Thread: Philadelphia/Ondine drop SACD

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Post by seth December 22, 2008 (31 of 62)
stvnharr said:

Well, the Ondine/Philadelphia contract didn't exactly light the sacd world on fire when it was announced.

That's not quite fair.

The agreement to waive recording fees in return for ownership of the master tapes ended a near 10 year impasse between recording companies and musicians that had prevent the big 5 orchestras from making recordings. Unfortunately, as you note, the choice in repertoire was far from inspired. And for whatever reason, only Chicago has begun independently releasing recordings too. It would have been very exciting had Cleveland and Boston also joined in (I can pass on NY).

Maybe the biggest failure of the Ondine deal, was that concerts with guest conductors were not recorded (I'm guessing because Philadelphia was trying to brand the Eschenbach as the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra). James Conlon, for instance, recently conducted a program consisting of: Schreker - Prelude to a Drama, Zemlinsky - Scenes from "The Dwarf," Beethoven - Symphony No. 7. This would have made a great disc.

Post by stvnharr December 22, 2008 (32 of 62)
seth said:

That's not quite fair.

The agreement to waive recording fees in return for ownership of the master tapes ended a near 10 year impasse between recording companies and musicians that had prevent the big 5 orchestras from making recordings. Unfortunately, as you note, the choice in repertoire was far from inspired. And for whatever reason, only Chicago has begun independently releasing recordings too. It would have been very exciting had Cleveland and Boston also joined in (I can pass on NY).

Maybe the biggest failure of the Ondine deal, was that concerts with guest conductors were not recorded (I'm guessing because Philadelphia was trying to brand the Eschenbach as the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra). James Conlon, for instance, recently conducted a program consisting of: Schreker - Prelude to a Drama, Zemlinsky - Scenes from "The Dwarf," Beethoven - Symphony No. 7. This would have made a great disc.

Seth,
I agree that the Philadelphia contract with Ondine did end the recording impasse of a long time, and in that sense, the contract was a VERY big deal.

However, from a sacd standpoint, they released 7 redundant recordings over a 2-3 year period. I have them all, like them, and would buy the other 3 if they were to be sacd's. But the number of releases is about the same as the sacd "majors" release in a couple months, not a couple years.

Steve

Post by mdt December 23, 2008 (33 of 62)
bissie said:

Without going into detail:

MUCH more. More than double the price. Plus hefty price increases for the special Jewel Box etc.
For a product, where almost 100% of the buyers have no interest whatsoever in the Hirez layers, having neither an SACD player nor a Surround system, this price difference is highly significant. The extra charge we pay for the whole production for those few customers is financially insane.


We at BIS have anyway chosen to present a high proportion of our releases in this system, since we really want to cater to the real discerning buyers and musiclovers, but financial sence it doesn't make. Unfortunately.

Best - Robert

This financial sense, financial sense, financial sense arguing makes me long for the time when for example Karajan used nearly an entire recording session, not recording a tone, untill he evoked precisisely the special sound he wanted from the strings to fit a few seconds long passage in Pelleas et Melisande.
Where has that artistic longing for perfection gone today?! Financial sense, financial sense, financial sense. I can't hear it anymore!!! Look into which crisis people thinking only about money have brought us!!!!

And why do you think allmost 100% of the buyers have no interrest in the high rez layer, if no one ever promoted the advantages? The public was only allways told about multichannel. People not wanting to fill theire living rooms with speakers and cables of course rejected this. No one ever took care to inform the larger public about the other advantages of high resolution, like more natural timbres, better spatial reproduction and above all better transfer of the emotional impact of a performance do to the finest nuances in artistic expression being captured and transformed. I've met several music lovers who had no idea, that sa-cd existed, but who where fully convinced when they heard it. I'm verry much dissapointed by you industry people droping such great a format for the most banal of reasons money, money and once again money.
Oh where are though, Karajan, Legge and all you perfectionists who loved what they did and had a healthfully insane passion for what they did, who just had to do things, the best possible way they could??

Post by mdt December 23, 2008 (34 of 62)
mdt said:

This financial sense, financial sense, financial sense arguing makes me long for the time when for example Karajan used nearly an entire recording session, not recording a tone, untill he evoked precisisely the special sound he wanted from the strings to fit a few seconds long passage in Pelleas et Melisande.
Where has that artistic longing for perfection gone today?! Financial sense, financial sense, financial sense. I can't hear it anymore!!! Look into which crisis people thinking only about money have brought us!!!!

And why do you think allmost 100% of the buyers have no interrest in the high rez layer, if no one ever promoted the advantages? The public was only allways told about multichannel. People not wanting to fill theire living rooms with speakers and cables of course rejected this. No one ever took care to inform the larger public about the other advantages of high resolution, like more natural timbres, better spatial reproduction and above all better transfer of the emotional impact of a performance do to the finest nuances in artistic expression being captured and transformed. I've met several music lovers who had no idea, that sa-cd existed, but who where fully convinced when they heard it. I'm verry much dissapointed by you industry people droping such great a format for the most banal of reasons money, money and once again money.
Oh where are though, Karajan, Legge and all you perfectionists who loved what they did and had a healthfully insane passion for what they did, who just had to do things, the best possible way they could??

Just by the way, concernig financial sense:

the Pelleas recording I mentioned in my previous post has become a great artistic achievement selling (and creating revenue) until today, precisely because financial sense was not the holly grail during the production, that it is today.

Other example: it seemed against all financial sense to record bosses, to produce a 4 LP set with nothing but "unpopular" music by people like Schoenberg Berg and Webern. Karajan had to throw his own money in. This "ridiculous idea", turned out to be a highly succesull release, it's still in the catalogue today after more than thirty years!

