Purchasing Recordings

Requisite Knowledge Level for Understanding (* being beginner, ***** being expert): * to ***

When purchasing recordings of a classical nature, there are a number of things to consider.  From the obvious (e.g. which piece by which composer) to the specific (e.g. this performer's earlier or later recording of the work).  Here are many different variables to consider when purchasing CDs, arranged from likelihood of importance to unimportance (import is first), and indeed some further down the line are essentially decided for you by virtue of availability and existence (and some of these variables will be discussed in depth in later posts, though summaries and helpful hints have been included below).

Note:  If you are in a CD store, you will also likely see recordings in which it does not look like English is the first language these were intended to see (e.g. most of the words look German on it).  Just try and muddle through as best you can; as far as these things go, if you think it means something, it probably means that (e.g. Tchaikovsky, as we normally see it, might be spelled Tschaikowsky; that's just how the Germans spell it, but you are in the right place).

Composer
Piece Title
Medium of Issue
Price
Ensemble/Performer
Conductor
Complete Piece vs. Suite/Selections
Publishing Edition of Piece 
Modern vs. Period Instruments
Studio vs. Live
Year Recorded

Composer:  This is the guy/gal who wrote the piece.  Whether you are purchasing this on your own or at the advice of a friend, you probably already know this name.  This is pretty simple, and I don't expect this to be a problem for you since you found this blog entry, but simply make sure this person's name (e.g. Beethoven), is on your purchase.  The one thing to mention is to pay attention to first and last names as some families have had a great impact on music (e.g. J. S. Bach and C. P. E. Bach, or L. Mozart and W. A. Mozart), so if you're getting this because you have said to yourself "I want to listen to some Mozart", just make sure you're getting the right Mozart (in this case, you're probably looking for W. A. Mozart).

Piece Title:  Again, not surprisingly, this is the name of the piece.  Again, you likely already know that you are looking for a specific piece (e.g. the 5th Symphony), and thus this should not present you with any sort of problem either.  If you do not know this (e.g. the person above who wants some Mozart but doesn't know much more than that), look around and see if you see the name of a particular piece on a number of recordings (popular ones include symphonies, e.g. Symphony No. 5 or Symphony No. 9), and that is probably a good place to start.

Medium of Issue:  This is again something about which you probably will not need too much information. In fact, by virtue of going to a particular store, you have already probably come close to determining what medium it will be.  This is simply whether you have gone to find a CD, a digital download, your traditional old LP records or whatever.  Most common these days are of course CDs and digital downloads, though you will see some SACDs, DVDs-Audio, LPs if you can find them (and are usually in a used store) and some DVDs or Blu-Rays of actual live performances.

Price:  This is what it costs, of course.  Damage to the wallet.  My least favourite aspect of buying anything.  You will rarely see anything free, except for the occasional digital download on special.  These will almost always be by some performer that no one has ever heard of.  Again, not to say that this is a horrible performance of the music, but it is essentially guaranteed that it is not going to be the greatest.

Ensemble/Performer:  This is information that you very well may or may not know.  If you are a fan of a particular artist (e.g. Yo-Yo Ma) or ensemble (e.g. London Philharmonic Orchestra), you will know to look for that name.  Elsewise, you may just know that you are looking for a specific piece (e.g. Beethoven's 5th Symphony) and more than that you do not know.  If you are simply looking for a recording of a specific piece, you might not even look this far down on the list because you have found the cheapest one there and are already halfway out of the door.  I would not necessarily recommend this, though I know your wallet might beg for it.

I would recommend purchasing a recording made by the more popular of classical performers if you are unsure.  If it is a solo piece (concerto or chamber work) this person would probably have a lot of recordings listed under their name (e.g. Yo-Yo Ma or Martha Argerich).  This is not to say that the recording by the person who has just one solo recording and it happens to be the piece for which you were looking is bad.  It very well might be the next standard for that piece.  However if you do not know much, and are looking for introductions into the music, this would be more of a gamble and could just as easily turn out to be a poor representation of this music.

If you are looking for ensemble works (e.g. full orchestra), you are probably going to want to go with an orchestra that has the name of one of the world's epic cities in it (e.g. Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, or London Symphony Orchestra), and they will probably have a quality performance inside.  The one caveat I would indicate here is to hesitate where ever you see the word "festival" (e.g. Berlin Festival Orchestra).  Again, not that this is necessarily a poor recording, it might be fantastic, but that these are generally ensembles thrown together by a bunch of musicians who happen to be in the same area at the same time during this city's whatever festival and made a recording together or a concert was recorded.  Due to the flexible and indeterminate nature of these ensembles, these are often really cheap for licensing fees, and end up being really cheap in the store.  However, these really do run the gambit from very poor to shockingly amazing as far as quality goes so you would really run a risk here unless you know for a fact that a specific recording is good.

