What download have you bought?

[mahlerei]

I'll send you the recording dates and related details later today. However, though pretty extensive, the liner notes would be unlikely to tell you anything you do not already know.

That is true, but there are many listeners who would appreciate them. I have had a long-running battle with labels, distributors and DSPs about the lack of booklets. They either point the finger at someone else or come up with the most absurd axcuses. In principle ALL downloads should have the same documentation that you would get with the discs. In my reviews I always highlight the lack of documentation.

[PJPJ]

Super! Really well worth hearing.

[Richard Barrett]

That is true, but there are many listeners who would appreciate them.

I agree. Not everyone has a shelf full of Messiaen CDs plus books & scores etc., although Bryn correctly accuses me of being such a person.

[teamsaint]

That is true, but there are many listeners who would appreciate them. I have had a long-running battle with labels, distributors and DSPs about the lack of booklets. They either point the finger at someone else or come up with the most absurd axcuses. In principle ALL downloads should have the same documentation that you would get with the discs. In my reviews I always highlight the lack of documentation.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the digital files for liner notes and booklets for reissues often get lost, misfiled, whatever.
Once the files get lost, you then obviously need a hard copy to scan, and scanning seems, ( and I don't know why ) to be very expensive.

So where they are offering a download of material previously only offered in hard format, there is a decent chance that the material just isn't easily AND cheaply available . If the file is lost, then I can understand that in order to keep price sensitive box sets at particular price points, there may be a valid reason to just exclude the notes, but on a download , where there are such wildly varying price mechanisms, this seems a bit short sighted to me.
But I'd guess it would be down to a calculation on the likely profitability of each item. On downloads, you'd think that as they are are long term investment for the company, that including notes would actually help to drive sales.
Of course there may be other technical issues that I'm not aware of.

[Bryn]

I agree. Not everyone has a shelf full of Messiaen CDs plus books & scores etc., although Bryn correctly accuses me of being such a person.

On which matter, do you have the tome I linked to in #122, and/or the other two in her trilogy? If so, would you recommend them (strongly, that is).

[mahlerei]

ts

Sorry, but there is NO excuse for not including booklets with downloads. The costs of providing them is NEGLIGIBLE, as they have to exist in an electronic form to print the paper versions anyway. All that is then required are a few key strokes to convert those files to PDFs and submit them to the DSPs along with the audio ones. It really is that simple.

Part of the problems is that too many labels just couldn’t be bothered, especially when buyers seem happy to fork out for their product without the accompanying booklets. Those same buyers would probably baulk at a CD with just a cover image and nothing else. (True, some bargain reissues appear in that form, but mid- to full-price discs usually have documentation of some sort.)

Among the more risible excuses I’ve heard are that some labels believe downloadable booklets make it too easy for counterfeiters(!) to then append them to their fake CDs. (That doesn’t seem to worry BIS, Chandos, Hyperion or Naxos, whose documentation can be downloaded without even purchasing the audio files.) And the owner of a small UK label told me: ‘Oops, we forgot to include the booklet with the audio files [sent to the DSP]. In order to rectify that we’d have to withdraw the release and reissue it, and that would be daft.’ I kid you not.

[mahlerei]

Super! Really well worth hearing.

Indeed it is. And Praga's remastering of Monteux's classic LSO recording is a revelation, too. (Thanks for the steer on that one!)

[teamsaint]

ts

Sorry, but there is NO excuse for not including booklets with downloads. The costs of providing them is NEGLIGIBLE, as they have to exist in an electronic form to print the paper versions anyway. All that is then required are a few key strokes to convert those files to PDFs and submit them to the DSPs along with the audio ones. It really is that simple.

Part of the problems is that too many labels just couldn’t be bothered, especially when buyers seem happy to fork out for their product without the accompanying booklets. Those same buyers would probably baulk at a CD with just a cover image and nothing else. (True, some bargain reissues appear in that form, but mid- to full-price discs usually have documentation of some sort.)

