David Ayers

Thought I might purchase the download via Spotify - but they have stopped selling downloads! There has been no announcement from them so far as I know.

yay - thanks for the heads up

That style packaging is well known for the damage to wildlife. Surprised it is legal anywhere. We can blame the manufacturers and the end-users who leave it lying around in the environment.

Didn't see where it says so ... frankly the mumbo-jumbo language in the mail sounded weird to me, all the way. You may be right. Well, in fact, you are right.

I guess you guys got the mail saying the Montreux date will be released on CD?

Does anyone here perform in a choir? I never have but would like to. It is a wonderful thing to hear a choir and pretty hard to reproduce at home. I am lucky to be able to hear a very high caliber cathedral choir which constantly performs interesting repertoire (this Sunday,a Penalosa Mass and Victoria's setting of O Vos Omnes). I also love to hear choir and symphony orchestra, in works such as the Missa Solemnis. I guess I am less keen on the Victorian-style mass choral experience and on those oratorios.. I'd say the way into choral music is to go and hear choirs!

For myself, I just think, if there's something I would like, why miss out? It only costs a few quid to access it which is neither here nor there. But mainly I think that I want orchestras to be programming these works, I want orchestras to continue to thrive, and buying recordings is a way of supporting that, albeit economically a minor one in comparison to concert attendance. I don't duplicate repertoire which no longer strongly interests me, and I don't go back and buy old recordings, which I guess makes my method different from that of many.

I suppose the issues of ownership are cost and storage. Since I listen infrequently but intensely, I don't mind the cost, but storage and consequently access are big issues for me.

The Gergiev is very original and striking but wouldn't make the 'recommended version' category I suppose. I aim to hear the Nelsons in due course - looks like a fast one like the Jarvi. I always like to hear different versions of works I care about in any way. I'd rather listen to five versions twice each than one version ten times. Of the Gergiev Leningrads I prefer the one with LSO which I heard and which I have on tape. The earlier Mariinsky/Rotterdam is probably more mainstream. The new one milks the slow movements for all or really more than they are worth, but is notable and thought-provoking, and in the right mood effective. Never heard of Alba or Pohjola. Like Finnish things. Just got back from working there this week...

Some high calibre advocacy for Gerhard:

Well, those are reissues. I think we're supposed to be talking about new releases.... It *may* be that No. 1 has not been released before, not sure.

Today's price change on an item in my basket. Crazy. Suk: Prague/ Summers Tale (Orchestral Works) (BBC Symphony Orche... has increased from £11.47 to £18.24 They have six in stock. The only reason it is still in the basket is that it went up by £2 after I put it in...

Harsh words, harsh words. Uchida is a London fixture and I'm a loyalist for that reason... her recorded Schoenberg is an interesting meeting of sensibilities, and I am always grateful to hear her roll up and bang out a Mozart piano concerto, but I admit to not really loving her famous Mozart and Schubert recordings. And that's putting it mildly.

Amazon looks more like ebay these days, the prices never stay still. I cannot understand how their algorithm works and I hate how you pop something in the basket to think about and a day later it costs 30% more.

I guess that's why they call it the A sharp diminished flattened ninth basically chromatic blues.

Even if you didn't write it, you did now.

No. We covered this. After you click 'view new content' you can change the setting on the left hand menu. The *default* is show only unread content but you can change that to e.g. all content from last 24 hours etc.

I always thought that This Masquerade was the theme tune of a US TV show, but after reading this thread I was thinking about GB and went to try and check which show, I came up with squat. So am I wrong about that? Anybody know?

do you own a PHONE? I'll meet you halfway. Meet my new desktop image! Thank you! I own a phone but don't have a cord to conect it to the iMac. I'm not into pictures. You can just sms the pic if I send you my number.....

do you own a PHONE? I'll meet you halfway. Meet my new desktop image! Thank you!

I hope you took a pic for me before you posted it...

I wan't actual snaps of the stickers. Preferably with today's newspaper in shot.

You might be right - I must have seen it here: http://www.mdt.co.uk/gardiner-john-eliot-the-collection-70th-birthday-deutsche-grammophon-30cds.html

Can folks post an image of their sticker, please?

In fact the track listing of the Gardiner set is on the DG site.