Conductor:  This is the person whose artistic vision generally controls the performance recorded.  I would recommend to go with a name that you see on lots of recording around you if you're unfamiliar with conductors.  Names like Herbert Von Karajan, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Valery Gergiev, Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado and James Levine are a just a few big name conductors out there.  You will find that there are definite differences in their recordings (e.g. I generally dislike those by Daniel Barenboim but really enjoy those by Riccardo Chailly), but each of these conductors (and others I have not listed here) have enjoyed popular and lengthy performing and recording careers.  You will also notice that these names tend to appear in front of and with other quality performers (e.g. Yo-Yo Ma, the Berlin Philharmonic).

One note would be that I like to find the recordings made with the composers of the pieces themselves at the conducting podium whenever possible (e.g. Aaron Copland conducting his own "Appalachian Spring").  This does not necessarily guarantee your favourite recording of the work, though you can pretty much bet that it will be a quality production, elsewise the conductor would not have allowed it to be mass produced, and I like to think (even if it is just my imagination, as it well may be) that maybe they were able to squeeze just a little more out of the orchestra for this recording since they know the piece so well, having written it themselves and said something maybe just a little deeper than other conductors might have done.  But this is speculation at best, and even so I have noticed that it does not always mean that that will be my favourite recording of a piece.


Complete Piece vs. Suite/Selections:  This is something that you may not know, especially if you are new to the classical world.  All it means when it says "suite" is that these are selections from a larger work (e.g. "Carmen Suite" from the opera "Carmen").  Often these have no vocals (e.g. if a suite from an opera), leave out smaller and/or incidental parts of the music (often in a ballet suite), and really just generally hit the high points and popular melodies from the complete work.  If your intent is to see whether you like the type and style of music, a suite would give you the general picture.  If you are really intent upon discovering the music, though, the complete work is almost always how it was initially intended by the composer and usually is more cohesive (there do exist pieces that are "suites" that ARE complete intended works in and of themselves, but these are not too common, and you would not be able to find any recording other than the "suite" anyway).

Publishing Edition of Piece: If you are here and you already were not sure that you understood the last two, stop reading, go find the recording that looks the best to you and be happy.  This gets specific enough to be for the aficionados.  This would be relevant for pieces like "Petrushka" by Igor Stravinsky, which was initially published in 1910 - 1911 and then revised in 1947.  There are some definite and distinct differences between the two editions of this piece, and it would interest the informed customer to know this information, however by and large the melodies et al would remain the same.

Modern vs. Period Instruments:  This is relevant to compositions of the classical period and earlier (theoretically you could argue for earlier romantic compositions, but you will be hard pressed to find them anyway).  Basically (and I will cover this one in particular in a later post) it just means were the instruments used in the recording modeled after instruments of the time that this piece was composed or the more modern ones that you will find in orchestras around the world.  This would not change the piece's composition at all, but will likely change how it sounds.  The simplest example to understand is the trumpet.  Baroque trumpets had no valves.  The modern ones do.  Their sound is very distinct from each other and yet both sound like a trumpet.  The baroque ones were incredibly limited in scope, though, so almost any piece composed in the last 150 years would be impossible on these instruments.

Studio vs. Live:  This is fairly obvious in meaning, was the recording done in a studio, or was it captured live from a concert?  Generally speaking, I prefer live concerts as they seem to have just that tiniest bit more energy and feeling behind them than you will find in studio recordings, but they bring other issues to the table, like a coughing man in the crowd or stage sounds (especially in opera recordings).  Again, this will give you a wider variation in quality, though I generally find that the quality in live recordings tends towards the better rather than worse than studio.  This is because most of the times these are performances specifically chosen out of a number of them of the same repertoire because of their excellence in quality.  Again, this is not a guarantee, but I am generally confident in the quality of a live performance recommendation, particularly if quality performers (as mentioned above) are involved.  Again, though, this is not to say that studio recordings are poor of quality, in fact, they are generally quite excellent, and do not run the risk of extraneous noises and so might be preferable for someone newly into the fold of classical music.

Year Recorded:  This is a minute detail again probably only relevant to the true connoisseurs of classical music, but artists (e.g. Martha Argerich) might record the same music more than once over their career, bringing a different level of artistic depth and/or nuance to their performance.  I hesitate greatly before saying whether you should prefer an earlier or later recording.  One recorded in the artist's youth might have vitality and technique that the older one does not, while at the same time, the recording made at the later time in the artist's life might bespeak a greater emotional depth of knowledge of the piece (though it could be the opposite, with the newer recording by the older artist as a sort of proof of him/herself that they are still a virile and vital voice in the musical scene).  Another reason for looking at the year the recording was made might be to notice changes over time in the orchestral performance.  Take a version of "The Rite of Spring" for example, which Stravinsky conducted himself for recording before he died versus a version recorded recently by the San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra.  Especially comparing mono to stereo to digital recordings can be interesting, too.  A novice in this area would probably prefer to go with a more recent recording, say made in the last 30 years (recording technology has been good enough for long enough that you probably would not notice the difference between one recorded 30 years ago and one recorded yesterday unless you knew what to look for).