Among the more risible excuses I’ve heard are that some labels believe downloadable booklets make it too easy for counterfeiters(!) to then append them to their fake CDs. (That doesn’t seem to worry BIS, Chandos, Hyperion or Naxos, whose documentation can be downloaded without even purchasing the audio files.) And the owner of a small UK label told me: ‘Oops, we forgot to include the booklet with the audio files [sent to the DSP]. In order to rectify that we’d have to withdraw the release and reissue it, and that would be daft.’ I kid you not.

Mahlerei, I'm not making excuses for companies that don't do the job. Far from it. No doubt it is too often down to cost cutting. No excuse at all if the file can be located, which in most cases it probably can be.
But in my own work, I see first had what happens when a digital file can't be located. The only option is to scan an original, if/ when one can be found, which seems to be an expensive process.
It really is all too easy to lose files. I've seen it happen , and it is easy to imagine that with a very big record company, where both music and notes files have to be kept, that losses can occur. Staff move, systems change, things get wrongly named etc etc.

Is it possible that some of the excuses are a cover for the more embarrassing " We've lost the file and it's too expensive to replicate it" response that might be nearer the truth ? But anyway, good work you are doing hammering the issue with them.

[jayne lee wilson]

That is true, but there are many listeners who would appreciate them. I have had a long-running battle with labels, distributors and DSPs about the lack of booklets. They either point the finger at someone else or come up with the most absurd axcuses. In principle ALL downloads should have the same documentation that you would get with the discs. In my reviews I always highlight the lack of documentation.

Of course they should..!
If like me your enthusiasm sometimes runs away with you and you buy a download forgetting to check if the notes come-with , you can sometimes find them free on the label website. PHI for example, have the booklet for that terrific Herreweghe Brahms 4th (with the significant orchestra member/number details) and, I think, the rest of their catalogue. OEHMS seem to have theirs all available too. But of course if they are accessible there it should be made clear when you buy the music!

[Nick Armstrong]

Monteux's classic LSO recording is a revelation, too.

Oh yes - this was the soundtrack to a recent French road-trip. Magnificent.

[DublinJimbo]

PHI for example, have the booklet for that terrific Herreweghe Brahms 4th (with the significant orchestra member/number details) and, I think, the rest of their catalogue.

But those booklets are stuck within the Issuu interface, without any possibility to download them that I see.

[jayne lee wilson]

But those booklets are stuck within the Issuu interface, without any possibility to download them that I see.

Under Mac File I just save them as "Web Archive"... you can bring them up very quickly then...

[Beef Oven!]

richardfinegold mentioning the Rachmaninov Piano Trios on the RachCelloSonBaL thread prompted me listen again to Copenhagen Trio performance last night. The music really got a grip on me and I decided to make a purchase of a download. Couldn’t find the Copenhagens on Qobuz, so I made do with a Hi-Res download of the Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskate, Daniil Trifonov version. Don’t know why I didn’t check Presto, classical etc - I guess Trifonov just sucked me in!

I haven’t listened to it yet, maybe this evening.

Does anyone have it already? Any views?

[Beef Oven!]

After reading some interesting posts on Lutoslawski on the 'The Rest Is Noise' thread, I took HighlanDougie’s suggestion and downloaded this Hi-Res recording from Qobuz.

I listened to the Concerto For Orchestra twice today, both by the Polish Radio National Orchestra, one conducted by Antoni Wit and the other by the composer - I enjoyed them both and the final movement didn’t seem half as over-long as I remembered it! I hope this new recording cements my reconciliation with this work!

C/W Little Suite & Symphony #4

[jayne lee wilson]

Shame you never heard this one....

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/witold-lutoslawski-opera-omnia-vol-4-concerto-for-orchestra-symphony-no-1-nfm-wroclaw-philharmonic-orchestra-stanislaw-skrowaczewski/5902176501969#item