New releases

[Barbirollians]

The obvious thing , if you feel it is poor value, is not to buy it.

The world isn’t especially short of recordings of this work.

Just had a look on amazon,astonishingly it is # 2741 in all CDs, so clearly there are plenty of takers, though frankly I can find better ways to spend £15.

Hype is powerful marketing.

[teamsaint]

Hype is powerful marketing.

I’m not quite sure exactly what you mean by this. Sony have a lot of marketing resource, and big names to sell. But sales dont always follow. I assume by “ hype” you mean marketing effort , rather than the meaning of hype which refers to illegally or semi legally buying chart position, which incidentally can still be done, by various means.
One way to hype a book is to sell the e book very cheaply, which boosts it up the Amazon rankings, and thus generating sales of the print book, using the ebook as a kind of loss leader. Getting on to the first Amazon page in a category is very powerful.

[mathias broucek]

Flipping the E Kleiber Beethoven 5th was almostvexciting, anticipating that vibrant 3rd movement!

Love Erich’s Beethoven.....

[jayne lee wilson]

Me too .

I am afraid Jayne it is clear that they are being released separately. Whether Currentzis or marketing executives at Sony are behind this fleecing of customers it is contemptible.

Honestly? Really?
You imagine Currentzis as some cynical artiste only concerned to shift as much product as possible? Given his profile, after the Gramophone interview, after what he actually said about it?

Go on, show us the t-shirts....
OK I'm outta here, outta this discussion.....

[teamsaint]

Honestly? Really?
You imagine Currentzis as some cynical artiste only concerned to shift as much product as possible? Given his profile, after the Gramophone interview, after what he actually said about it?

Go on, show us the t-shirts....
OK I'm outta here, outta this discussion.....

You may be out of the discussion, ( shame) but I have just read the interview. His commitment to achieving his artistic aims is laudable. No doubt, and the advance sales seem to confirm, many of his followers are happy to shell out to be part of the vision, to literally buy into it. Well good luck to them, but giving people real value for investing their hard earned is also important.
Perhaps those who commit will end up with the valuable equivalent of a first edition , ( my approach might have been to do a limited edition with good quality extra material) and the rest of us will end up with cheaper, less artist - endorsed editions further down the line.
Or maybe to keep the artistic integrity, and I completely take his point about the issues with multi work CD format, a silent track could have been inserted between two works, for example. Or perhaps a quality double CD set at say £20RRP
Artistic integrity can be achieved in more than one way, and this way does send out mixed messages, IMO.

[Pulcinella]

Howells: Missa Sabrinensis (scheduled release 1 May 2020)

https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...ichael-fanfare

Rubbra/Bliss: Piano concertos (scheduled release 26 June 2020)

https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...iano-concertos

Flagged up on the What British......listening thread too.

[Barbirollians]

Honestly? Really?
You imagine Currentzis as some cynical artiste only concerned to shift as much product as possible? Given his profile, after the Gramophone interview, after what he actually said about it?

Go on, show us the t-shirts....
OK I'm outta here, outta this discussion.....

I don't buy it sorry and he was happy to put Les Noces out with Tchaikovsky's VC with Pat Kop.

Had the product been sold at a. reduced price to reflect the extremely short measure I might have been less sceptical.

[DublinJimbo]

Whether it's Sony or Currentzis himself, releasing the Fifth alone is despicable. The first movement is ordinary, but there's no gainsaying that the rest is rather special. The transition from the Scherzo to the Finale is remarkable, even if it depends on the extremes of dynamics which are becoming a bit of a Currentzis trademark.

All of this is by the way. It's a rip-off to release a performance of the Fifth without a coupling. The trend has been to disregard the 70-minute Blue Book standard and push things up to and beyond 70 minutes. Offering a recording that clocks in at 30-odd minutes is unforgivable.

[Bryn]

Whether it's Sony or Currentzis himself, releasing the Fifth alone is despicable. The first movement is ordinary, but there's no gainsaying that the rest is rather special. The transition from the Scherzo to the Finale is remarkable, even if it depends on the extremes of dynamics which are becoming a bit of a Currentzis trademark.

All of this is by the way. It's a rip-off to release a performance of the Fifth without a coupling. The trend has been to disregard the 70-minute Blue Book standard and push things up to and beyond 70 minutes. Offering a recording that clocks in at 30-odd minutes is unforgivable.

The Sony Bernstein Remastered box has several very short-measure discs in it, including one with just the Beethoven 5th. However, others are pretty full, as is their Currentzis Mahler 6, as mentioned earlier.

[Pulcinella]

The Sony Bernstein Remastered box has several very short-measure discs in it, including one with just the Beethoven 5th. However, others are pretty full, as is their Currentzis Mahler 6, as mentioned earlier.

Like the majority of the Sony Stravinsky set, in these cases are they not just replicating the original LP releases? The new Currentzis release is hardly in that category!

[Barbirollians]

Like the majority of the Sony Stravinsky set, in these cases are they not just replicating the original LP releases? The new Currentzis release is hardly in that category!

I agree - one is not comparing like with like . The last uncoupled Beethoven 5 I can recall was the DG Giulini in the early 1980s.

[Bryn]

Like the majority of the Sony Stravinsky set, in these cases are they not just replicating the original LP releases? The new Currentzis release is hardly in that category!

Not in all cases, by any means. Some have 2 LPs worth on a single CD. Much as the Sony/Currentzis Mahler 6 is on a single CD of a little over 84 minutes. It's the waste of polycarbonate and other manufacturing materials that irks me most.

[Barbirollians]

Not in all cases, by any means. Some have 2 LPs worth on a single CD. Much as the Sony/Currentzis Mahler 6 is on a single CD of a little over 84 minutes. It's the waste of polycarbonate and other manufacturing materials that irks me most.

The waste of materials is a fair point . Those boxes are on the other hand very cheap - Sony and Currentzis are compounding their environmental waste by charging full price.

[Bryn]

Whatever you think of this Karajan set, it must surely take the prize for the biggest ever box set of CDs?

Listening to this morning's RR I just wondered, are not all the Decca Karajan recordings already in the big DG and Decca box?

That was £179.70 well spent. I see it now commands £1,172.17 on amazon.co.uk!

[Cockney Sparrow]

Listening to this morning's RR I just wondered, are not all the Decca Karajan recordings already in the big DG and Decca box?

That was £179.70 well spent. I see it now commands £1,172.17 on amazon.co.uk!

Snap! It would take me a bit of time to access the box itself, so I wasn't sure if the VPO Planets was, actually, in the box. The DGG website page for the box has changed - its necessary to open each CD to see the contents (and search on my web browser doesn't overcome that).

I've spent 10 fruitless minutes trying to find a listing of works/performers/dates (ideally) for each disc - web page or PDF, I've not found any...... I'd be glad to know of any.......

Eventually I resorted to the (ordinarily unhelpful/abominable) Amazon product listing and by searching "Mars" (Holst/Planets of course was no help) and found the disc is indeed included.