As usual, terrific and informative video. A very fast 34’. Your videos are always cogent and articulate and more than that, interesting. The key toward capturing the viewer’s attention here, I think, is to present something that would have little interest for many, yet do it in an interesting and informative way. In that, you have succeeded! I don’t know if you teach at all but you certainly have the skills to entertain an audience. Keep up the good work!
If I had $600 to spare I would buy this in a heartbeat! Thanks Michael for this typically detailed and fascinating breakdown. If anyone wants to investigate Marcelle Meyer on a budget (!!), track down the CD box set from EMI - "Les Introuvables de Marcelle Meyer". She is an utterly wonderful pianist, and her recordings of Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau, Couperin - plus Ravel and Debussy of course - are exquisite.
Dear Michael, welcome back and a very big thanks for this very good, educational and interesting video. I did not know the FRC (just browsed their website, looks amazing!) but I was very happy to see that a good part of your video is focused on Marcelle Meyer. She was one of the truly great French (and also world I would say) pianists of the 20th century together with Yvonne Lefébure and Monique de La Bruchollerie. She was an outstanding interpreter not only of Ravel and Debussy but also of earlier composers such as Scarlatti, Rameau (for this, see comments by Alexandre Tharaud, another great French present day pianist) and of course Bach. I'm lucky enough to have acquired her recordings from 1925-1957 in an EMI CD box set which btw contains the recordings included in the FRC double LP (which I'm afraid I won't purchase as it is way over my budget!). Out of curiosity, is that a Naim Atom Uniti HE you have in the background? I ask because I have one and have been thrilled by it since I bought it. Best wishes from Brussels, Ignacio
He is back! Kudos for taking a break and we are looking forward to your great insights 10 years ago I had a chance to buy a DG direct to disc that was recorded directly to a lathe at the Berlin Philharmonic and I didn’t when it came out. I still kick myself
One of the fun things about buying used classical records is that unlike most records these days they can still be had very cheap. Sometimes you can tell as you are browsing the bins that these records came from the same collection. My local goodwill recently had a large collection of near mint records that had clearly been looked after and properly cleaned and sleeved, for a dollar each. There is something touching when you come across such a collection since the collector probably died or is in poor health. Plus there is the increasingly rare thrill of getting a bargain. Yes there is a market for crazy expensive rare collector editions and nothing wrong with that. Is it good value, of course not, that's not the point, any more than a designer handbag that costs thousands is good value. I adhere to the Mazzy doctrine, it's the music stupid, and hunting the bins for interesting classical records is still a fun cheap way of exploring the genre.
Love love love your videos! I will be commenting more often (I’m not a vinyl collector but have tens of thousands of classical cd’s along with a pretty representative collection of Jazz and Musicals); by the way, Germaine Tailleferre of “Les Six” was a female - looking forward to more of your talks - highly informative and always interesting!
Mississippi Records put out a reissue of the Folkways release called Anthology of American Folk Music. That reissue had a very similarly textured jacket. It was also an incredibly thick jacket, as well.
Thank you for this excellent review. I really enjoyed your perspective. I saw Danny's review a while back, and thought the project was interesting, but you added tremendously to my understanding of its importance and uniqueness.
About the Innuos: After your review on Absolute Sound and the addendum here, as well as other recent reviews of the Innuos server/streamers, I just purchased Zenith Mk 3 for myself. It is slightly used but was much more in my price range than it's retail price new. I have been using the Ifi Zen with a LPS for a few years. The sound could be really impressive for a $400 streamer. Unfortunately, the buggy software issues and penchant for congested sound on busy tracks, has finally sent me elsewhere and upmarket. There were a few that I was considering and this helped me decide. Fingers crossed and breath held! Thanks, Michael, for this helpful information.
So happy you’re back. Bought ERC Mendelssohn No 3, to see for myself. Just waiting on a reply from them, as side one whilst sonically very good, is full of clicks, pops and crackles, we shall see if they offer as they should to replace it.
I'm not a musician or an audiophile. But I discovered I am audiophile in ears. Can I hear those small nuances and flavors and from equipment or even cables and power conditioners? Yes I can. No one can possibly put a price in history. Imagine if this didn't happened, how much a serious "loaded" collector would pay for the masters. I think the price is good. But as you say it targets a very specific buyer. It is very touching to see, that love for art, history, culture and civilazation still exists to some people.
Great video Michael. As an enthusiastic Francophile your Debussy record is like the Citroen DS: charming, bonkers, I will certainly never own one and I really dig that it exists.
Wonderful review and a great recounting of the background behind the release from FRC. Thank you. However, a larger pressing run done with packaging equal to this could have been offered for, say, ~$150 which would have increased its availability to a wider audience of music enthusiasts. Are we now to suffer boutique pricing of recordings to go along with the escalation of pricing of audio equipment?
