A Lark Ascending

Start worrying when they start using the old Nazi terms - 'expropriate and liquidate.'

Fay Hield and the Hurricane Party. Slightly different band than here (and last time I saw them at Sidmouth in the summer) but the same dress (was Fay Hield a Von Trapp child, doomed to wear curtains?). Utterly brilliant - rumbling, squeaky ox-cart English folk. No modern instruments or laptops (unless you count an acoustic guitar and a nyckleharpa as inauthentic modernism!); mainly squeezeboxes, fiddles with a bit of banjo, cello and mandolin. The band worked up a wonderful head of steam in the instrumental passages (both within songs and in the non-vocal pieces), especially when there was just a melodeon and three fiddles scratching away. Field's voice is a million miles away from gentle folksiness - there's a rough edge there and a completely distinctive sound. Playing here on her home ground (Sheffield), she was in her element. Her last album, 'Orfeo', was one of my favourite records of last year. Live performance just proves she's up there with The Unthanks, Chris Wood and Jackie Oates in the keeping the flame alive stakes.

Sad indeed. I don't know of anything with him as leader; but I must have seen him many times (and heard him on disc) in various larger groups.

Reviving this thread in the light of some discussion on the classical listening thread. Just listening to this: Far less scary than I expected. You can hear the Messiaen connection. Someone might be able to explain to me what a spectral composer is!

I've had the Chandos recording of the concerto since the 80s which suffers from the 'aircraft hanger' sound of Chandos at that time. Also a Lyrita version. Might well go for this as a modern version (thereby contradicting my one recording is quite enough puritanism!). Lovely couplings too - highly recommended for those with a taste for English cowpat. And with spring just the other side of the current blizzard, should be perfect.

That works for listening too. If you retain the memory of what it was to be 15 when nearly everything was new and your jaw was constantly dropping, then you're going to want to keep testing your expectations at least some of the time. That doesn't have to be newly-minted music - it might be Renaissance polyphony. Or American brass band music! The 'spirit of delight' may come less frequently than in your teenage years, but it can still happen if you take listening chances.

Great stories - I read many of them 30 years ago at the height of my Irish phase.

£7.99 for a new recording is pretty standard. Their budget reissue label is £5.99. They discount for bulk orders of entire CDs: over £20 for 10% discount on whole order over £40 for 15% discount on whole order over £59 for 25% discount on whole order over £200 for 35% discount on whole order I've always liked Hyperion - interesting repertoire outside the warhorses, lovely pictures on the sleeve, good notes, good recordings. Though they did annoy me once when they wouldn't exchange a disc that would not revolve in the CD player. I got a letter back returning the disc (pre e-mail) saying there was nothing wrong with it - if it won't play, try scraping a pen around the hole to remove a few atoms. The daft thing is I did and it worked! I sometimes have the same problem with CD-Rs and that works to! (There was another scandal where some discs started going bronze and became unplayable because of a pressing plant problem around 1990 - something about the prink ink leaking into the disc layer. But they set up a replacement service. Not bad for a company that nearly got put out of business about ten years back over a copyrighting error - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Records).

I think it is very much a record company thing. Some Amazon downloads have a digital booklet as an extra file. It seems smaller classical music companies are well ahead of the game here and have been for some years. Have a look here: http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67940&vw=dc Click on 'View sleeve notes/artwork (PDF)' on the far left under the sleeve picture. If you click on the picture you get a high resolution front cover. I use these to make my CD-Rs.

Quite a few companies - Naxos, Chandos, Hyperion, Gimmell etc. They don't come with the download but you can access them from the site (so you can buy from where you want). In some of those cases without buying the recording. Topic Records are currently undertaking a big digitalisation process - I think they are including notes.

You should hear some of the EMI classical issues churned out in the 80s. Very flat. I recall buying some of my favourite rock recordings from the 70s in the late 80s as they came out and being bitterly disappointed.

Most 'reissues' in the 80s were very poor transfers - thus the whole 'remastered' thing of the 90s that had many of us buying records for a third time! I suspect this fed the idea that CDs were inferior to vinyl. Actually, it was the lack of care taken over remastering, not the medium itself (to my mind!).

Last 2 of 'Spiral' - very exciting ending. And a Series 5 is now in production! Hopefully next year.

Quite happy to keep this going, Jeff. The only reason for lack of updates was that it didn't seem to be getting much interest. Worth maintaining for your comments. I'll give 'Clementine' a listen myself later in the light of what you have written - I've always loved that tune. Apologies for the repeats - this will happen occasionally - hard to keep tabs on such a vast catalogue.

