The Death of the CD?

[ahinton]

Yes, he had. On the sleeve of the original LP release "John Barry's Greatest Hits*", the composer states his "favourite composers" to be "Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich". I don't hear DSCH #5 in Born Free, but The Dawn Attack on Fort Knox (from Goldfinger) is a shameless "lift" from the March in the Leningrad Symphony.

(* = available with extra material on CD.)

Speaking of shamless lifts in the move world, I recall years ago that there was an even more shameful one in a movie score from the middle movement of Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra (for which it's a wonder WL didn't sue) but I cannot for the life of me remember either the name of the movie or the composer of its score; any ideas?

[Barbirollians]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz1IDmmcetQ&feature=related

This is worth a giggle at .

[Beef Oven]

Speaking of shamless lifts in the move world, I recall years ago that there was an even more shameful one in a movie score from the middle movement of Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra (for which it's a wonder WL didn't sue) but I cannot for the life of me remember either the name of the movie or the composer of its score; any ideas?

Shame they didn't nick the end bit of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra - it goes on way too long!

.

[Roehre]

Shame they didn't nick the end bit of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra - it goes on way too long!

That's why the composer authorized a cut (2 minutes playing time!), which most of the present day recordings ignore, and which is not marked in the score as such.
Paul Kletzki's performance does so (IIRC this is mentioned in the original sleeve notes on the LP).

[amateur51]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz1ID...eature=related

This is worth a giggle at .

[3rd Viennese School]

Have any of you readers noticed how impossible it is to get a personal CD player now!

The personal CD player I bought in Argos (the only place I can get them from!) was no good (profound Stockhausen stuff and could hardly hear it!) so gave it back.
Argos only had 3 in total, 2 of which is not good, and the other one I will have to take a chance on buying the next time I'm there.

When you go into shops now its just game players, I patches and et all.

3VS

[Roehre]

Have any of you readers noticed how impossible it is to get a personal CD player now!

The personal CD player I bought in Argos (the only place I can get them from!) was no good (profound Stockhausen stuff and could hardly hear it!) so gave it back.
Argos only had 3 in total, 2 of which is not good, and the other one I will have to take a chance on buying the next time I'm there.

When you go into shops now its just game players, I patches and et all.

3VS

The only way now is to go on-line, I'm afraid, as nowadays no store seems to be stocking them anymore.
I experienced the same last year as my CD-man after some twenty years gave up.
If you go on-line, please be sure that you get a lead or so to enable you to connect to the mains, as a lead seems sometimes to be considered a superfluous item.

[Petrushka]

Have any of you readers noticed how impossible it is to get a personal CD player now!

The personal CD player I bought in Argos (the only place I can get them from!) was no good (profound Stockhausen stuff and could hardly hear it!) so gave it back.
Argos only had 3 in total, 2 of which is not good, and the other one I will have to take a chance on buying the next time I'm there.

When you go into shops now its just game players, I patches and et all.

3VS

Are these any good? http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...rs%2Caps%2C287

Argos don't seem to have anything like as much as they once did. I now tend to avoid them.

[Roehre]

Are these any good? http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...rs%2Caps%2C287

Yes, the Sonys certainly, the Philips too, though from the later the volume may by restricted due to European rules protecting ears.
But -as one of the comments confirms- be sure an AC adaptor is included.
Otherwise you might ending up with using rechargeable batteries or the necessity to buy such an adaptor separately - if you can put hand on one, that is.

[Bryn]

I never found personal CD players that reliable. Even the more expensive Sony model I had (I paid in the region of £130 for it) was limited to CD-A, mp3 and ATRAC discs, and despite its anti-skip features, it still sometimes did skip. I think the personal CD player is simply a product which has run its cycle and is now rendered obsolete by small hard disc and solid state audio players. I found mini-disc players much more reliable. What a pity Sony waited so long before releasing versions with higher capacity discs and lossless recording and playback. By the time they got round to it, solid state recorders were on the near horizon.

[rauschwerk]

Have any of you readers noticed how impossible it is to get a personal CD player now!

The personal CD player I bought in Argos (the only place I can get them from!) was no good (profound Stockhausen stuff and could hardly hear it!) so gave it back.
Argos only had 3 in total, 2 of which is not good, and the other one I will have to take a chance on buying the next time I'm there.

3VS

There's always eBay. For some years I have owned a Sony ATRAC Walkman (ATRAC being the compression system used for Minidisc). Using the Sony software I can create discs with up to 20 hours of good quality music. It also plays normal and mp3 CDs - CD-R and CD-RW. Sony have discontinued all their ATRAC products and, worried that I might not be able to get my player fixed, I bought an identical used one from eBay. It had a lower serial number than the one I had, and played a lot louder. Now I am able to listen to quite a lot of classical repertoire on my noise-cancelling headphones on aircraft, which I was unable to do before.

[3rd Viennese School]

My SONY stopped playing at Volume 9 and would only go up to Volume 4. On the display it says "ALV 5" or something. The SONY has lasted longer than the previous ones, ( about 3 and a half years) although a personal cassette player I have still plays after 11 years!

When you're listening to classical CDs some bits are so quiet at the top volume you cannot hardly hear it ( eg. start of Schnittke Symphony no.2) so a loud volume is important!

3VS

[Parry1912]

When you're listening to classical CDs some bits are so quiet ... a loud volume is important!

This is very true!

Unfortunately a lot of personal audio equipment has built in volume limiting (some kind of French or EU legislation, I think). I managed to find a 'hack' online that allowed me to over-ride it on my Sony ATRAC/MP3 player but not on my Sony CD Walkman, sadly.

[Beef Oven]

That's why the composer authorized a cut (2 minutes playing time!), which most of the present day recordings ignore, and which is not marked in the score as such.
Paul Kletzki's performance does so (IIRC this is mentioned in the original sleeve notes on the LP).

Dear Roehre

I had no idea about this. Thanks.

The cut was most certainly not observed in the last performance I attended at the Barbican a few years back. Also, the recordings I have do not have the cut.

Beef Oven

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Speaking of shamless lifts in the move world, I recall years ago that there was an even more shameful one in a movie score from the middle movement of Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra (for which it's a wonder WL didn't sue) but I cannot for the life of me remember either the name of the movie or the composer of its score; any ideas?

I believe it was a Jerry Goldsmith score for The Poseidon Adventure or one of its sequels. I remember thinking that it was a rather clever makeover and by no means as blatant as Hans Zimmer's lifts from Prokofiev, in Red Heat for example, and others.