Move over iPhone - here comes vinyl

"The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online. But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big jump in vinyl sales in the first half of this year, confirming the anecdotal evidence from specialist shops throughout the UK.

"It comes as sales of CD singles continue to slide - and it is not being driven by technophobic middle-aged consumers. Teenagers and students are developing a taste for records and are turning away from the clinical method of downloading music on to an MP3 player.

"The data, released by the UK's industry group BPI, shows that 7in vinyl sales were up 13% in the first half, with the White Stripes' Icky Thump the best seller.Two-thirds of all singles in the UK now come out on in the 7in format, with sales topping 1m. Though still a far cry from vinyl's heyday in 1979, when Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes alone sold that number and the total vinyl singles market was 89m, the latest sales are still up more than fivefold in five years.

"For record stores, the resurgence has meant a move from racks of vintage Rolling Stones and Beatles releases to brand new singles and younger buyers. "The student population seem to be loving the 7in," says Stuart Smith, who runs Seismic Records in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. He sells 300-600 records a week and is preparing to launch an online store. "I'm still not sure about the MP3 generation. You can have a full hard drive and nothing to show for it. Record collections are very personal. You can view into a person's soul really," he says.

The extract above is from today's Guardian. And the header photo is a view into my soul. It was taken a few minutes ago and shows an LP from Deutsche Grammophon's 1973 Schoenberg, Berg and Webern orchestral set playing on my Thorens TD125. This Second Viennese School overview was played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and, to my knowledge, has never made it onto CD complete, although I have the 'highlights' CD that was compiled from it in 1999. (Listen to brief audio samples here)

Producer of the set for DG was Hans Weber with Tonmeister Günter Hermanns. The Berg Drei Orchesterstücke Op. 6 was recorded in Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin, all the other works were captured in the Philharmonie. The vinyl pressings are out of DG's top drawer. Mine are still pristine, and sound absolutely magnificent. For audiophiles the rest of my replay system is an Audio-Technica AT-F3/OCC moving coil phono cartridge, SME Series lllS tone arm, Arcam Alpha 10 integrated amplifier, Sennheiser HD 580 headphones, and B&W Nautilus 803 speakers.

The lavish booklet that came with the DG set can be seen in my photo. It includes a serious analysis of each work, wonderful full page photos of the composers, and a biography of Karajan that takes hagiography to an Olympic level. Special mention should me made of the cover design by Hartmut Pfeiffer. (Is that the same Hartmut Pfeiffer who is credited as one of the conductors on DG's Stravinsky overview?). The cover graphic becomes a work of art on the 12" by 12" LP box. When reduced to a 4.5" by 4.5" CD liner it becomes as disposable as an MP3 file.

Karajan's lush 1973 interpretations of these Second Viennese School classics, and DG's 'spot-lit' microphone technique, are completely out of step with today's minimalist zeitgeist. But these vinyl LPs provide a window into my musical soul, and they challenged, educated and inspired me when I bought them back in the early 1970s.

As I took the DG LP of Schoenberg's Orchestervariationen Op. 31 off the turntable I switched the Arcam amplifier over to the tuner and saw into the musical soul of BBC Radio 3. Rob Cowan was challenging, educating and inspiring listeners with an orchestral arrangement of April in Paris.

More riches from my Thorens TD125 here.
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Raindrops are falling on my chant

In my rave review of Antony Pitts directing Tonus Peregrinus' on Naxos in medieval choral music from the Notre Dame School I commented that I thought you could faintly hear rain falling as Rebecca Hickey gave a ravishing account of Perotin’s Beata viscera.

I made contact with Antony after posting and asked him if I was correct. He is one of the switched-on musicians who understands the importance of music weblogs, and he came straight back with this helpful answer.