Just like the "new gadgets for new gadgets' sake" and "anything not brand new and the latest fad is just like yesterday's papers" industry. Though THAT industry may actually be a lot worse in its milking for profit - because there are FAR more of those who go down THAT route all the time. And they go on and on and on and never even pause to stop for a second, lest somebody might call their "emperors' clothes" bluff. Glad there are options indeed. BTW, I agree with your "hearing affected by nostalgia" point. That may be behind a lot of it. Though OTOH that "updated for today's listening habits" remastering trend is just the opposite coin of the same medal, i.e. hearing affected by an unwilingness to adjust to what music orignally sounded like and how it ought to be listened to in the context of the way it originally was recorded (not talking about pre-electrical oldtime recordings before c.1926, of course, but rather about a lot of 50s recordings). Well, the industry (or industries) are very aware that there is a certain demographic that is often averse to the new and who can be tapped by appealing to the 'classic' [the classical music industry constantly recycles its old recordings in this way] - the whole heritage industry is built round that (you could argue that the Renaissance was a consequence of that outlook!). Part of the same thing in the end - we're all caught in that web one way or another. I'm not knocking the nostalgia thing - it's a very powerful force, something I'm very susceptible to in other areas. I'm not sure about your "unwilingness to adjust to what music originally sounded like and how it ought to be listened to in the context of the way it originally was recorded". I'm never going to be able to listen to a Carter Family or Muddy Waters or a 1950s Irish sean nos singer the way it was intended to be heard when first issued (and I imagine that when those recording were first made many a musician/engineer/producer dreamed of a way his/her music could express what they really wanted to say beyond the limitations of the then available recording/distribution methods). Harder still to listen to a Beethoven symphony the way most listeners would have heard it in the full knowledge that they would never hear it again. Or, as many people only heard it in the 19thC, as a piano reduction. If you were going to listen to classical music from the 78 era 'in the way it was originally recorded' then you'd need to play it in three minute chunks, getting up to physically put on the next three minutes (and there are many things to be said for that way of listening over putting on a CD for 70 minutes or, god help us, running a 70CD boxed set through your system over a period of weeks). I may have come up with marketing angle there. Just as Beatles and Rolling Stones singles have been reissued as CD singles, maybe we could have Elgar's own recordings of his music issued in multi-disc 'albums' where, after 3 minutes. you have to swap the disc. There's 'authenticity' for you.

Well, I looked myself for other defences of CD over vinyl and was surprised to find a few. A few extracts: This one closely reflects what Anderson is saying: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/10/146697658/why-vinyl-sounds-better-than-cd-or-not Interesting thought there - the preference for vinyl (amongst those listening to music they first heard on vinyl) suggested as a preference for the sound heard on the original vinyl, rather than a preference for the most faithful recorded sound (which didn't originally make it to vinyl). http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4303

Quite possibly. But equally possible is that the hearing of those who feel vinyl is 'superior' have hearing affected by nostalgia. I'm not knocking an enjoyment of listening to LPs - I can see it can appeal. I'm just very sceptical of any 'old is best' rationalisations. Smacks of the heritage industry (and boy is the industry milking that for profit). 'I like the way it worked when I was young' - that seems fine with me. Lots of places I'd say the same. Glad there are options - 78, LP, CD, mp3. We can all chose from them. My preferences go in reverse.

There was an interesting interview on the BBC last autumn with pianist/composer Frederic Rzewski. He'd been heavily involved with politically radical music in the 70s - including a piece called 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated' (you can't get more 70s than that!) - but had become much more sceptical about the impact of music on politics. The way he put it was the music hardly ever had an impact on politics; but politics was constantly impacting on music (which, I suppose could be rephrased as 'Art is not a hammer, it is a mirror').

Have repaired it - one space too many on my part. Yes, Full House is a favourite of mine too - something woody and natural about it. I didn't get to see Fairport until the second coming of Sandy Denny band c. 1974. But it did go to a very early Cropredy (before it was at Cropredy) where the Full House band played a full couple of sets including most of the album.

I trust that's not what you pay for a stylus, Sidewinder!

Somewhat odd, but as part of BBC4's send off to the BBC Television Centre (which is being retired), there's an hour or so Richard Thompson performance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rgr1n

Yes, does fall into the 'Isn't Wynton rubbish?', 'Who else hates Smooth Jazz as much as I do?' category. Except.... You don't see the "CD is better than vinyl" viewpoint (stress: viewpoint) expressed very often in print - it's mainly 'there's been a big vinyl revival because....' Here's a challenge for you. Find three other links that support Anderson's view. I'd be surprised if there are many!

The Editorial of this month's FRoots (a long standing UK folk/world music magazine) Full editorial: http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/edsbox/ I'm not trying to wind up the vinyl enthusiasts here (again!) - we all pick and choose the formats that attract us (I've just never accepted that, for the average listener with average playback equipment, vinyl sounds 'better'; I can see how the whole ritual of playing an LP (or 78) can be very satisfying). I was struck by this because you rarely see this side of the argument in print. It's normally just accepted that vinyl is superior. Anderson is a prickly customer (and I'd go further than him as I think the deficiencies of mp3 are greatly exaggerated (again, when you consider the average listening equipment most people use [and I'm not just talking mp3 players]) and don't share his love of nice packaging) and he gets pretty testy if his (often quirky) views are challenged. But it's good to see an orthodoxy questioned here.

This is a boutique box with a difference. When you remove the shrink wrap it automatically catches fire and destroys the contents. Another one in the eye for the bourgeoisie.

There was a fad for popular classics with a regular beat added in the early 70s. My Dad had a few of these: Might be why I took to Stravinsky so quickly! This one looks fun: 'Mozart 40', I think from this one, was a big hit in Europe: