Post by Claude September 25, 2010 (11 of 19)
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I would be happy to buy on SACD any great recording from the vaults of the big classical labels, in stereo or quad. I just don't want to pay $59, like for Esoteric SACDs.
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Post by Jonalogic September 25, 2010 (12 of 19)
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Claude said:
I would be happy to buy on SACD any great recording from the vaults of the big classical labels, in stereo or quad. I just don't want to pay $59, like for Esoteric SACDs.
Claude Hi
Thanks. I think many of us would.
But does this one really qualify as 'great'?
I have no hesitation refering to the Szell or Kertesz in that way. Kubelik and Kondrashin also rock. And there are many, many more good performances out there.
But Ozawa's New World?
Cheers
Jon
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Post by stvnharr September 25, 2010 (13 of 19)
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Jonalogic said:
Maybe we should tell 'Pentaman' what we think?
Cheers
Jon
Jon,
People on this forum have been advising, asking, etc. Pentaman for years.
Next up for Pentatone releases is the Decca back catalog of quad recordings when they exhause the available Philips ones.
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Post by stvnharr September 25, 2010 (14 of 19)
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Claude said:
I would be happy to buy on SACD any great recording from the vaults of the big classical labels, in stereo or quad. I just don't want to pay $59, like for Esoteric SACDs.
Claude,
The Esoterics are 40 Euro at JPC. It's plenty, but still the best price going.
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Post by Castor September 25, 2010 (15 of 19)
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From the March 1976 review in Gramophone:
"It is a pity that Philips continues to present Ozawa in versions of the standard classics that are hardly fair to his great gifts. First it was Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, then Beethoven's Ninth and now an account of the New World Symphony which hardly stands competition in a tough field, whether for the recording quality, the execution or even the interpretation. The recording, rather close and boxy in tuttis, does nothing to help, for the violins are so exposed they have little chance to produce a clean, pure tone, and any imprecision of ensemble is made unfairly clear. The sound also tends to deaden things so that rhythms seem squarer than they might. In any case Ozawa is not as resilient as I expected. In the slow movement there is little mystery, and taken very straight at a relatively fast tempo the cor anglais solo is unmagical. The San Francisco orchestra, a responsive body, as we found on its last visit to London, deserves better than this."
Need one say more?
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Post by jdaniel September 25, 2010 (16 of 19)
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Claude said:
That's too harsh. Those people will buy a Naxos CD for $5.99, not a full price reissue.
If the classical music market was really as limited as you say, 90% of the current releases and reissues would not exist, because they are not popular warhorses.
Even if there are already 20 recordings of the Dvorak 9 on SACD, I currently only have one (and two others on CD), and if this Ozawa recording is a good one, I might buy it.
It was a little harsh but I meant it more as frustration on my part. The bulk of my capital for the Classical room was limited to replacing *what already sold* which was counter-intuitive to me. Wouldn't someone who bought VW's Tallis Fantasia be interested in next purchasing his Symphony #3? Unfortunately no.
One would think that regular buyers would want to expand breadth or depth of collection. But profit didn't seem to be about the regular buyer, but rather catching new buyers on a whim. As a Classical Junkie who wanted to explore (and own) everything, this made no sense to me.
Re: music available other than classic warhorses, yes, there's a market of people like us who want everything, and I admit that my store had its group of hard-core buyers, though back then, ('94-'95) while I was in the grips of my nascent obsession with neglected post-Romantic composers and stocked accordingly, (Novak, Schreker, etc. on Chandos/Marco Polo), My hard-core customers were currently snapping up HIP and Early Music titles on Harmonia Mundi), as it was newly- fashionable at the time.
I just couldn't win! Savall and Anonymous 4 were hot hot commodities, even at $18.99. Their artistry and music (at the time) did absolutely nothing for me.
To the owner's increased disdain, some CD brands were very expensive at Cost, though I probably shouldn't name names.... I was surprised at how slim profit margins could be: we would buy some CDs at $12 cost and sell them for $14.99, for instance.
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Post by Jonalogic September 25, 2010 (17 of 19)
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stvnharr said:
Jon,
People on this forum have been advising, asking, etc. Pentaman for years.
Next up for Pentatone releases is the Decca back catalog of quad recordings when they exhause the available Philips ones.
stvnharr Hi
Thanks- well at least that's a step in the right direction. But I can't - truthfully - recall many of these.
Cheers
Jon
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Of course, there's the old Vox 4 channel remasters, but I doubt those will come out again. MFSL had a few, but those are fast selling out.
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Post by krisjan September 25, 2010 (19 of 19)
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Castor said:
From the March 1976 review in Gramophone:
"It is a pity that Philips continues to present Ozawa in versions of the standard classics that are hardly fair to his great gifts. First it was Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, then Beethoven's Ninth and now an account of the New World Symphony which hardly stands competition in a tough field, whether for the recording quality, the execution or even the interpretation. The recording, rather close and boxy in tuttis, does nothing to help, for the violins are so exposed they have little chance to produce a clean, pure tone, and any imprecision of ensemble is made unfairly clear. The sound also tends to deaden things so that rhythms seem squarer than they might. In any case Ozawa is not as resilient as I expected. In the slow movement there is little mystery, and taken very straight at a relatively fast tempo the cor anglais solo is unmagical. The San Francisco orchestra, a responsive body, as we found on its last visit to London, deserves better than this."
Need one say more?
When I started this thread, I couldn't imagine that an Ozawa 9th would be the 9th we were all waiting for in Hi-rez though I was not familiar with the original performance. The Gramophone review you quoted supports my intuition - what a waste of polycarbonate.
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