Hi Michael - I appreciate all you do. Thank you very much. Always informative and lucid facts and interesting opinions. Please may it be said, at the risk of the obvious, that ERC’s “boutique reproduction” of “standard titles” like the Doors or Love is clearly aimed at those few hundreds of buyers who want their version and typically buy them in quick sell outs… and then the secondary market is strong too. So folks criticise ERC’s cost. Presumably mainly because they want the record but cannot buy it. Well, one off, limited edition luxury goods typically have their critics, just confirming the good is not for them while wrapped in a negative POV. My two cents, and may each of us have our own path to their opinions and musical joy. Thank you.😊
Great review. I would note that it's worth mentioning that if you're going to spending this kind of money on any recording you really need to have quality playback equipment. The budget label DACS, amps, receivers, cd players, cd transports and speakers will only really disappoint. Many following your site as I do take that for granted but others might not.
Great video as always! You can probably get a 15 IPS tape copy of this that will be sonically superior and for much less.. The economics of tape have completely changed the way I collect and listen to music
Thank you Michael. Not familiar with Marcelle Meyer, but I want to hear her now. I do have a recording of Debussy playing some of his own preludes (via a player piano type system - Vorsetzer), so it will interesting to compare to Ms. Meyer if I can find some samples. - Chris
Really enjoyed this and have gone on to listen to Meyer’s various recordings at work this week. Dying to know the name of your intro song too! Is it by Thursday?
It’s like resurrecting the Titanic. That probably sums it up. A great review . I agree these types of reissues are targeted, and reviews should be carried out with that in mind. Thank you.
What makes a $600.00 record? Mainly, anyone willing to pay that kind of price, because if there's a market for such a product then a source company will emerge to fill the niche. That being said, this a beautifully packaged release.
That’s so interesting about the parallel 5ths and octaves, I probably was told that before and forgot but now I can listen for that when I go to my Debussy records. I would hoe that they would make the recordings available digitally so that us common folk could hear it.
Actually, the "digital" edition ( CD ) is terrible, awful !!...no life, sad, nothing's happening there; even without any digital correction, just by remaining "analog", French Record Company did far far better !...Just another planet....
@@victorsvorinich1595 thanks, I recognized going in that this release is not for everyone, but I think it’s cool and I’m glad it exists. These recordings are available on various digital formats to hear, I would recommend checking them out along with her other output!
Yes, I join with the chorus in welcoming you back from your needed recovery hiatus. As always, one learns much here at your channel. Re the subject of Marcel Meyer, she was a unique one in various of ways and as apart from those mu- sical was her otherwise adventuresomeness. For a period of time she was tight with the younger French poet Raymond Radiguet, who died too early becoming on account (most likely in spite of it for being also uniquely fine) greatly famed. He was associated (by in-common spiritual creative spark one assumes naturally) with Les Six, and was so- particularly (très particulièrement !!) with its leader Cocteau -- the unique, marvelous and grand. There are several of photos existing of the pair, one being noteworthy for its delicious French- style naughtiness, which this writer believes especially wonderful a thing. (ooh-la-la!!) Our scene d'un intérêt particulier was of a beach (Le Piqury) with virtuoso Meyer seen sitting atop a large barrel and, as featuring at our left 1/3 of Radiguet in it poised feet-first, and in t'other one Pierre Bartis. All as captured photographically in good olden year 1921 and . . . > Both are displaying sans a stitch of clothing! < Mon Dieu!! Sacrebleu!! Fortunately for modesty (ours and his) dear Ray- mond by nifty manual means hides what otherwise would have been and be seen by the too curious of then and now? Also fortunate was that pianist Meyer, also being being modest but more-so, is fully and properly beach garbed. Dieu merci, non? I think it important to know more of musical art- ists of fame, as such serves to 'flesh-out' for nice combining with that of the "mere" musical. The revealing image to which I here-refer is avail- able for viewing but, I cannot place here its link as Y-T does not like that. 'Will be watching with scrupulous care, your future varietous features/opinings. Ta-ta !
Actually, the "issue" you mention on side 1 is a very very minor problem = almost nothing, and coming from the original master tape, not from the cutting or a pressing defect. You should have add that side 2 and 3 are absolutely phenomenal, stunning !! So if you can afford to buy, do it ; like me, you won't be disappointed . Beside the website says that it will soon be sold out...
May I review the 78 rpm discs by the same artist? They are better, because they are more versatile. The breadth of the range of equipment available to reproduce the 78 rpm discs would take a lifetime to explore (I've been working at it). 78 rpm best represents the time and place in France. The material used to press the discs is second to none. And they are 78 rpm so the transcription is spread like spilled cream around the disc. The grooves are deeper and more potent than microgroove.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on that record. Your insights and explanations are always a joy to listen to. With the emphasis on historical authenticity I assume the record has been cut with a true mono lathe, could you confirm?
I forgot to include this in the review, but I specifically asked Jean-Marc this question and it is cut with a stereo cutting head. There's upsides and downsides to this, but the main upside being that it will play much nicer with stereo cartridges. My guess is that mono cutting heads are very hard to get a hold of nowadays, and its also probably a bit of a specialty as far as engineers go.
