Bargains

[teamsaint]

Nice charity shop £1 bargain today...The Lindsays
Mozart String Quintet No. 3 in C, K515'. String Quartet No. 16 in E flat, K428. aLoujse Williams (va); Lindsay Quartet (Peter Cropper, Ronald Birks, vns; Robin Ireland, Va; Bernard Gregor-Smith, ye).

anyone have a view on this?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyone? am? fhg? NLK1971?

Sorry; missed this earlier! As PJ2 and ammie have said, no applause: there was "tweaking" (unobtrusive - you'd never guess from hearing the CDs) of the "Live" Barbican performances. I'm sure you'll enjoy them, Par!

[Bryn]

Any Martinu lovers? This set is currently £12.07...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Martinu-Symp...0571475&sr=1-2

Crazy price. Even I am won over, despite having several other fine Martinu symphony surveys on CD already. I do feel a bit dubious though. I have learned to suspect recordings promoted by a certain American shock jock reviewer.

[Bryn]

I've been wondering where to post about this matter and decided this was the most apposite thread.

Back on August 23rd I ordered the following sets via the amazon.co.uk marketplace:

&

Today I received a pair of emails for me the vendor (based over the Pond) to say that both were delayed due to their being held by the British Customs Authorities. The prices of the two sets were £11.20 and £12.89, each including p&p. What are the British Customs Authorities playing at? Each is below the price level at which duty is normally payable. I suppose it is just possible that the vendor packaged the two separate orders together (in which case I will reject the package. They were separate orders, each with its own p&p charge). The vendor is providing the British Customs Authorities with commercial invoices in respect of each set in order to get them released. How much is this incompetent faffing about by Customs and Excise going to cost us tax payers?

Both sets eventually arrived (yesterday) without any sign of being opened, and without even a hint of a duty demand. They had been delayed of several weeks, however.

[Dave2002]

I'm not much of a downloader..give me a CD any day.
However, I have been after the Rubbra symphonies for a while. They can be downloaded complete for £7.99 from Classics online. Did this today, and have got them all successfully burned to CD (I think) !
Great value, if a bit of a pain !

I have also been having some forgetful moments, and wondered why my copy of the Rubbra set was in mp3 format. Finally spotted that I downloaded from Classics Online. The price on iTunes for the set is closer to £40, hence worries about aac quality being better were overridden. Similar considerations for the Alwyn, Parry and Schmidt sets, which were definitely cheaper from Classics Online.

The only slight (?) snag I've found is with the tagging. Even with things organised properly in folders it's still a bit of a pain sorting things out. Apart from some of the tags not being as I'd like them, some are just plain incorrect I think. One of the symphonies had two 3rd movements - I don't think it was a 2 part movement. They could have formatted the collection into discs also, which would have made things easier. They have done that with the files/folders, but the tags aren't specific - rather a shame.

Some people would obviously feel that CDs are much easier to handle. If companies are going to supply mp3s or similar downloads, they could at least make more effort to get the tags into some sensible conventional format, so that one doesn't have to start reverse engineering everything to find out which movement goes with which symphony, or even piece or composer. I realise that there are few standards which work for mp3 tagging for classical music, but it's clear that some efforts are very much worse than others.

Each track should have the following information encoded - somehow:
1. Composer
2. Piece
3. Movement
and preferably also
4. Major performers (e.g orchestra, conductor, soloist)
5. Album/CD
6. Collection - if a multi-CD set

4 shouldn't really be optional, as if one has more than one recorded performance then it's necessary to identify which.
Similar considerations would also apply to 7. Date etc., but there might be a limit to how far one can narrow things down.

Once the information has become disassociated from a track, it is much harder to put it back - and of course this isn't a problem with a CD.

In the meantime, I'm letting the Rubbra symphonies wash over me. I've not got into them fully yet, but they do seem worth persevering with,
so thanks to those who have recommended these recordings. Currently on 3rd movement of No 3.

