Any one else miss liner notes?

[Richard Mullany]

s getting a grounding of ssome sort in musis. CD'S have notes of course but few go very far into details.
sometimes you learn something that gives you an insight into recording that you may not have known. This; The recording by Munch and the BSO of Tschaikovsky's Francesca Da Rimini was all; made in one session inclyding that incredible finale, a real speaker buster. It also offers a very nice Bizet; Sym in C.
Anyone have favorite albums, for design, notes or anything?

[Richard Mullany]

something went wrong back there, most of the post never showed up..
I was interested in how many of us read and enjoyed the liner notes that came with the 33rpm of olden days.
Names like Robert Charles Marsh, H.C. Robbins=Landon, Jacque Barzun and many more. Barzun taught me to love Berlioz, as Landon did for JF Hayden.

[moldyoldie]

I've always enjoyed reading the liner notes, especially historical information and recording techniques, considering that I'm a non-musician. The problem with CD notes isn't the content so much as the type size. Hell, I even enjoy the cover art/photography/design.

In my opinion, the lack of such is a major negative to downloaded music.

[RebLem]

I have to tell you that I own, now, about 39 recordings of the Beethoven 9th symphony. When I buy a 40th, and I will, and probably more--I am especially eagerly awaiting the completion of the much praised Vanska set with the Minnesota Orchestra, and their release in a box--I don't need the liner notes to tell me once again about how Beethoven came to write it, or anything about its historical importance, or what contribution it made to the development of the Western musical aesthetic. That already accompanies about 30+ of the performances, especially most of my 18 complete sets, and, besides, I can get all that stuff off the internet pretty easily in relatively compact articles.

What I want to see is something about the orchestra, the conductor, the chorus, the chorus master, the soloists, perhaps even some of the principal players, something about where it was recorded and the acoustical properties of the venue, and what challenges the recording process presented to the recording engineers and how they dealt with it. I find this sort of thing, which could be unique in some respect for virtually every recording, almost totally lacking.

I keep hoping that record companies will come to the conclusion that if they want people to actually buy real CDs instead of downloading the music, they are going to have to add value to the downloaded product with liner notes with this sort of information. But there seems to be a real dearth of common sense at these companies, and I am losing hope.

Posted on April 11, 2008. RebLem

[Seán]

I have always enjoyed reading the linear notes on LP covers. With regard to Classical music though what has always puzzled me was that the Orchestra gets a mention but there is never any mention of the orchestral personnel, etc. I raised this a few weeeks ago in another thread.

I'm with Reblem on this one I do not want to be told the same old guff about the composer's music whilst listening to it, I want to know more about the recording. Alas this would require effort on the part of the record companies, and as effort has an inherent cost they will not do it.

The advent of CD recordings has seen no improvement in this regard. either.

[jbuck919]

I miss the old LP Telefunken Bach including the cantatas where the "liner notes" included a full miniature score.

One can still learn from well written liner notes. The other day I ran into an insight regarding Handel that may be a commonplace but was new to me. Most of Handel's oratorios (Messiah and Israel in Egypt being the obvious exceptions) are English counterparts to his Italian operas. I don't just mean in form, where the observation is a commonplace, but in substance. As with the operas, he chose a flawed or tragic figure to tell a story around, except that the story involves a character from the Old Testament instead of one from history/mythology. A curious and beautiful symmetry where I did not recognize one before.

[Ralph]

Depending on the label, the notes are either very useful and interesting or fluff. The smaller European labels like Channel put out some really serious notes for their releases.

I very much enjoy and indeed need notes when I'm hearing music with which I'm unfamiliar. I don't need notes for Beethoven, Mozart or Dittersdorf.

[MaestroDJS]

I was interested in how many of us read and enjoyed the liner notes that came with the 33rpm of olden days.
Names like Robert Charles Marsh, H.C. Robbins Landon, Jacque Barzun and many more. Barzun taught me to love Berlioz, as Landon did for JF Haydn.

I do miss the notes, but I've managed to cope. I was an early convert to CDs when they appeared in the 1980s, and most of my new purchases were on CDs. However most of my 3000 or so existing LPs are in such good condition that I've converted only about 1/5 of them to CDs. I also still buy plenty of LPs at 2nd-hand shops because it's hard to resist them at a dollar apiece.