Pliable (in haste) - indeed it is. Beata viscera was recorded on our last morning in Chancelade Abbey, before a mad dash to the airport, so we couldn't wait for the rain to stop...
Antony

So now there are three excellent reasons to buy this Naxos CD. First, because you get seventy minutes of the most gorgeous singing you will hear for a very long time. Secondly, because if you are an audiophile you can test the resolution of your gear, and impress your buddies, with the Perotin raindrops test. And thirdly, because you can't hear the rain on low-res MP3 it gives you a great reason to keep supporting musicians by buying good old fashioned CD's. I must emphasise that the noise doesn't detract at all from the music. Listening intently on both my B&W Nautilus 803s and top end Sennheiser HD580 headphones I can just hear rainwater gurgling in downpipes. It is just a lovely touch which adds a unique sonic signature to a beautiful recording.

Antony also supplied useful information about his new work XL. It is a companion piece to Tallis' Spem in alium and has just been released on Harmonia Mundi. The scoring is for eight choirs, SATBarB, BBarTAS,BBarTAS, SATBarB, BBarTAS, SATBarB, SATBarB and BBarTAS, and the Faber published score gives three alternative layouts for the choir. It could be an interesting new option for programme planners who are scheduling the Tallis 40 part motet. .

If you enjoyed this post take an overgrown path to Classical misunderstandings - Hildegard

Is recorded classical music too cheap?

There has been a gratifyingly big response to my post Discovered - the online Arnold Schoenberg jukebox with its listing of more than sixty worldwide classical music stations broadcasting on the web (see right hand side bar). The eclectic mix of readers for that post surprised me. The visitor logs show this particular overgrown path has been trodden by the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (the UK body that enforces copyright protection on recorded music), Minnesota Public Radio, the Czech Academy of Science, the City of Berlin Arts Adminstrator's Office, a number of major US orchestras, and many, many more.

In a recent post I mentioned buying the inspirational Philippe Herreweghe recording of the Missa Solemnis for just £5 (US$9.10). And elsewhere I've written about Brilliant Classics (complete Haydn Piano Sonatas in excellent performances and recordings with 10 CD's for £23.99 - US$43.70), and the deep, deep discounts (and first-class service) available from Amazon.com Marketplace partners such as Caiman USA. All this set me thinking, is recorded music too cheap today?

Let me explain. The major record companies had a hissing fit about the impact of file sharing on pop music sales. In the classical music world it is not recorded music sales that are at threat, it is concert audiences. The ticket prices at the recent Norwich Festival were very reasonable by London standards, and certainly offered wonderful value for money. But the value of two average priced £15 (US$27.30) tickets for the Tallis Scholars doesn't look so good when compared with a discounted CD. After the concert I bought the wonderful Tallis Scholars CD of the Sheppard sacred choral works, including Media vita which was performed at the concert, for just £9.52 (US$17.30) including delivery from Caiman USA. (US readers will have spotted that CD prices are considerably higher in the UK. Which is why I buy Gimmel CD's of the Tallis Scholars recorded in Salle Church, just 25 miles from my home in Norfolk UK, from Florida. Great for my bank balance, but the 3500 mile air freight round trip for the CD can't do much to help global warming).

The Deutsche Grammophon LP of Karajan conducting Tchaikosky's Pathetique Symphony which was my first classical record cost me one pound ten shillings ($2.20) as a student in 1969. By my calculation graduate starting salaries in the UK have increased by a factor of around twenty since then. That would price the LP at £30 (US$54.60) in today's terms. A full price CD in the UK today is £15 (US$27.30), so real prices have halved before deep discounts and budget priced labels such as LSO Live are factored in. In orders of magnitude I reckon recorded music costs about one quarter of what it did thirty five years ago. Concert tickets have shown little or no price deflation in the same period. So the balance of pricing has swung massively in favour of recorded and internet streamed media, and against attending live performances.