Michael lovely post /show... I think to be straight in all of this debate..the equipment chain needs elaboration and pls get Jean Marc and Pete Hutchinson up to speak. That way we get the real story as opposed to "I did talk"
Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound By Daphne A. Brooks Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner Zemlinsky by Antony Beaumont Read these and then read what I wrote. GW
I really enjoy your review and that’s way I’m writing some remarks, some minor disagreements. I think that especially with unreleased recordings, they should keep the price affordable. If you want to produce a 300, 600, 1000 $ record of The Doors, Love, Eagles etc.do as you want, I can always look for other editions. But with an unreleased Marcelle Mayer... About Michelangeli’s Debussy it’s not a romantic interpretation at all! Michelangeli was a champion of glacial beauty! Can I ask you If you use a mono cartridge for mono records? Thanks for all!
Hello Daniel, yes actually I would agree, Michelangeli's interpretation is not really like Gieseking's (both of which I love, but for very different reasons). I own an Audio Technica At33Mono cart, which I listened to for this review along with my Hana Umami Red using a custom made mono switch.
You wouldn't walk into an art museum to find Mondrian in the Classical Wing, nor should you Debussy. Michelangelo studied the antique to form a modern interpretation that brought on a renaissance in the 1400s, and Bach, born in 1685 studied patterns and substructures in the Art of the Fugue as well as Musical Offering ushering in a renaissance of his own work at the time Haydn mastered that counterpoint into a modernism that quickly developed into post-modern effects in Debussy, Wagner and Mendelssohn. Calling Debussy "classical", or any romantic narrative attached to a composer after Bach is to equate the concepts of counterpoint, in this case of Marcelle Meyer, a student of Madame Boulanger incorrectly and thus unfairly and unjustly deepens a narrative of "classical-neo-classical" left over from the tyrannical propaganda of fascist Europe that continues to dispel from the desks of the same record industry desks that existed before the Second World War.
No streamer for me. I can take that annual cost and put it toward building my own music collection and as for previewing music I can do that on RU-vid for free.
Well, from a business point of view, I understand the model. But as a music lover, it's not working for me (at all). Either the music is worth to be released (and maybe even worth the premium price), why limit it? If the interpretation is not good enough to sell in higher 4-digit numbers/quantity, well, then it's just an overpriced collectible for..... what do I know... someone with too much money and or bad taste (and content creators). I haven't finished watching the video yet, but that's what is coming to my mind. Seems - anyway - to ride in the slipstream of ERC..... Hopefully, the music - if really good enough - will be provided digitally to a broader audience in the future (at least).
I don't think so; as far as I know, it had already been edited on CD, but the result wasn't good at all, compared to this. And now that an LP album exist with such a good result ( side 1 is so - so , but the other sides sound very good, clear...), Warner probably won't make any further edition again.
It's the same business model as expensive purses. They're a lifestyle accessory... luxury goods. They're not priced based on manufacturing and development costs.
A limited edition reissue of something that wasn't issued, a facsimile of something that wasn't, in fact, a thing to copy. It's the initial release of an old recording fleshed out with a pastiche of the cover, notes etc. Priced to attract the monied rather than those who may well appreciate the music. Your video is a wonderfully full bodied back story to help sell elite commodities. Well done.
while you may think you sound smart, the reality is that this 200 limited press run has already sold out. quite contrary to your argument, a limited edition anything is by nature not a commodity at all. nice attempt to troll though.
@@TheAboriginal1 It's interesting that you determine that a deliberately limited run of a "thing useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage." a run designed to make the item appear more valuable that it really is, removes it from the definition of what it is. I neither think nor care whether I "sound" smart. I merely pointed out the inherent problem. Trump sneakers & watches sell out too. hat does that tell you?
@@perlman-t2g The term "classical" was created by Americans sometime in the mid 1950s. Debussy as well as Le Six which Meyer was a part of, represented something more akin of post-modernist examples of the substructure and patterns of modernist compositions Haydn developed and Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn explored. It was Wagner after Schumann who's experiments in counterpoint are displayed in Tristan & Isolde that led to Debussy's Pelleas & Millisande which interpreted the underlying patterns in oratorio you find in Erik Satie's compositions. The modernist and postmodern compositions the American record industry threw into one category you'd never accept walking into an art museum. The same narrative applied to the plastic arts disrupted by global Nazism is what makes Charles Ives, John Cage and Mary Lou Williams so displaced, and considered outside of the post-modernist counterpoint taught by Nadia Boulanger, are also based on the rediscovery after the renaissance of Bach leading to the invention of the string trios composed by Haydn birthing Wagner and Debussy labeled part of a "romantic" or "classical" and are misinterpreted when the term "classical" is applied. Marcelle Meyer's approach to the keyboard, inspired by Satie and Boulanger is more akin to Milhaud's or Mary Lou Williams or Charles Ives and to consider it Neo-classical or "classical" is to prescribe to the revisionist chaos the Vichy and German fascist occupations dispelled upon France.
You believe in a false narrative that record companies have dispelled to confuse and control products of compositions and interpretations that have disrupted a modern lineage that has confused you and many others. I suggest you read John Elliot Gardiner's book on Bach. I'm sure it will surprise you and entice you to reconsider your opinion.