The name H.C. Robbins Landon reminds me of his large illustrated booklets for the Antal Doráti LPs of the complete Haydn symphonies. That newly-issued 48-LP set wasn't the sort of thing a high school kid would normally buy, but it was one of the best purchases of my teenage years and I still refer to those notes to this day. Then there is Derycke Cooke's illustrated introduction to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, with the complete text of his lecture and all his musical examples in the large booklet which accompanied the LPs. If they tried to cram all those notes into the CDs I'd need a jeweler's eyepiece to read them.

Of course nowadays we can always download and/or printout notes about the music from various websites and archives about composers, and this is what I do to a large extent. For example, The Hector Berlioz Website ( http://www.hberlioz.com ) is excellent, and whatever one might think of Joaquim Raff he has one of the best-designed web sites ( http://www.raff.org ) I've ever seen. Of course the danger to this digital exploration is that I often get sidetracked in the digital archives of Project Gutenberg, Cornell University Library, Google Books etc. Next thing I know, I've uncovered facsimiles of a hundred zillion fascinating musical books and magazines from the past few centuries in multiple languages, and I haven't slept in 6 weeks. But these are the sorts of dangers I'm willing to risk, because most of this is absolutely free and much of it is also in the public domain.

I very much enjoy and indeed need notes when I'm hearing music with which I'm unfamiliar. I don't need notes for Beethoven, Mozart or Dittersdorf.

That's what I used to think, but then in some obscure archive I unearth little gems like this which reminds me that I'll never stop learning. In April 1789 Mozart travelled north from Vienna to Prague, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin. His friend Friedrich Rochlitz (1769-1842), editor of the music journal Allgemeine musicalische Zeitung, later recalled Mozart's visit in Leipzig:

Original German:

Auf Veranstaltung des damaligen Kantors an der Thomasschule in Leipzig des verstorbenen Doles, überraschte Mozarten das Chor mit der Aufführung der zweychörigen Motette. Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied — von dem Allvater deutscher Musik, von Sebastian Bach. Mozart kannte diesen Albrecht Dürer der deutschen Musik mehr vom Hörensagen, als aus seinen selten gewordnen Werken. Kaum hatte das Chor einige Takte gesungen, so stutzte Mozart — noch einige Takte, da rief er: Was ist das? — und nun schien seine ganze Seele in seinen Ohren zu seyn. Als der Gesang geendigt war, rief er voll Freude: Das ist doch einmal etwas, woraus sich was lernen läßt! — Man erzählte ihm, daß diese Schule, an der Sebastian Bach Kantor gewesen war, die vollständige Sammlung seiner Motetten besitze und als eine Art Reliquien aufbewahre. Das ist recht, das ist brav — rief er: zeigen Sie her!

Man hatte aber keine Partitur dieser Gesänge; er ließ sich also die ausgeschriebenen Stimmen geben — und nun war es fur den stillen Beobachter eine Freude zu sehen, wie eifrig Mozart sich setzte, die Stimmen um sich herum, in beide Hände, auf die Knie, auf die nächsten Stühle vertheilte, und, alles andere vergessend, nicht eher aufstand, bis er alles, was von Sebastian Bach da war, durchgesehen hatte. Er erbat sich eine Kopie, hielt diese sehr hoch, und — wenn ich nicht sehr irre, kann dem Kenner der Bachschen Kompositionen und des Mozartschen Requiem — besonders etwa der großen Fuge Christe eleison — das Studium, die Werthschätzung, und die volle Auffassung des Geistes jenes alten Kontrapunktisten, bey Mozarts zu allem fähigen Geiste, nicht entgehen.

My English translation:

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach. Mozart knew this Albrecht Dürer of German music more by hearsay than from his rarely-performed works. Hardly had the chorus sung a few bars, when Mozart started; a few bars more — when he cried out: "What is that?" — and now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the singing was over, he exclaimed full of joy: "Now that is something from which one can learn!" They told him that this school, in which Bach had been cantor, possessed and guarded as a kind of sacred relic the entire collection of his Motets. "That is right! That is good!" — he cried. "Show me them!"

