Amusing review

[Barbirollians]

I say RPO/Barbirolli takes some serious beating in Sibelius 2 and they are rather cheaper on Testament than Szell at £86!

[Curalach]

Why would anyone want to buy these discs from Japan when they are available at $21.99 from the Cleveland Orchestra website, the same price that I paid in 2008? That is, of course, the CD version. Whether it is worth paying a huge amount more for what must be a back-engineered SACD or BluRay version seems doubtful to me. Perhaps those more knowledgeable about these technicalities could comment.

[makropulos]

Why would anyone want to buy these discs from Japan when they are available at $21.99 from the Cleveland Orchestra website, the same price that I paid in 2008? That is, of course, the CD version. Whether it is worth paying a huge amount more for what must be a back-engineered SACD or BluRay version seems doubtful to me. Perhaps those more knowledgeable about these technicalities could comment.

Good point. For anyone interested, the discs are listed on this page (scroll down a bit): http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/cl...-and-dvds.aspx

[PJPJ]

If you think Oslo is expensive, try Stavanger. A pizza that costs £25 (!) in Oslo costs £35 in Stavanger..... (I realise this isn't the point you were making....)

On the subject of cost by country, Amazon US is way dearer than Amazon UK.

So, the Stavanger pizza costs what I paid for the Szell/Tokyo SACD! Still a lot but it was in print then.

Sound quality from the SACD is very good indeed though not up to the standard of, for example, current Chandos SACD releases. However, it's a special concert, to say the least, which I first heard on a re-broadcast recording.

The extra fidelity does have a down side - it seems to me the audience noises are resolved more fully! In the end, I think I prefer Szell/Concertgebouw (I don't have the expensive Japanese SACD).

[Parry1912]

So I can't see the HMV Japan prices for 2 discs as anything but appropriate. Surely price should reflect musical and sonic excellence, not just material value of a couple of discs?

So how would you have priced something like the Barbirolli 'Great EMI Recordings' box (10CDs)? Or the 26CD Rostropovich 'Complete EMI Recordings' box (which includes the wonderful recording of the Brahms Double Concerto that he and David Oistrakh made with the Cleveland/Szell partnership)?

[makropulos]

So how would you have priced something like the Barbirolli 'Great EMI Recordings' box (10CDs)? Or the 26CD Rostropovich 'Complete EMI Recordings' box (which includes the wonderful recording of the Brahms Double Concerto that he and David Oistrakh made with the Cleveland/Szell partnership)?

Those bargain boxes from EMI are extraordinary value for money and do indeed have plenty of excellence for not a lot of cash. But I don't see the equivalence - this Tokyo concert isn't part of some megabox, and hasn't been widely reissued before. It's available on regular CD for about £17 [JP Yen 2142.00] for the pair of discs from HMV Japan, and from the Cleveland Orchestra website. That doesn't seem excessive to someone who actually wants to hear this concert. This is aside from the SACD version mentioned earlier.

[Parry1912]

Those bargain boxes from EMI are extraordinary value for money and do indeed have plenty of excellence for not a lot of cash. But I don't see the equivalence - this Tokyo concert isn't part of some megabox, and hasn't been widely reissued before. It's available on regular CD for about £17 [JP Yen 2142.00] for the pair of discs from HMV Japan, and from the Cleveland Orchestra website. That doesn't seem excessive to someone who actually wants to hear this concert. This is aside from the SACD version mentioned earlier.

I think the point I was replying to was that CD prices "should reflect musical and sonic excellence." So I think my question still stands.

If people are happy to pay these prices (and careful, the JP Yen 2142.00 price is a multibuy) then they can. Presumably, the limited availability is the choice of Sony's marketing department so it may well receive wider distribution in the future. Personally, I am happy to wait until it becomes available at a lower price point. Anyway, Sony aren't averse to a bargain box. Perhaps they'll include this in one at some point.