Why only two classical in Series Two?

[High and Outside]

Some of the classical music listeners among our subscribers have been asking if any of the remaining four titles for Series Two would be classical music. Now that we are announcing the balance of the titles, I'd like to address directly the place of classical music in our release schedule.

The reason that there are classical titles in both Series One and Series Two is that we, the three principals who make the A&R decisions, love classical music. At the same time, we love lots of other kinds of music.

Looking at the feedback we receive from our subscribers, we see that there are a lot of people who listen primarily to other genres, but enjoy classical too, and appreciate having some classsical in our mix if it's well chosen. There are also some who indicate that they only are interested in classical. However committed that group of classical listeners may be, the group is small. If we ran a classical-only label, that group would not be large enough to keep the operation afloat.

By the way, Series One had four classical titles, which may have set an expectation that our norm would be something like four out of each ten titles to be classical. It was not our intention to have that ratio. It just worked out that there were some irrestistible titles that happened to become available in the first year. Our original thinking had been more like two out of each ten. But lately our thinking has added another direction. Without going into too much detail (because the details aren't set yet) we are working on a plan to make more classical titles available.

My own feeling is that the benefits of the tape format work particularly well for large orchestral works, so that's where my interest is focused. As always, your thoughts on specific titles are welcome in the Suggestion Box, and I invite them there. In this thread, I welcome your perspectives on the place you'd like to see for classical music in The Tape Project.

[AlexZ]

Hi,
In this case, would it be fear to allow pre-payed advanced order for selection other then 6 tapes ?  Presonaly  I?d like to order  3 (maximum 4) tapes from Series Two.   
Thank you,
Alex

[docb]

pre-payed advanced order for selection other then 6 tapes ?  Presonaly  I?d like to order  3 (maximum 4) tapes from Series Two.   

Hi Alex,

Individual titles from a particular series are priced at $500 each plus shipping, so three Series two albums would cost $1500 plus shipping. Four individual Series Two albums would cost $2000 plus shipping. A Series Two selective subscription for six titles is $1800 plus shipping (and for the next 30 days it is specially priced at $1500 plus shipping for current Series One subscribers). So you might want to consider paying about the same amount of money for a Series Two selective subscription and getting a couple more albums.

[ironbut]

Hey Paul,

If you read my posting to the thread Doc made regarding the last 4 titles in series 2, I'm sure you could tell that I couldn't be happier with those selections.
Regarding the general "balance" of musical genre's, I tend to look at the series 1 and 2 as a single body of work. It seems to me that the first few titles had little or no subscriber feedback associated with their selection. Of course, you guys would've had to employ a soothsayer to have done that. It also seems to me that the balance of titles in series 1 needed to attract more subscribers to keep the Tape Project healthy. Those last four in series 1 certainly must've made a lot of folks who was on the fence sit up and take notice.
Series 2 on the other hand does seem to take subscribers suggestions by filling in some of the gaps of series 1.
Of course, this is nothing but home spun guess work (for the other members, don't think that I have any more real data to base these on than you).

As a whole, the balance has been fine and aside from the subscribers who want classical only (which I know there are a number of), I don't think that you guys should get too wrapped up with having to be that balanced. One the other hand, I think it would be nice to eventually have at a title from just about every genre in the catalog, but I can certainly wait for that.

So, I'm happy as a clam and while there's certainly titles that get much more listening time, it sure is nice to know that the others are there waiting to be threaded on my machine.

[xcortes]

Without going into too much detail (because the details aren't set yet) we are working on a plan to make more classical titles available.

If this means additional titles I'm in!

[ceved]

While I enjoy large orchestral works, unless you have a suitable listening space, your neighbors are probably enjoying more of the sound than you are at proper listening levels.
I would ask for choral and chamber/ensemble works as well.
A little Barber or Vaughan Williams Adiago/Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and The Lark Ascending respectively would be breath taking.
For choral/vocal, Rachmaninoff Vespers or anything sung by Lorraine Hunt would be a pleasure.
Let the war horses take a breather.
I appreciate that the prevalence of digital recording in classical tends to limit the available source material in the analog TP.
Please consider casting a wider net to other European labels of merit.
Let Doris get her oats.

