V.com weekend vote: How would you listen to a commercial recording made in the last year?
This week Hilary Hahn won a "Recording of the Year" award from Gramophone for her recording of Ysaÿe's solo sonatas, and it made me wonder - how are people listening to new recordings, these days?
When artists put out new recordings, they often advertise them with something like this - a page listing the many options for buying or streaming the album.
And these days, there are many options indeed.
Illustration © Violinist.com.
It's worth noting how much these options have changed in the lifetime of an artist like Hilary Hahn, whose first albums came out on vinyl, then cassette tape (hard to believe that this fragile and impermanent medium was so popular!), CD, and then the many forms of streaming media.
While the options have increased, I'm not sure that this has increased the way we connect with new recordings. For example, back in the day, musical recordings came in a physical package, decorated with art and images, accompanied by reading material, a little booklet. The streaming "product" might still have album art, but it is a flicker on a screen, not a physical presence. There still may be a "booklet" with notes to read, but it's not as easy to find or access.
There is also such an abundance of access to old recordings - especially in a genre such as classical music. How much do people listen to new classical recordings as opposed to old ones? I wonder.
So here is the vote: if you wanted to listen to a classical recording made in the last year, how would you listen to it? And also, do you habitually listen to new classical recordings, or is it just too complicated? If your option is not listed, just pick "something else" and then tell us in the comments. (I didn't have room for everything - Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz, Idagio, Presto...) Then tell us how your listening habits have evolved for you.
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Replies
I'm torn between Something else and...generally don't listen to new recordings. Listening to music as a child meant having a physical object and preparing it for the gramophone ...78s, EPs, LPs. I bought relatively few cassettes, but subsequently amassed literally hundreds of CDs, which I have more-or-less organized by genres.
New music and new recordings were also discoveries I made through BBC Radio 3, with its live broadcasts and features such as This Week's Composer. (It was also a joy to listen to its regular announcers: Cormac Rigby, Hallam Tennyson, Michael Berkeley, Patricia Hughes... .) The poet Louis MacNeice describes the map of England as 'a toy bazaar': I can see retrospectively that music was something I had to map out for myself, but it was a map of great mountains, rift valleys, lakes of placid reflection and rushing rivers and cascades.
I greatly enjoy Laurie's reviews and samples of new recordings here on V.com, and sometimes I will look up an artist or a work on YouTube, but I don't buy CDs, and I don't like the idea of streamed music. I guess it doesn't produce the frisson that I used to get when rushing home with a new physical recording to play it immediately, but the other thing is that retirement has me attending more live concerts, and membership of two and a half orchestras and two and a half choirs means that there is always something to be learnt, practised or polished.
Forgive me if I am rambling on, but this week's question produced a spontaneous life review!
I believe Hahn's first recordings released in the late 1990s/early 2000s would have been released on CD first. This would have been in the midst of the CD boom, when CDs were the priority for the record labels. Checking the Discogs record for "Hilary Hahn Plays Bach" (Sony), her first album, the CD was released in 1997 and the vinyl version was a reissue appearing in 2020. It doesn't look like her other Sony releases have ever been released on vinyl (Beethoven/Bernstein Concertos; Barber/Meyer Concertos; Brahms/Stravinsky Concertos). In recent years, Deutsche Grammophon has been more focused on releasing her albums as both LPs and CDs.
Can we also recognize that recordings still do come in physical packages and there are some classical labels that take great care in their booklets and packaging to release nice objects (Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, Alpha, Pentatone, to name a couple). Also, the classical-focused streaming services such as Idagio and Presto make the booklet (when available) easily accessible on the album's page. So if liner notes are important to someone as a listener, there are streaming services that do understand that.
I "generally don't.." and my past listening history is very similar to Richard's except that my 2000 or more CDs are now all ripped to memory sticks and follow me round the country. When I want to hear a piece I don't know or a different interpretation of one I do know my first stop is IMSLP. You won't generally find high-profile artists there but quality doesn't correlate very well with profile.
YouTube here. As mentioned before, I’m a YouTube Premium subscriber. For a small monthly fee, I can get unlimited recorded music online - with zero ads. I’ve mulled over the idea of adding Spotify. Haven't acquired any new CDs for 10+ years.
I don’t habitually listen to new recordings online - or, more precisely, I don’t prioritize them in my listening. But when something new comes along, it piques my curiosity, and I’ll spend time with it.
A little off topic, but I’d say worth mentioning: Today’s digital online music delivery is even better, in some regards, than what’s happened in the film industry, where the window of exclusivity typically, though not always, imposes a 90-day period between a theatrical premiere and a home video release. I can wait. The theater, as a viewing space, went out of my life back in the late 20th century.
CD, since my clunker of a car still has a CD player!
I usually download music from Qobuz, for no better reason than I have an account there. I've not tried any of the other download platforms. Recent downloads includes the award-winning Ysaye collection! I put the files on a USB disk and play from a computer connected to a DAC. I have also uploaded all my CD's (not a huge collection by most standards). I sometimes use Youtube to sample before buying, or for music which is otherwise not available - I avoid the ads by using Freetube to access them. Qobuz are very bad for not including booklets etc, or even a list of performers.
Richard - my musical upbringing was similar to yours - a diet of R3 with such luminaries as Colin Davis, Robert Simpson and Hans Keller, as well as the announcers you mention. I probably ended up buying LP's of works which paticularly appealed to me, and there was lots of 'new' and unfamiliar music (of very variable quality) to choose from, with no risk, or financial commitment.
When I get my radio either replaced or fixed, I'll go back to listening to new music via it and the local friendly classical music station. Other than that, I frequent Youtube and occasionally Spotify.
For a specific thing I go to YouTube or Spotify. But I've listened to a huge amount of music on a little Timex clock radio that has been in my room for 20 years.
I occasionally preview on YouTube, but I buy a CD for the full album. I like having liner notes, and I do a significant percentage of my classical listening in the car where I have a CD player and radio but no access to streaming.
I don't buy a lot of new music these days, but if I really want something I might still spring for a CD if one is available. Otherwise, I'll buy something through my wife's iTunes account, then transfer it to my Linux box, convert the .m4a files to MP3, and listen to them that way at home or transfer them to the little MP3 player I carry in the car.
The important thing is that, MP3 or CD, I have a file or physical media and am not dependent on a streaming service that can revoke access or jack up rates at any time. I find it ironic that our hyper-capitalistic society is working hard to fulfill the dream of Karl Marx: the elimination of private property.
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October 6, 2024 at 07:40 PM · Physical media is more popular than I thought