But they had no full score of these vocal pieces; so he had the copied parts given to him — and now it was a joy for the silent observer to see how eagerly Mozart seated himself, the parts all around him, in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest seats, and, forgetting all else, did not stand up until he had looked through all there was of Sebastian Bach. He begged for a copy, which he prized highly, and — if I am not very mistaken, those who know Bach's compositions and Mozart's Requiem — especially something of the great fugue Christe eleison — cannot fail to notice the study, appreciation and the full conception of the spirit of that old contrapuntalist into Mozart's all-capable spirit.

[stenka razin]

As much as I miss LP liner notes, I am happy with CD liner notes and do you want to know why?.....Well, the next step is NOTHING...That is the way of the future and I am alluding to downloading....The future for literate Classical music lovers like you and me is quite grim and the recording companies could care less, if we have any written material, sadly.

[slofstra]

If they tried to cram all those notes into the CDs I'd need a jeweler's eyepiece to read them.

Where do I get one? An unexpected bonus with the Glenn Gould - orginal jacket collection I purchased has been the copious liner notes on the original cover reproductions. The accompanying booklet reproduces additional re-release covers which feature even more notes.

But if you can imagine something originally printed at 10 point on an LP jacket shot down to CD cover size, you can understand the problem in reading those notes. I remember having a kind of magnifying plastic sheet once in an atlas - perhaps one of those would help. If it's CD cover size I can keep it right in the Glenn Gould box.

[hangos]

Original German:

Auf Veranstaltung des damaligen Kantors an der Thomasschule in Leipzig des verstorbenen Doles, überraschte Mozarten das Chor mit der Aufführung der zweychörigen Motette. Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied — von dem Allvater deutscher Musik, von Sebastian Bach. Mozart kannte diesen Albrecht Dürer der deutschen Musik mehr vom Hörensagen, als aus seinen selten gewordnen Werken. Kaum hatte das Chor einige Takte gesungen, so stutzte Mozart — noch einige Takte, da rief er: Was ist das? — und nun schien seine ganze Seele in seinen Ohren zu seyn. Als der Gesang geendigt war, rief er voll Freude: Das ist doch einmal etwas, woraus sich was lernen läßt! — Man erzählte ihm, daß diese Schule, an der Sebastian Bach Kantor gewesen war, die vollständige Sammlung seiner Motetten besitze und als eine Art Reliquien aufbewahre. Das ist recht, das ist brav — rief er: zeigen Sie her!

Man hatte aber keine Partitur dieser Gesänge; er ließ sich also die ausgeschriebenen Stimmen geben — und nun war es fur den stillen Beobachter eine Freude zu sehen, wie eifrig Mozart sich setzte, die Stimmen um sich herum, in beide Hände, auf die Knie, auf die nächsten Stühle vertheilte, und, alles andere vergessend, nicht eher aufstand, bis er alles, was von Sebastian Bach da war, durchgesehen hatte. Er erbat sich eine Kopie, hielt diese sehr hoch, und — wenn ich nicht sehr irre, kann dem Kenner der Bachschen Kompositionen und des Mozartschen Requiem — besonders etwa der großen Fuge Christe eleison — das Studium, die Werthschätzung, und die volle Auffassung des Geistes jenes alten Kontrapunktisten, bey Mozarts zu allem fähigen Geiste, nicht entgehen.

My English translation:

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach. Mozart knew this Albrecht Dürer of German music more by hearsay than from his rarely-performed works. Hardly had the chorus sung a few bars, when Mozart started; a few bars more — when he cried out: "What is that?" — and now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the singing was over, he exclaimed full of joy: "Now that is something from which one can learn!" They told him that this school, in which Bach had been cantor, possessed and guarded as a kind of sacred relic the entire collection of his Motets. "That is right! That is good!" — he cried. "Show me them!"

But they had no full score of these vocal pieces; so he had the copied parts given to him — and now it was a joy for the silent observer to see how eagerly Mozart seated himself, the parts all around him, in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest seats, and, forgetting all else, did not stand up until he had looked through all there was of Sebastian Bach. He begged for a copy, which he prized highly, and — if I am not very mistaken, those who know Bach's compositions and Mozart's Requiem — especially something of the great fugue Christe eleison — cannot fail to notice the study, appreciation and the full conception of the spirit of that old contrapuntalist into Mozart's all-capable spirit.