[astrotoy]

Unfortunately, I think that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's career was exclusively in the digital era.  She was one of my favorite singers. However, the classical catalogue is extremely rich in the analogue era, particularly before the early '70's.  Both the Bruch/Hindemith and Suite Espagnola come from the wonderful Decca catalogue.  Several of us have suggested some great titles from that catalogue (I made a not so subtle pitch to Paul when I played a couple of my favorite Deccas when he was at my house a few months ago (along with about 25 others including several TP subscribers). The tube era for Decca and EMI combined both great artists and great recordings.  There are also many from the RCA Living Stereo catalogue (the famous shaded dogs) as well as the Mercury Living Presence series.  The artists in the RCA stable at that time are top notch (Heifetz, Rubinstein, Munch, Reiner ...) while the Mercury stable was not as rich but had many great artists (Starker, Bachauer, Fennell...).  I hope that the Bruch/Hindemith and Suite Espagnola means that there is access to the Decca catalogue. However, with all the mergers and buyouts of record companies, the licensing gets trickier all the time.  Along with Xavier, I would jump at the chance to buy any additional classical titles.   Larry

[PJ]

Sorry I missed this thread until now. I usually concentrate on the hardware forums, but I am personally a mostly-classical listener.

I'd just like to mention that I agree with Paul S. - analogue tape is uniquely suited to capturing the spectrally dense sound of a large orchestra. I don't know technically why digital gets so messed up in the high frequencies when there is more than one or two things going on, but I sure as heck hear it! Only the very best vinyl comes close in my experience. And since this is the music that moves me the most, I'm quite enthused about more of it on good tape.

I'm in the middle of the Ring performances in Seattle right now, so of course I'm thinking of that. The touchstone is still (I think) the London ffrr set with Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic - Flagstad, Svanholm, Nilsson, Ludvig, Windgassen, Sutherland, Fischer-Dieskau, ... so many great voices are on this set. OK, I know it's 30 tapesbut there are some SERIOUS Wagner fans out there! I'm just sayin'...

[xcortes]

Hi Paul,

I'm with you on the Ring. Actually in 2007 I posted on the suggestion forum:

Since you have access to Decca, the Sir Georg Solti ring cycle is a fantastic piece of recording history and a great musical and sonic achievement. It was a titanic effort for its time to do a studio recording of the complete cycle with the best Wagnerian cast available at the time. The engineers made big efforts to utilize the newly developed stereophonic technology at its best and the recording crew put as much emphasis on the sonics and "special effects" as it did on the music itself. There's a book about its recording but I can't remember its title and google is not helping. Some people swear for the Furtwangler, others for the Karajan and others for the Solti's ring. I've only heard the last (which was actually the first) and I love it.

Ok, so you can't put 15 hours on one TP title? You won't devote the whole 2008 to the ring either? Not even a full opera? Well, even though I usually hate "highlights" records I would be very happy with one. Maybe a selection of overtures and preludes? I'm sure Decca has released such selections during the years.

BTW. Tom Jones (keto at the BH and MQ forums) is also attending the Seattle Ring.

[ironbut]

I have most of the Solti Ring on 7 1/2 ips tape (London). Great performances for sure although the duplication has a lot to be desired. I sure would like to see it myself though! The London/Solti/Vienna "Electra" is really nice too.

PJ, you sure are up late tonight. I'm watching the qualifying for the Grand Prix in Valencia Spain. What's your excuse?

[astrotoy]

For shear sonic delights, "Das Rheingold" from the Solti Ring would be great. It also has the last (IIRC) performance of one of the greatest Wagnerian Sopranos - Kirsten Flagstad, who sang Fricka. She was most famous for her Brunnhilde's in the 30's and 40's, but that was beyond her at the time of the recording (1958). John Culshaw, the Decca producer of the set and many more wrote a delightful book called "The Ring Resounding" about the entire Ring project which was completed in 1965.  There are some other great opera sonic treasures from Decca. The Karajan "La Boheme" with Pavarotti (at his prime) and Freni and the Mehta "Turandot" again with Pavarotti among many others.  I have all of these and the entire Ring in both R2R London tapes (Boheme and Turandot were dolby B encoded) as well as Decca vinyl.  I think I currently have 15 Rings, including some on DVD and Laser Disc. I don't know whether I have posted this before, but my very favorite Ring cycle is directed by Clemens Krauss at the 1953 Bayreuth Festival. The sonics are only OK.  The singers and conducting are the best I have heard. The early 50's were the second great period of Wagnerian singers, after the 1930's. I could go on ad nauseum, but won't.  Larry

[ceved]

Upon reading the genesis of this thread more closely, I may have inadvertently hijacked the intent into a quasi discussion of suggested titles/subject recordings which are comments better served in the 'Suggestion' thread.
In an attempt to set things to right, please allow me to proceed anew.

Eventually I would hope that there would be enough subscribers, titles from which to choose and production capability to allow one to mix and match in the various genres that tickle the individual's fancy.
In the meantime I am a bit leery of a separate Tape Project classical sub set; just as I would be leery of a blues, pop, or jazz subset under the current subscription rules as I understand them.