Post by sacd_fan_2007 December 23, 2008 (35 of 62)
Did financial reasons end the orchestra's relationship with Waterlily Acoustics?

Post by bissie December 23, 2008 (36 of 62)
mdt said:

Just by the way, concernig financial sense:

the Pelleas recording I mentioned in my previous post has become a great artistic achievement selling (and creating revenue) until today, precisely because financial sense was not the holly grail during the production, that it is today.

Other example: it seemed against all financial sense to record bosses, to produce a 4 LP set with nothing but "unpopular" music by people like Schoenberg Berg and Webern. Karajan had to throw his own money in. This "ridiculous idea", turned out to be a highly succesull release, it's still in the catalogue today after more than thirty years!

So are all BIS recordings, after 35 years.
I find it a bit unfortunate that you are taking out your frustration at one of the very few companies that - against financial sense - follows its artistical conscience.

Robert

Post by seth December 23, 2008 (37 of 62)
sacd_fan_2007 said:

Did financial reasons end the orchestra's relationship with Waterlily Acoustics?

That was a one time deal. Really more of an experiment in trying to make a commercial recording in the acoustical blackhole called the Academy of Music.

Post by seth December 23, 2008 (38 of 62)
But the number of releases is about the same as the sacd "majors" release in a couple months, not a couple years.
Steve:

I don't get your last point here. Ondine is a small label and doesn't turn out many releases, in any format, a year.

Rattle/Berlin do four discs a year for EMI. So three discs a year for Philadelphia seems pretty good.

As I said before, a failure of the Philadelphia contract is that they didn't make additional recordings with other conductors. For branding purposes, I think they would have been fine letting Eschenbach conduct the war horses, but then record a James Conlon type concert that features Zemlinksy, Schreker and Varese.

The Orchestra also owns a battery of HD cameras, and has broadcasted concerts over Internet2 (that no one has watched), but they have failed to release these recordings on DVD. Now that Blu ray has taken off, there is a real opportunity to turn out some HD video recordings for the format while there is little competition, but given the Orchestra's track record, I'm sure they'll blow this opportunity.

Post by Lochiel December 23, 2008 (39 of 62)
mdt said:

This financial sense, financial sense, financial sense arguing makes me long for the time when for example Karajan used nearly an entire recording session, not recording a tone, untill he evoked precisisely the special sound he wanted from the strings to fit a few seconds long passage in Pelleas et Melisande.
Where has that artistic longing for perfection gone today?! Financial sense, financial sense, financial sense. I can't hear it anymore!!! Look into which crisis people thinking only about money have brought us!!!!

And why do you think allmost 100% of the buyers have no interrest in the high rez layer, if no one ever promoted the advantages? The public was only allways told about multichannel. People not wanting to fill theire living rooms with speakers and cables of course rejected this. No one ever took care to inform the larger public about the other advantages of high resolution, like more natural timbres, better spatial reproduction and above all better transfer of the emotional impact of a performance do to the finest nuances in artistic expression being captured and transformed. I've met several music lovers who had no idea, that sa-cd existed, but who where fully convinced when they heard it. I'm verry much dissapointed by you industry people droping such great a format for the most banal of reasons money, money and once again money.
Oh where are though, Karajan, Legge and all you perfectionists who loved what they did and had a healthfully insane passion for what they did, who just had to do things, the best possible way they could??

The cheap production costs of Karajan and Legge's time are what have brought us to where we are - a saturated market in which the large supply of great recordings of everything in the repetoire (such as the recordings you mention) make the profitability of new recordings, even on a better format, very difficult.

That's why we shouldn't all be so eager for the cheaper re-issues, even those that are remastered. A little scarcity in the classical music market would likely do wonders for sales. Unfortunately, the large companies with the large back-catalogs need the revenue the reissuance of those catalogs produces to fund the new projects, because the new projects can't turn a profit nowadays. See the over-supply problem?

I wish DG would ban all future reissuance of Karajan for the next 10 years and pull the new "edition" out of circulation in 12 months. I wish they could successfully cut down the size of the available catalog. Want a new Beethoven cycle from DG? You'll have to buy Pletnev, whether you really like him or not, or you'll need to shell out a lot of coin on eBay for second-hand Karajan. That's the only way out of this problem.

And look at prices? We pay on Amazon Marketplace sometimes less than $15 for a good SACD or less than $12 for a RBCD. You probably couldn't buy 1/2 a ticket to a concert at a 2nd tier orchestra (in the cheapest seats) for those prices - a little more scarcity would likely allow producers to raise prices to where they need to be in order to make money or break even.

I'd love to hear Robert or Pentaman tell us what they would need to charge (as opposed to what they currently charge) on a per unit basis to break even on a CD and SACD of average sale volume for their label (and I don't know how many copies sold that would be, but just guessing I'd say its probably in the 250-500 units sold ballpark).

Post by TerraEpon December 23, 2008 (40 of 62)
Lochiel said:(and I don't know how many copies sold that would be, but just guessing I'd say its probably in the 250-500 units sold ballpark).
It's wager it's in the thousands at least. If a film score releases of obscure movies pressed at 1000 copies can sell out in a day, classical releases have to sell better, especially companies like Bis and Pentatone which get a lot of press -- if you browse Arkiv/Classicstoday/MusicWeb/etc, you'd know what I mean. There's a buttload of labels that don't have much out there, and I often wonder how they can even sell that much, but BIS isn't one of them, not when every online store newsletter advertises their products all the time.

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