

I'll join with you. No disagreement at all here.

[Florestan]

I'll join with you. No disagreement at all here.

Hah!

[vandermolen]

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