Then there is the Catch 22 of classical music again as I ponder various titles to suggest.  There is not just the matter of the composer, but the conductor, orchestra, soloist , the label and in some cases how many versions by the same cast of characters there might be.
I do not pretend to be a student, or scholar of classical music.
I either listen to it and like it or not.  Is it an 'informed' performance?
Got me.

I am wandering off point again.

Perhaps if the process of licensing were not so cloak and dagger, it would be easier to obtain a consensus of those interested on the factors I noted previously on narrowing the field of initial selections in advance.

I recall the Columbia and RCA record clubs where a member indicated a musical preference, but could order any title of genre they cared to select on any given month.

That is eventually what the Tape Project may become.
In the meantime I would be disappointed if commitments to purchase separate genre sub sets would be mutually exclusive unless the subscriber happened to have disposable income able to satisfy the dollar demand as the subscriptions are currently structured.

As an aside, can licensing agreements be negotiated on a contingent basis using actual subscription ordered rather than trying to guess how many orders you receive as the basis of the cost of the license?  That might help.

The dollar cost averaging ( from the perspective of one or more titles 'carrying' less known/popular titles) of the group offering of titles that must go into the calculation of either subscription a member might select is a bit of an inhabition for all parties.  That is not a value judgement, just an observation.

Currently there seems to be two perhaps three groups, mostly classical, mostly pop/rock/jazz and oh yeah classical, mostly everything but classical and please more rock.
Rather than a classic only offering per se, does the possibility of offering alternate titles (vis-a-vis the record clubs once again) make things easier for anybody?

I need an editor; Steve?

Good Luck.
CV



 
 

[PJ]

...
PJ, you sure are up late tonight. I'm watching the qualifying for the Grand Prix in Valencia Spain. What's your excuse?

Huh - my Saturday night post disappeared, so this comment now seems out of context ... but I posted after I got home from the Seattle "Gotterdammerung" so of course I was pretty late! Incidentally, many people did not like our Brunhilde, but I loved her. Finally, a signer who looks and sounds like a tomboy virgin maiden Valkyrie instead of a 45-your-old prison guard! OK, her low and middle range could not overpower the orchestra in full force - what do you expect from a kid?! - but her high register could, and she never got tired. Never! And youthful exuberance, in voice and acting, to match Siegfried. What a treat!

[ironbut]

"Tomboy/Virgin/Maiden Valkyrie",.. It sounds like you had a good time there PJ. I kinda figured that's where you'd spent the evening and that I might be able to coax some details out of you. I know I'd always dying to put a sublime artistic experience into words when I get my thoughts about it together.

Hey CV, I still think that the TP is young and far from being fully formed at this point. And one of the advantages of a smallish operation is that it can evolve without a lot of resistance.
Regarding additional series, I think that sometimes you just have to "see what sticks" and go from there. I'm all for having a classical series once there are enough subscribers to the regular series so it wouldn't become endangered by the migration of classical only listeners from it. I think that the more selections there are in the catalog, the more flexible the choices should become too.
As far as which conductor/performance etc. goes, finding great performances with excellent sound will filter out a lot of recordings. Considering the cost, I think that both will have to be of a very high order. There's always the matter of obtaining the rights and the condition of the master tape that filter out more of them. In general, if there was something of a tie between highly desirable recordings, I'd prefer the one with the best sonics to win.

One thing that sometimes isn't so obvious is that discussions here are dominated by the few while it takes far more than that to make a series viable. Personally, I find myself excited about a suggestion and after a while, I can get less or more enthused. I remember when the very first releases were announced and I was pretty excited about a Roy Rogers release(slide guitarist not like Roy and Dale!). Well, as regular subscribers know, this never went through and just quietly fell off the "coming releases" page. I've seen Roy a number of times and really enjoy his music, but I had to struggle to remember which tape was dropped from the first few. I have a feeling that this experience has something to do with the "cloak and dagger" that you mentioned before. The secrecy could also have something to do with keeping the holders of these rights happy too. I guess I just trust that the guys have their reasons for this since announcing these new releases must be one of the more enjoyable aspects of what they do.

Well, I guess that's enough wild guesses for one post!

[docb]

Well, I think my cloak was lost at the cleaners and my dagger seems to have rusted. The deal with Roy's album is typical of the kind of thing that can happen in these negotiations. The album was IIRC Slidewinder. Roy's deal with the label was that the rights to the album would revert to him at some point. When this happened it turned out that the fine print showed that he only received rights to a digital copy, not the analog master or multitrack tape. Thus we couldn't use it.

Roy is such a phenomenal player that we're not giving up on putting out a recording by him.