Klarinet Archive - Posting 000057.txt from 1995/03

From: Neil Leupold <Neil_Leupold@-----.COM>
Subj: RE>Sony EnsembleLIVE series
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 14:11:44 -0500

Reply to: RE>Sony EnsembleLIVE series
The company for which I work is closely in contact with record labels
worldwide. Sony accidentally sent us their complete EnsembleLIVE series in
response to a request that we get everthing from their back-catalogue of
releases. Since our company had no practical use for these music-minus-one
recordings, I sifted through and grabbed all of the editions for clarinet and
took them home for a try (I donated the rest of them to the Community Music
Center on Capp St. here in San Francisco). I found the quality of playing in
the accompaniment to be less than unified and, for me, distracting in its lack
of polish. There were also errors in the printed clarinet parts, to which I
responded by writing Sony and making them aware.

I think this series and other music-minus-one type series are a good tool for
becoming acquainted with music for which you might lack the instrumentation and
just wish to play along with. I can see it also being valuable if you happen
to be working on a given piece with an ensemble and wish to recreate that
ensemble context between your actual rehearsals. Because of the (in my
opinion) unsatisfactory quality of the performance by the other players on the
recording, I think it's also important to have a bona-fide respectable
recording on CD by a regular ensemble produced in an actual performance
context.