Bargains

[Dave2002]

This set is priced at £21.99 at Amazon, which isn't too bad if the recordings are worth having. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Comp...7826047&sr=1-1. You could buy it, then sell on your spares maybe.

OTOH perhaps if you wait a while the extra discs will appear. You obviously think they're good enough for a punt - should we all bite on this one?

PS:Sampling of the ones which are on Spotify suggests that this will be a worthwhile set.

[cloughie]

This set is priced at £21.99 at Amazon, which isn't too bad if the recordings are worth having. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Comp...7826047&sr=1-1. You could buy it, then sell on your spares maybe.

OTOH perhaps if you wait a while the extra discs will appear. You obviously think they're good enough for a punt - should we all bite on this one?

PS:Sampling of the ones which are on Spotify suggests that this is will be worthwhile set.

If you like Debussy and those 'extras' which others have arranged from his piano works, there are some I had not heard before, then at this price it is well worth having. I have enjoyed listening to the seven volumes to date.

[Dave2002]

Sorry about the instruction manual English in my PS of msg 811!

[Dave2002]

Currently Zavvi seem to be continuing their sale of some items, including Naxos.

You can get the 3 CD set of Rinaldo (Handel) for under £10 - see http://www.zavvi.com/cd/george-fride...e/8498832.html

OK - not everyone likes this version, but what I heard was OK.

There may be other Naxos items worth having.

[Dave2002]

I've so far started the year fairly well, by not rushing to buy every bargain. However I have succumbed with the Debussy/Naxos set mentioned recently.

One set which I have wondered about is the Brilliant Tchaikovsky 60 CD box set, which is available at quite widely varying prices. Looking at the CD details closely, it seems that there are different versions of some of the piece in the set - more than one piano concerto version, more than one version of symphony 5 and 6 etc. See http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/B...Classics/93980 [not necessarily the cheapest, but has the details]

I then discovered that Brilliant have two other boxes. These are the Complete Symphonies set - http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/B...Classics/94307 and Tchaikovsky: The Collection - http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/B...Classics/93631

At one point a week or two back it was possible to get all these boxes for less than £100. I suppose for me the last of these - The Collection - is least interesting, though it might depend on how well Polyansky does symphonies 4-6. I've not become a great fan of Polyansky, but that's only on a brief acquaintance with Glazunov.

Currently the big 60 CD box seems to be available for under £60 from Amazon market place sellers - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=new - even including postage.

[Parry1912]

Some good prices on Blah DVD for box sets (cheaper than Amazon anyway): The Rubinstein Complete, Schumann Songs on Hyperion, etc.

For those who like those new-fangled download things there's this on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sibelius-Complete-Symphonies-Lemmink%C3%A4inen-Concerto/dp/B004Z4O440/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1328020074&sr=1-1-catcorr

[Parry1912]

I've not become a great fan of Polyansky, but that's only on a brief acquaintance with Glazunov.

What Glazunov symphony cycle would you recommend?

[Dave2002]

What Glazunov symphony cycle would you recommend?

Depends. If you can put up with poor quality sound Fedoseyev's cheap MP3 version is good.

Tadaaki Otaka's BBC NOW version is also available cheaply as a download - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glazunov-The...20918&sr=301-2 - though the CDs cost more. I ended up buying both!

Serebrier's version is held to be very good, though costs more. It also has Symphony 9, which few of the others have. His performances are indeed good, and I have several, though I did pick up one or two in charity shops.

Yondani Butt did a few, and some are available very cheaply now on Regis. Originally these were on ASV. Number 4 is well worth looking out for.

I've not tried Svetlanov - though I suspect his set might be very good.

Mravinsky has done one or two - look at Classical Music Mobile - http://www.classicalmusicmobile.com/...mravinsky.html

Polyansky's set is obviously good value - but I'm afraid I didn't get on with it well enough. I may revisit this to see if I like it more now.

[hafod]

One set which I have wondered about is the Brilliant Tchaikovsky 60 CD box set, which is available at quite widely varying prices. Looking at the CD details closely, it seems that there are different versions of some of the piece in the set - more than one piano concerto version, more than one version of symphony 5 and 6 etc. See http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/B...Classics/93980 [not necessarily the cheapest, but has the details]

I found this review helpful (particularly on the operas) when considering whether to purchase or not. (I decided against since you ask - too much duplication).