On An Overgrown Path has commented before that performers like the Kamus and Sacconi Quartets seem to be getting younger, and their audiences seem to be getting older. Is it surprising when the absurdly low cost of great recorded music is giving the quite wrong impression that concert tickets are expensive? Naxos have done more than any other company to reduce the price that consumers expect to pay for recorded classical music. Recently I bought their highly recommendable CD of the Vivaldi Gloria and Bach Magnificat for £3.99 (US$7.30) in a Virgin Megastore - that is just stupidly cheap. And ironically the very people that stand to lose most, the orchestras, are fuelling the trend by pricing their own label recordings so low. Ask anyone in the retail trade what they think of the LSO Live CD's and they will say two things. Great performances, and too cheap at £4.99 (US$9.10). Ask any of the LSO players what they think of LSO Live after they have received their measly £400 (US$728) annual profit share from the label, and they will say one thing, too cheap.

One development that must surely further cheapen the perceived value of recorded classical music seems to have slipped under everyone's radar - Naxos Web Radio. This subscription service offers sixty channels of classical music plus jazz, blues, world, folk, and New Age. There is up to one hundred hours of unduplicated commercial-free music available per channel. The channels are pretty well targeted. Contemporary Classical offers Adams, Brusa, Balada, Glass and Norgard among others, while the Early Sacred Music programme includes Palestrina, Tallis, Lassus and Obrecht.The service uses Naxos and other label recordings, and offers the opportunity to buy the CD's via amazon.com. And my question is recorded classical music too cheap must surely be answered by the token annual subscription charge of just US$9.95 (£5.50) for Naxos Web Radio. With this pricing it is difficult to see what their business model is, other than world domination. Naxos, and others offering give away pricing on the internet, should ponder the first law of the cyber-economy. This says that the price of information will tend towards zero. Unless we stop treating recorded music as an information commodity the price, and perceived value, will continue to plummet, with an attendant disastrous knock-on effect on the size of audiences for live performances. Another factor to take into account is that web radio is the medium of choice for tecno-savvy youngsters (plus a few older early adopters). Most older folk don't have the technical confidence to use a computer for much else than email and e-Bay. So the vicious spiral of ageing concert audiences is accerlerated. If you want to find out what Naxos Web Radio is almost giving away to the internet literate just open this link for 15 minutes no-obligation listening.

Thankfully some people are trying to boost concert attendances, rather than undermine them. One particularly noteworthy example is fellow blogger Drew McManus' "Take a Friend to Orchestra" project. Recorded music, even via my wonderful B&W Nautilus 803 speakers, can never replace live performers. We are in danger of bringing up a generation who will never have heard the earthy texture of a baroque cello, the lightning fast attack of a harpsichord, or the true bass from a 32' organ pipe. But, I wonder, could the solution to declining concert audiences be economic rather than educational? I am certainly not suggesting lowering the price of concert admissions. But I am querying our wisdom in allowing the cost of recorded music to decline so sharply.

Live music making is sacred, and we must do everything possible to ensure not only its survival, but also its growth. In 1964 Benjamin Britten was awarded the first Aspen Award at Aspen, Colorado. Britten's acceptance speech was so thought provoking that Faber published it as a very slim volume. Here is part of Britten's speech which was made decades before the arrival of the CD and internet, but which with uncanny prescience identified the real danger of treating music as a commodity......

Anyone, anywhere, at any time can listen to the B minor Mass upon one condition only - that they possess a machine. No qualification is required of any sort - faith, virtue, education, experience, age. Music is now free for all. If I say the loudspeaker is the principal enemy of music, I don't mean that I am not grateful to it as a means of education or study, or as an evoker of memories. But it is not part of true musical experience. Regarded as such it is simply a substitute, and dangerous because deluding. Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape-machine or a transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework on the programme perhaps, some clarification of the ears and sharpening of the instincts. It demands as much effort on the listener's part as the other two corners of the triangle, this holy triangle of composer, performer and listener.

If you enjoyed this post follow the overgrown path to A direct line to Britten

Note to regular readers of On An Overgrown Path. The next post will be uploaded on Saturday 11th June. Sorry about the pause; the overgrown path hasn't come to a dead end, but travel arrangements dictate the interruption. The posts will continue, including an interesting contribution about violinist Elmar Oliveira from a guest blogger in the US.....