A Musical Lament...

[endlessrarities]

Question:  WHY IS CLASSICAL MUSIC SO EXPENSIVE???

There's a Mehul overture, La Chasse de Jeune Henri, that I really want to get hold of.  Horse lovers who enjoy Classical music would love it - it inspired me to take up the French horn because of its wild and atmospheric depiction of a medieval hunt.

Only trouble is, that I'm going to have to fork out between nine and eighteen pounds to get hold of something that lasts about ten minutes!  Which isn't really good value to me...

Okay, I know the answer to my own question.  Because orchestral musicians need to live, and because classical music is so niche, it's impossible to produce CD's as cheaply as it is for the mass popular market.

BUT IT'S STILL REALLY ANNOYING!!  AARGGHHHH!!!!!

Comments

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I got the New York Met version of the Ring on DVD at Christmas - that's good enough for me!

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

The Levine one? It's my favourite, too. That and Karajan's version of the Rhinegold - too bad he never did the rest of the lot.

We have a second hand store here that specialises in genre fiction (mostly Fantasy) and for some odd reason, also uses to have a bunch of opera DVDs. I got the Kupfer/Barenboim version of the Ring cheap or I'd not have bought another one. And then I was a bad girl and recoreded the La Fura del Baus version when it came on TV.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

That's the one.

We don't get many Ring cycles on telly over here. The first one I saw was the Boulez Bayreuth festival version of ?1984. It had Gwyneth Jones as a rather peaky-looking Brunnhilde and Manfred Jung as a not very handsome Siegfried. And the costumes were dire! Lounge suits and a spear just don't go together. But Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegmund made it all worthwhile, and I remember the two Wolsung twins were at it on the stage as the curtain fell, which was quite risque!! The Valkyries were also lugging about 'corpses', which was a nice touch.

The next one I saw was the Met version, and I was hooked. It looked mythical. I taped it on VHS, and was absolutely delighted when I realised that I could replace my 8 odd videos for a neat DVD box set.