Re: [ARSCLIST] regurgitators

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff:

You probably know this from working at Polygram, classical "content" gets re-packaged and 
re-sequenced all the time. That's why I dig Arkiv's website, because you can browse by conductor, 
orchestra, composer and work. You find things get re-combined in different albums under different 
titles. And plenty of themed "classics for dummies" collections. So yeah, Funk & Wagnall's is long 
gone and was a one-off by RCA special products division most likely, but it pays to see if a 
specific work by a specific conductor that was in that collection was later released on CD in 
another context/package.

I have a friend with a large collection of commercially-released open-reel tapes. We've both been 
pretty surprised how much RCA material was never released on CD -- and I mean popular stuff by 
people like Fiedler and Munch. Polygram was a mixed bag, with a lot of overlapping DG catalog 
(overlapping = many versions of the same works by different conductors) put out on CD and a fair 
amount of certain conductors' Decca works put out (and others not as much). Philips seemed to be 
catch as catch can and of course there was an organized and systematic Mercury Living Presence 
reissue program (stopped before all of the material available was reissued on CD). EMI seems to have 
taken out of print a lot of material they had on CD early in the era (compare EMI's in-print titles 
circa 1990 to now), but they and Universal (formerly Polygram) licensed many titles to Arkiv for 
release on ArkivCD one-off CDR's.

It's actually quite interesting to see how much is out of print in commercial CD's now, based on 
their availability as ArkivCD's:
http://tinyurl.com/3dz6zn
I estimate there are probably at least as many titles as available as ArkivCD's that are out of 
print and not available anywhere.

I should also say the situation is getting more and more similar with jazz titles, especially jazz 
titles owned by Universal which are going or gone out of print on CD and available only as 
lossy-compressed iTunes files.

One more thing about RCA. They were already repackaging content from the original Living Stereo 
series in the mid-60's. Examples are the LP/tape of Fiedler "The Music of Franz Liszt" which was 
half from a 1956 album and half from a 1958 album.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Willens" <jwillens@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] regurgitators


Thanks Tom,

That's rather depressing -- that a recording that had so much widespread exposure from a 99-cent LP 
back in the day is completely missing on CD, not to mention the other 60-odd performances in the 
same series.

This was the Ebay link I wanted to send
http://cgi.ebay.com/Funk-Wagnalls-Library-of-Great-Music-Beethoven-Vol-1_W0QQitemZ170050531696QQihZ007QQcategoryZ306QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

And an earlier version with a different cover:
http://cgi.ebay.com/BEETHOVEN-FUNK-WAGNALLS-FAMILY-LIBRARY-OF-GREAT-MUSIC_W0QQitemZ130163615756QQihZ003QQcategoryZ306QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting






-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Fine [mailto:tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: regurgitators


Hi Jeff:

If it's on CD and it's Classical, Arkiv probably has a listing.

For Charles Groves:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?&name_id=56138&name_role=3

no dice on the Beethoven symphony.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Willens" <jwillens@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] regurgitators


I've done a search in the list archive for this, but I can't find any mention of it, so pardon the
possible repetition.

I've been looking for years for any CD issue of "The Great Composers" series, some of which were
regurgitated on RCA/Funk and Wagnalls (in fake stereo! yeechh) as a supermarket series. The loss
leader, Volume 1, was Beethoven Sym. # 6 by Sir Charles Groves & Royal Philharmonic. It's a
performance I've listened to since I was a kid, and have always wanted a clean copy of it. In mono.

I believe the series was licensed from a company called Fabbri. There is a copy on Ebay: