The Curious Case of eMusic.com

[UPDATE: I've created an eMusic playlist of lengthy single tracks here. The playlist is briefly described here.]

We live in a material world, so naturally the early stages of my love affair with the immaterial sounds of music quickly inspired a love for accumulating records. I amassed about 500 or so LP's before reluctantly switching over to the less tactile, but shinier CD format and amassed another 500 or so of those little discs. Curiously, as much money as I invested in these materials, I never cared much about audio quality. I was very proud when I arrived with saved cash in hand at a Service Merchandise to buy my first little Panasonic all-in-one record/cassette/radio player with its tinny, tiny little speakers. Proud, that is, until I happened to run into my high school band director, an audiophile whose questions about what I was buying had me soon pretending I had no interest in the Panasonic. (I slipped out with it after he left and never regretted the purchase.)

Through the CD years, I've never had anything more than unremarkable speakers and a weak, utilitarian amp/receiver; so, unlike many audio enthusiasts, I've had no trouble switching over to the inferior audio quality of the MP3 world. The convenience/flexibility factor is so great that I now spend probably 80% of my audio dollars at the iTunes store. There's a very small part of me that misses the thrill of 'holding' brand-new LP sleeves/CD jewel cases in my hands, and I'm mystified that program notes haven't been more routinely incorporated into the digital world. (What could be easier than slipping a little text into these files?) Still, the part of me that lives in a house that's too small for all of our accumulated possessions is just as happy to watch my collection grow by the invisible gigabyte rather than by inches on a shelf.

Of course, iTunes isn't perfect, but their classical catalog has gotten pretty deep. However, my post title refers to one of its quirkiest competitors, eMusic.com. I'm now on my second go-around with the subscription-based model of eMusic. The biggest problem is that I hate the subscription model. This is both because of and in spite of all the years I spent as an off-and-on member of those old Columbia Record Club mail-order deals - the ones where they sent you a record each month unless you told them not to - of course, I often forgot to tell them not to so they got a lot of return-to-sender packages from me - and yet they kept signing me up.

eMusic provides you with a certain number of tracks to download per month, and it's clear from their setup that they wouldn't mind if you forgot to get your downloads in every now and then - the credits don't carry over to the next month, which is insane. But that's just the beginning of the insanity. What really makes no sense is that every track is of equal value, regardless of track length. As a result, a 1-hour recording of the Goldberg Variations would cost 32 track credits, while an 85-minute Mahler symphony might cost only 5 credits. The company apparently has done well enough to suggest that many are content with this model, but it drives me crazy as I find myself getting obsessed with finding the longest tracks to maximize value.

In a way that's silly, because they're already offering a better deal than iTunes. A basic subscription costs $10 for 30 tracks/month. Thus, even those overpriced Goldberg Variations would cost about $10, which is what an iTunes album usually costs. Also, eMusic offers less compressed (higher quality) MP3s, and there's no copy protection built into their files. Still, it just seems wrong to download a 2-minute track when it costs the same as a 30-minute track. And, in the classical world, it turns out there are quite a few long tracks available that become superbargains.

So it is that in my two brief membership periods (which have included two bundles of free tracks, first to get me to try and then to come back and try again), I've paid $20 to download 105 tracks totaling more than 16 hours of music. Honestly, I feel kind of guilty about that and will probably stay on for another month or two at least so I'm not completely gaming the system. However, the system is was it is, and I haven't done anything sneaky. I've just done a good job of finding all the long tracks that appealed to me. In fact, in trying to finish up the bunch of tracks I just had available to me, I finally gave in and downloaded a few albums with some very short tracks, partly just to get it over with. Still, I've averaged more than 9 minutes per track.

One thing this reveals is that eMusic is not really designed for classical rep, which is much more likely to have these marathon chunks of music; if classical was their main market, I'm sure the pricing structure would change. It's actually clear in lots of ways that eMusic isn't set up well for the classical world; the search/browse process is far too clumsy and there are all sorts of inconsistencies in how works, performers, composers, titles, etc. are listed. For example, it's not at all unusual for a composer to be listed as the performer. iTunes isn't perfect in this respect, but I find it much easier to use. Of course, iTunes also offers access to most of the main labels, while eMusic features an eclectic blend of mostly budget and independent labels that rarely feature the most well-known performers. However, the nature of the classical business is that that's not necessarily a bad thing, if one chooses wisely. (Just ask Joyce Hatto's husband.)

My all-time prize is a recording of Terry Riley's In C that clocks in at 46 minutes. Well, given that it's a pretty monotonous piece, maybe that's not the best value. I've also come away with 20+ minute recordings of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht, Strauss's Metamorphosen, Beethoven's Eroica Variations, Bloch's Schelomo, and Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead. Oh, and Leon Fleisher's recent recording of the last Schubert sonata has a 20-minute first movement, although its other three movements (which I did stoop to buy) only average about 7 minutes apiece.

I haven't had 16 hours to hear everything in full, but among my favorite recent downloads is the Ravel Quartet, played gorgeously by the Borromeo Quartet. I'm embarrassed that I've heard them perform live far too seldom given that they play many free concerts as quartet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory. One of the few albums that I downloaded in full (in spite of many short tracks) features Sergey Schepkin, a fellow DMA student from my NEC days. I don't mind admitting that Sergei plays at a level I can only dream of, and his disc of Debussy (Book I preludes, etc.) is some of the most compelling playing I've heard in a long time. It's not at all sentimental, but it's also never remotely dull - he plays with such command and vision.

The great deals have also made it easier to take a chance on some unusual items, including a duo-piano version of Bolero, a solo-piano version of The Rite of Spring (only 2 tracks total!), and an orchestration of Schubert's sublime F Minor Fantasy. Oh, I also picked up a version of the Schubert in its original 2-piano setting. 17 minutes each - 2 tracks total. I could go on and on, but the point is that . . . well, I guess it's both that I've really enjoyed my eMusic experience, and it drives me crazy. I can't imagine staying on for all that long, but maybe I'll keep finding things to keep me coming back. A problem is that, especially in the standard rep, eMusic generally won't have the ideal recording. On the other hand, I don't mind picking up an extra Don Juan for what amounts to about 25 cents.

Other highly recommended eMusic picks: Jamie Buswell playing Barber's Violin Concerto, Julia Fischer playing Tchaikovsky's Valse-Scherzo, The Dale Warland Singers sing Ives' Psalm 90. In fact, I came to bury eMusic, but on reflection I should be much more grateful. Originally my subject heading was going to be "eMusic.con" (clever, huh?), but I wasn't sure if it was they or I doing the conning, so it was too confusing.

[P.S. It is annoying that eMusic will sometimes have tracks that are unavailable. Most oddly, this happened with a Vaughan Williams' symphony where I downloaded three of the four movements, only to realize that the 4th was never going to be available. I ended up getting that track the old-fashioned way - I checked the disc out from my local library and ripped it onto my computer. For the record, I don't make a habit of doing that with library discs. I've got my pride.]

Freaky Friday

So I mentioned last post that I find Edith Piaf's voice to be a bit freaky, and yet, believe it or not, my default association with La vie en rose comes from an even freakier source. [I'll wait while you sample the link.] That's one of the Virtual Singers from the Melody Assistant line of music notation software. In fact, the makers of this program post that sample to advertise the product. Since the first time I heard it, I haven't been able to get that sound out of my head. He/she also sings Strangers in the Night and even a bit of coloratura from a famous stranger of the night. There are more samples here. Truly, we live in a golden age of virtual singers.

When you combine the wonders of Melody Assistant/Virtual Singer (free-to-try shareware which is quite inexpensive, powerful, and freakily designed) with all the freely available midi-karaoke files out there then . . . well, you get endless potential for magical moments. At least, you do if you're me. Here are a few little performances I've staged with minimal effort: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Gregg, that last one's for you.

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[UPDATE: Synth-like voices ID'd in nature. See here and here.]

The Rose of Spring

Today was Rite of Spring today in one of my classes - no, no pagan sacrifices, just some Stravinsky which just happened to bring to mind another great tune theft. I don't remember when it first occurred to me (years ago) that the famous opening bassoon solo seems to anticipate La vie en rose, but it's a pretty obvious connection, even if the similarities have more to do with general gestalt-ness of shape than exact duplication of intervals.

[Click on the examples to hear them played.]

They also both have Parisian associations, and the sultry high register of the bassoon is at least as distinctive as Edith Piaf's freaky timbre. Again, I wasn't able to Google much mention of this pairing, but I'm intrigued to see that some Peter Schickele wannabe named Ernest Acher recorded a "Rite of the Rose," along with other such mashups in an album entitled "Mischief with Mozart: Classical Combat with the Classics." I haven't been able to find an audio sample, but it's not hard to imagine.

I'll post this over in my growing Tune Theft Archive as well.

Recording Sources: Stravinsky, Piaf

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UPDATE (1/27/2021): I've just found that the "Rite of the Rose" video mentioned above is now available on YouTube. It is not what I expected. For most of the running time, the basic texture is Stravinsky, but with the French melody intruding at times both as the variants of the opening bassoon solo and as peripheral counterpoint. "La view en rose" starts to take over at 2:25, gets a brief big moment in the sun at 2:36, and then we clumsily transition back to the very end of "The Rite of Spring." A wild ride and very enjoyable.

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Crossing Over to Camelot

In reading Meg Bussert's notes to my new Camelot DVD, I've learned that the 1982 HBO production in which she starred as Guinevere wasn't just a live theatrical performance; it was filmed at the Winter Garden theater and based on a production there, but parts of it were also restaged for the benefit of cameras. So, it's basically a Broadway show remade for TV, to very good effect.

I noticed that there's a soundtrack on iTunes for a 1982 London production which also starred Richard Harris as Arthur, but with a different surrounding cast. I sampled a bit of Guinevere's "Before I Gaze at You Again," and immediately recognized the very light, breathy voice of Alice from a bizarre early 70's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland film that also featured the likes of Michael Crawford, Dudley Moore, and Ralph Richardson. We'd bought a copy for about a quarter at a dying Kmart on one of those incredibly cheaply produced slimline DVDs. My daughter actually enjoys that version a lot, although its trippiness kind of freaks me out. I once sampled the IMDB user comments and couldn't help but noticing that most of the viewers couldn't help mentioning that Fiona Fullerton (Harris' London stage Guinevere) made for an unexpectedly grown-up and comely Alice. I may or may not have noticed that, but that odd, breathy voice definitely stuck with me.

Anyway, even if Ms. Fullerton did go on to become a Bond girl, she's no Meg Bussert when it comes to Camelot. However, my teenage crush on Ms. Bussert aside, I have to admit that she's no Arleen Auger when it comes to "Before I Gaze at You Again." This is the last track on Auger's album, Love Songs, which may be one of the most perfect CD's ever issued (in spite of its cheesy cover). You can sample about half of her rendition here; it is absolutely heart-rending and, amazingly, she and Dalton Baldwin decided to record it only on a last-minute whim at the end of sessions devoted mostly to classical art songs. Her performance makes it clear that Frederick Loewe belongs in the company of Schubert, Schumann, Gounod, Poulenc, et al.

I happened to be making some repertoire suggestions to a soprano today and kept coming back to songs on that disc; it's funny because I took my first ever vocal rep class a year or so after it came out and I later realized that quite a few of its songs showed up in our class assignments. Of course, there are many old chestnuts there, but I feel sure my professor must have been inspired by these recordings as well. I especially recommend both Copland songs, Poulenc's Fleurs (my all-time favorite song), the impossibly slow Salley Gardens, Marx's Selige Nacht and even the two Roger Quilter songs. Her ability to make the sappy Quilter songs seem so profound reveals some of the same gifts for inflection and naturalness of phrasing that work wonders with Loewe.

Even though I'd always been a big Camelot fan, and even though opera singers crossing over into musical theater is usually a recipe for disappointment, hearing Auger sing "Before I Gaze At You Again" was completely disarming upon first encounter. Her ravishing voice never overwhelms the simplicity of the melody or the emotion of the text, which is crystal clear throughout. Those 2 1/2 minutes capture all the pathos of the doomed Camelot love triangle. The fact that Auger died of cancer not so long after recording this album make it all that much more affecting. "Beauty that hurts" describes both the song and the voice.

It's May!

Tra-la, It's May, the [tr]usty month of May. And, right on schedule, my pre-ordered copy of Camelot arrived in the mail. As I mentioned almost two months ago, this is not the off-target 1967 movie version. This is a 1982 Broadway production that was shown on HBO back in early 80's. The video quality isn't great, but it's much better than the bootleg VHS copy I'd gotten off of eBay a few years back. Mainly I'd still wish for a better-sounding orchestra - I doubt a 1982 Broadway pit would've supplemented the strings with synthesized reinforcements, but it's got that suspiciously canned sound; Loewe's score is so beautiful, it really deserves better.

Operas and stage productions in general are notoriously difficult to capture in screen, but I think this is quite successful. One is almost always aware of the stage, the stage-y effects and the audience, but it's shot with enough variety to avoid looking static. Yes, it makes me wish I'd actually been in the audience, but you can't fault it for making the real thing look so appealing. The performances are all wonderful, especially Richard Harris; he actually wasn't bad in the 1967 film, but he couldn't rescue that disaster.

This reminds me of my disappointment a few weeks back at finally getting around to seeing Bergman's 1975 filmed version of The Magic Flute. That production blends elements of a live stage version with beyond-the-stage scenes designed more for the camera. I probably need to see it again to articulate more clearly why it doesn't work for me - I do remember a lot of painfully close close-ups, a problem that also crops up in that '67 Camelot. In general, it's just too affected for my tastes, more hallucinogenic than magical.

My favorite operas-on-video would be the Baz Luhrman La Bohème, and, in a quirkier choice, the Peter Sellars The Marriage of Figaro. The audio quality of the latter leaves something to be desired, and the video production has a kind of cheap look, but I think the Trump Towers thing really works. I find the characters believable and I'm always more drawn into the story than any other version I've seen. I'm no big advocate of avant-garde stagings (although this one really isn't all that 'out there'), but I think this version probably communicates something of the edginess that 18th century audiences might have felt.

This is an interesting subject I'd like to return to some time.