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Jan12/Tchaikovsky_Edition_93980.htm

[Bryn]

For those interested in hearing Morton Feldman's 6+ hour String Quartet #2, I see that Harmonia Mundi, via the amazon.co.uk marketplace, are offering the Flux Quartet's DVD audio recording for £23.01 including p&p. Since the 5 CD version (in lower audio definition) would set you back around double that, I consider it a bargain. It's certainly around £4 short of what I paid for my copy in HMV a few years ago, and that was well underpriced at the time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00007JR8G/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1328050416&sr=1-10&condition=new

[Dave2002]

Bryn

If I buy it can I extract the audio to computer files for network streaming? I guess yes, though not sure what standard would result, and if most DACs (outside DVDs) could play back without sampling rate and/or bit depth conversion.

Sounds very interesting musically, anyway.

[Bryn]

Bryn

If I buy it can I extract the audio to computer files for network streaming? I guess yes, though not sure what standard would result, and if most DACs (outside DVDs) could play back without sampling rate and/or bit depth conversion.

Sounds very interesting musically, anyway.

There is certainly software around which can rip the audio but the method I have used to make a 320kbps mp3 version for portability is to feed the 48/24 digital output from a DVD player to my Alesis Masterlink HD/CD-R machine, chop it into sections of around 73 minutes each, render and burn them to Red Book, rip those to my laptop's hard drive, make the mp3s of the five files and then join those up using Mp3DirectCut. Long winded but maintaining much of the audio quality offered by the DVD. Why not FLAC? Simple, I don't know a way of seamlessly joining a series of them together into a single file. If anyone does ...

[Dave2002]

Sounds even more difficult and tedious than I imagined! Are there gaps in the music which make your paste it all together approach workable, or is there a degree of approximation in getting the sections aligned together?

I guess one doesn't have to have FLAC - except for portability reasons, and WAV might do the job. However with some Windows file systems balking at anything over a few Gbytes might not work on many Windows based machines. Could presumably record in PCM on a suitable device, though for portability and ease of getting kit close to a DVD player I'd perhaps have to use Hi-MD Minidisc, which would cause other problems no doubt, and a sample rate change on input from 48 kHz to 44.1 kHz. I think you might have other devices which would do the job without a sample rate change.

I don't know whether joining large WAV files together is realistically feasible for most non professional users.
If it can be done, then maybe a WAV->FLAC conversion process can be invoked, though the largest file I did anything like that with that worked was around 3-4 Gbytes.

PS: I suppose another way I could try is to use a long optical fibre from my DVD player(s) to my iMac, which would probably avoid the rate change. If I did it overnight the possibility of tripping up over the cable would be reduced!

[Bryn]

Sounds even more difficult and tedious than I imagined! Are there gaps in the music which make your paste it all together approach workable, or is there a degree of approximation in getting the sections aligned together?

I guess one doesn't have to have FLAC - except for portability reasons, and WAV might do the job. However with some Windows file systems balking at anything over a few Gbytes might not work on many Windows based machines. Could presumably record in PCM on a suitable device, though for portability and ease of getting kit close to a DVD player I'd perhaps have to use Hi-MD Minidisc, which would cause other problems no doubt, and a sample rate change on input from 48 kHz to 44.1 kHz. I think you might have other devices which would do the job without a sample rate change.

I don't know whether joining large WAV files together is realistically feasible for most non professional users.
If it can be done, then maybe a WAV->FLAC conversion process can be invoked, though the largest file I did anything like that with that worked was around 3-4 Gbytes.

PS: I suppose another way I could try is to use a long optical fibre from my DVD player(s) to my iMac, which would probably avoid the rate change. If I did it overnight the possibility of tripping up over the cable would be reduced!

There's no problem joining mp3s with Mp3DirectCut (Windows freeware), especially if you have created the mp3s yourself. It's a simple copy and paste process, and is seamless. When joining downloaded mp3s you sometimes need to avoid a very short section at each end (indicated by a flat black line along the bottom of Mp3DirectCut's graphics window. There are brief hiatus(es) during the recording, so splitting the PCM file(s) is not that much of a problem anyway. You can get good guideline on appropriate edit points from the track listing for the CD version (which track list is included in the DVD's booklet).

[PJPJ]

Bryn, you can use the same technique to join flac or wave, by using Audacity, Goldwave etc.