[/quote]

Dave,
As a teacher of German may I congratulate you on your impeccable translations on this forum - mistakes usually jump off the page when I read a translation by professional translators of, for example, screenplays or theatre plays, whereas your translations are both accurate and in idiomatic English - and also in the correct register - it is extremely difficult to achieve all three of these aspects at the same time!
Das nenn' ich mir eine vortreffliche Leistung!
Martin

[MaestroDJS]

Dave,
As a teacher of German may I congratulate you on your impeccable translations on this forum - mistakes usually jump off the page when I read a translation by professional translators of, for example, screenplays or theatre plays, whereas your translations are both accurate and in idiomatic English - and also in the correct register - it is extremely difficult to achieve all three of these aspects at the same time!
Das nenn' ich mir eine vortreffliche Leistung!
Martin

"Das nenn' ich mir eine vortreffliche Leistung!" = "That to me I call (or, that's what I call) a splendid achievement!"

Really? Wow! Danke schön! That's exactly what I hope to achieve, which amazes me considering I'm self-taught. On the other hand, during a decade of engineering projects in Germany and France with dictionaries stuffed into my pockets, I was bound to absorb something.

As I explore these digitized libraries, I prefer to read the French and German originals if possible, rather than only standard English translations. Many translations are actually paraphrases which sometimes omit good stuff or are just not right. I try to wring as much original meaning out of the text as possible, as well as retain the original style into English, which can be a tall order. After grappling with the high-fallutin' quasi-poetic, quasi-archaic, pompous 19th-Century Viennese German of music critic Eduard Hanslick (luckily I avoided that @#$%&* Old German script) I needed a long vacation. However that experience gave me a greater respect for the highly poetic yet paradoxically lucid letters and formal writings of Hector Berlioz and Robert Schumann.

This reminds me: I mentioned to a music-loving German engineer that even though I've studied for at least a decade, I still can't understand Wagnerian German. "Don't feel bad," he replied. "Neither can we."

Well, if nobody has any strenuous objections, I'll continue.

[Seán]

MaestroDJS, I always read your posts with great interest and have admired and appreciated your efforts to date. It has been rather remiss of me not to have commented thus far. Do please keep posting I'm learning more and more every day. Thank you.

[slofstra]

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach.

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach.

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach.

At the suggestion of the then-cantor of the Thomas School, the late Doles, the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet Sing unto the Lord a New Song, by the All-Father of German music, by Sebastian Bach.

Dave, Have you considered using the [size] BBcode as per above. I show some possibilities.

[DavidRoss]

Before listening to a new CD I remove the booklet and read the liner notes. Sometimes they're interesting and informative. Sometimes they're not. Although I value good liner notes, I doubt that I've ever made a purchasing decision based on them...at least in the CD era. It's not like the old days when you could read Nat Hentoff's notes on the back of the album cover to help you decide whether to buy it or not!

However, via the Web we now have access to a gazillion times more information about a recording we're considering buying than we ever did in the "good old days."

(I do think the old days were good in many respects--but I miss near-universal literacy and uncrowded streets far more than album liner notes!)

[Wallingford]

Of all the classical journalists who've graced LP backsleeves & CD inserts, I don't think anyone has quite touched the legacy of CHARLES BURR.

Even allowing for (very) minor advances in current scholarship, Burr's late-50s jacket notes for Columbia classical albums really sets an all-time standard. I'm wanting to put up a website devoted to his work; I have 60-70 of his essays & am willing to swap lists of album titles with others--maybe we can make this a collaborative project.

[sfbugala]

I enjoy the program notes written by the performers themselves, like Fennell or E Power Biggs. Glenn Gould's are often wacky, but enjoyable, too.

[AntonioA]

Three examples of great liner notes come to my mind:

Eric Blom´s liner notes for the Schnabel Beethoven sonatas.

The liner notes for Boris Christoffs boxed set with all the Mussorgsky songs. A very beautiful booklet.

The nice booklets included in Victoria de los Angeles Medieval and Andalusian collections.