Sony buys Supraphon

[Petrushka]

There will be a bonanza of short lived boxes. However there will not be new recordings of Czech musicians by the Supraphon production team. No more recordings by the regional Bohemian and Moravian orchestras and musicians

There are also only so many recordings you can do of the old Czech favourites, Ma Vlast, Dvorak symphonies, Janacek Glagolitic Mass and Suk Asrael to name the obvious. Supraphon have mined this seam for decades and I'd suggest they've come to the end of what they can do with this repertoire.

I've always been surprised that Supraphon haven't made the very best out of their back catalogue and most of what they've done hasn't been energetically promoted. The most obvious box that Sony could issue is from the impressive Ancerl treasure trove. Quite why Supraphon never did a complete box is a mystery. A Neumann box is another one I'd certainly buy.

[richardfinegold]

There are also only so many recordings you can do of the old Czech favourites, Ma Vlast, Dvorak symphonies, Janacek Glagolitic Mass and Suk Asrael to name the obvious. Supraphon have mined this seam for decades and I'd suggest they've come to the end of what they can do with this repertoire.

I've always been surprised that Supraphon haven't made the very best out of their back catalogue and most of what they've done hasn't been energetically promoted. The most obvious box that Sony could issue is from the impressive Ancerl treasure trove. Quite why Supraphon never did a complete box is a mystery. A Neumann box is another one I'd certainly buy.

They could sell the Ancerl discs at a much greater price per disc than bundled in a large box

[Petrushka]

They could sell the Ancerl discs at a much greater price per disc than bundled in a large box

They've already done that with the Ancerl Gold edition, some of which I have scattered throughout my shelves, so the next stage, if following the pattern of Universal etc is to box them up and make more money. My own thinking is that Supraphon realise they have come to the end of the road with what they can do and might even have instigated an approach to Sony themselves being fully aware of the value of their precious back catalogue.

[groovydavidii]

I too visited the Supraphon shop–yes it was amazing, then unfortunately, was caught-up on the first anniversary of Jan Polach’s self-immolation protest in Wenceslas Square, where at noon all traffic stopped, whistle blew, the crowds became restless, the militia arrive firing tear-gas, I was wearing an Alexander Dubcek flag on my lapel, was forced by a baton-swinging militia to take it off–didn’t argue. The previous evening smokey tanks were roaring around cobble-stone streets, you can imagine the racket, a few days later leaving Prague, the train passed half-a-mile-long line of tanks, probably at the ready… Let's hope Sony doesn't suppress this legendary Label...

[oliver sudden]

One thing Supraphon have done in recentish years which I have very much enjoyed is bringing out buried treasures from the radio archives. There was a splendid Ančerl live box a few years ago, and a bit longer ago an Ančerl War Requiem. Also some fine live Rostropovich including very interesting early recordings of the Shostakovich concertos. The Ančerl live box made a point of avoiding things he’d recorded in the metaphorical studio but I would walk over hot coals for a live Ančerl Mahler 9, for example, and there’s definitely an Ančerl Shostakovich 4 out there (it appeared on YouTube a while ago and then disappeared again). I have no idea whether this new development makes further examples of this sort of thing more or less likely.

(Of course the Czech Radio archives do include copious examples of studio recordings which have had a bit of applause and coughing added so that they could broadcast them as ‘live’, and some of these have certainly turned up on CD, so I hope whoever does it treads carefully.)

[richardfinegold]

They've already done that with the Ancerl Gold edition, some of which I have scattered throughout my shelves, so the next stage, if following the pattern of Universal etc is to box them up and make more money. My own thinking is that Supraphon realise they have come to the end of the road with what they can do and might even have instigated an approach to Sony themselves being fully aware of the value of their precious back catalogue.

That’s what I meant, that they made more money selling the Ancerl Gold discs individually, whereas Sony will probably sell them for $2/disc.
There was more to Supraphon than Ancerl. Many regional artists from towns such as Brno that will have restricted opportunities to become better known. Perhaps that well had run dry but I suspect with streaming killing off the physical media market there just isn’t money to be made promoting them