[Dave2002]

Just checking another thing about Classics Online. I seem currently to have a Free membership. I've been checking the membership details on my account. Now that I've given my credit card number to download those Rubbra tracks, is there any danger that my membership will be converted to a recurring subscription membership - with a charge of £8 or so per month? My attitude to the site and organisation could change if that happens. If I need to cancel my membership in order to ensure this doesn't happen, then I've probably got to do so PDQ.

[teamsaint]

Just checking another thing about Classics Online. I seem currently to have a Free membership. I've been checking the membership details on my account. Now that I've given my credit card number to download those Rubbra tracks, is there any danger that my membership will be converted to a recurring subscription membership - with a charge of £8 or so per month? My attitude to the site and organisation could change if that happens. If I need to cancel my membership in order to ensure this doesn't happen, then I've probably got to do so PDQ.

Dave...thanks for raising this. I have been unable to get any sense out of the website on trying to check the status of my "account", and haven't been able to email them.
In the meantime, I have blocked any recurring payment with my credit card company. looking at their facebook page doesn't fill me with confidence.
I am usually pretty careful with buying online, and assumed, maybe lazily, that this company is part of Naxos.
Anyway, I would urge caution also.

EdiT: apologies if I have got anybody caught up in any nonsense. I have been able to email them now, to cancel any account or auto renewal.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I seem currently to have a Free membership. I've been checking the membership details on my account. Now that I've given my credit card number to download those Rubbra tracks, is there any danger that my membership will be converted to a recurring subscription membership - with a charge of £8 or so per month?

I've had an account with them for nearly two years and this has never (yet! you've got me worried ) happened to me. I think ts is right: it is part of the NAXOS "empire".

[PJPJ]

Dave...thanks for raising this. I have been unable to get any sense out of the website on trying to check the status of my "account", and haven't been able to email them.
In the meantime, I have blocked any recurring payment with my credit card company. looking at their facebook page doesn't fill me with confidence.
I am usually pretty careful with buying online, and assumed, maybe lazily, that this company is part of Naxos.
Anyway, I would urge caution also.

I registered over four years ago and have never had a recurring payment due. Your account merely contains details of previous purchases, and allows repeated downloads if you've had a problem.

[teamsaint]

I registered over four years ago and have never had a recurring payment due. Your account merely contains details of previous purchases, and allows repeated downloads if you've had a problem.

Thanks for that.
I am a very nervous online purchaser, after have my online bank account "phished" or was it "Pharmed" a few years ago.
No harm done then, as I acted quickly......but I tend only to buy from really trusted sources.

Edit..Ferney, no doubt if you have had no probs in several years, they are fine.

[Barbirollians]

Let joy be unconfined !

It is short measure being a straight reissue from 1985 of Emma Kirkby's first Nine German Arias but it is a wonderful , wonderful record

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007O3QCOE/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&qid=1350677516&s=music&sr=1-1-catcorr

[visualnickmos]

I have had the Neeme Järvi versions on Brilliant for a while now and found them to be excellent, but I don't have other recordings...

I see what you mean, but Vaclav Neumann on Supraphon are damn fine performances. It's very enlightening to compare the two sets - both are excellent, but with differing qualities.

[gurnemanz]

I see what you mean, but Vaclav Neumann on Supraphon are damn fine performances. It's very enlightening to compare the two sets - both are excellent, but with differing qualities.

Valid point and I do enjoy such comparisons. It's a question of time and shelf overload. Lieder are a special love of mine and I have loads of multiple versions which I enjoy comparing.

[Dave2002]

Some people may like this version of Spiegel im Spiegel at under £4 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arvo-Part-Sp...0795793&sr=1-6

There is also an SACD, which some say is preferable, but costs over £3 more - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Part-Spiegel...0795963&sr=1-1

[MickyD]

Let joy be unconfined !

It is short measure being a straight reissue from 1985 of Emma Kirkby's first Nine German Arias but it is a wonderful , wonderful record

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...sr=1-1-catcorr

Absolutely...snap it up without delay!