Actually it's even weirder than that - most of the songs are 50 cents- for albums < 10 songs, it's a better deal to download individual tracks, like this one, which should be $3.50.
@Bremble. Great point. Real Live should be $5 anyway since it has 10 tracks at 50 cents each.. Some of the longer albums or bonus? albums also seem to be different prices.
Those URL's are messed up, I think. Here are all the Supreme Masters for $1.99 each, including Handel, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Debussy, Schubert, Bach, Greig, Chopin, Vivaldi, and one which has 100 tracks from the other collections (or so I assume).
I have bought several of these now, Greig and Schumann are otherwise underrepresented on my collection.
Which contains the following albums:
1-12 Karl Scheit, The Virtuouso Guitar vol. 2
13-37 James Buswell, Fernando Valenti: Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin
38-50 Kenneth Cooper, Scarlatti: Sonatas
51-60 Rene Clemencic, The Bird Fancyer's delight
61-79 David Blum, Esterhazy Orch, Telemann: Suite: The Prostitute
80-89 Gabrieli Festival Orch and Choir, Gabrieli: Processional and Ceremonial Music
90-104 Harnoncourt, Trevor Pinnock, Purcell: 15 Fantasias
104-149 Fritz Mahler, Hartford CO, Purcell: Four Suites
150-94 Robison, Cooper, Eddy, Handel: Complete Flute Sonatas
195-214 Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, Music from the Court of Henry XIV
215-237 Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, Instrumental Music of 1600
238-251 Heiller, The Virtuouso Harpsichord vol. 1: Rameau
252-263 Anton Heiller, The Virtuouso Harpsichord vol 2: Couperin
264-282 Camerata St Andrew, Friedman, Telemann: Suite for Flute and Strings
283-305 I Solisti di Zagreb, Boyce: Eight Symphonies
That's kinda insane, BT - disregarding the practically free price, do you consider it worthwhile? Regarding required time and listening opportunity cost, of course.
Short answer: yes. The recordings are somewhat dated in terms of recording and performance practices, but I'm finding much of if surprisingly enjoyable.
"Short answer: yes." What makes it even a better bargain, not just a lot for the money, is that most of the selections are not something routinely found on Baroque compilations, plus they seem to be complete works. Can't go wrong here.
Thanks, BT
Worthwhile? Hell, yeah. Had it playing the last several hours while I reorganize the man-cave, I mean the study. Very nice, and the complete aspect is a real bonus. Thanks, BT.
Longer answer: Clemencic, Harnoncourt, and Heiller are musicians of historic importance who started the practice of treating Early Music as something distinct from Classical and Romantic. They are among those who introduced the notion of historically informed practice and specializing in period instruments and techniques. Their albums are excellent.
Indeed, Clemencic's ornamentations are jaw-dropping.
Thanks for the Baroque rec. For some reason Amazon isn't letting me purchase it right now (getting an error and told to contact customer service -- maybe they are on to me being so cheap.)
I had to purchase twice (I was only charged once) after I got the same error, and afterwards I was only given the option of getting it from the cloud. It is AMZ's most popular album at the moment, and likely eats up a lot of bandwith.
I had an error situation also - I think it may have to do with the fact that it's 304 tracks - that is more than the usual. Did get resolved fairly quickly.
I got the error message also, and wrote to customer service. But then when I checked the cloud drive all the tracks appear to be there. And customer service has not replied. Thanks for the tip, BT, not sure when I will get to all of it but what I have listened to so far sounds nice. As soon as I get time I am going to break it down into its constituent albums - that way there is a chance it will get into my rotation - so thanks also for the list. 15 albums, $1.29, still hard to believe.
I like this approach to big boxes, where it contains a bunch of complete albums, much much better than the "100 random most essential Bach for eating ice cream" variety. Apart from the fact that it plays into my irrational but tenacious preference for listening almost exclusively to whole albums (which among other things tends to put me off 7 hour albums), in a case like this latest box it has a little of the fun of going to a garage sale and bidding a dollar on a shoebox full of random records and then unpacking it to see which ones you'll keep. Also nice to see a septagenarian singer battling with 14 hours of baroque music for top of the Amazon album charts.
I like Big Boxes I cannot lie. Big Bach Boxes at that.
So I bought the mass-collection, got the error, but it is in the cloud no problem there, selected the album and it is downloading fine. Then I played the first track - fantastic. Great quality, very nice piece of music. Well worth the price (almost nothing), I probably would have bought it for 10 times the price (but do not tell the Bach Guild). I have some re-tagging to do, but BT has made that easier. Thanks for the heads up on this one!
Share Your Favorite Song, Get a Song for a Nickel
We're celebrating Amazon MP3's fifth birthday by giving our customers a gift. For a limited time, you can get a song priced $1.29 or less for just a nickel.
Just another 11 hour monster classical comp - 100 Classical Music For Autumn (grammar?) - $5.49 from the X5 label. I only post it because I was rather amused to find it $0.50 cheaper on Amazon (where I went to see who was actually on it) than at eMu where I found it in the Freshly Ripped(with Truncated Tags).
Comments
100 Must-Have Movie Classics($2.99)
Best Of Meditation With Music & Nature ($.99)
Vivaldi - 100 Supreme Classical Masterpieces: Rise of the Masters ($1.99)
The 99 Most Essential Mendelssohn Masterpieces ($2.49)
I have bought several of these now, Greig and Schumann are otherwise underrepresented on my collection.
Which contains the following albums:
1-12 Karl Scheit, The Virtuouso Guitar vol. 2
13-37 James Buswell, Fernando Valenti: Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin
38-50 Kenneth Cooper, Scarlatti: Sonatas
51-60 Rene Clemencic, The Bird Fancyer's delight
61-79 David Blum, Esterhazy Orch, Telemann: Suite: The Prostitute
80-89 Gabrieli Festival Orch and Choir, Gabrieli: Processional and Ceremonial Music
90-104 Harnoncourt, Trevor Pinnock, Purcell: 15 Fantasias
104-149 Fritz Mahler, Hartford CO, Purcell: Four Suites
150-94 Robison, Cooper, Eddy, Handel: Complete Flute Sonatas
195-214 Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, Music from the Court of Henry XIV
215-237 Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, Instrumental Music of 1600
238-251 Heiller, The Virtuouso Harpsichord vol. 1: Rameau
252-263 Anton Heiller, The Virtuouso Harpsichord vol 2: Couperin
264-282 Camerata St Andrew, Friedman, Telemann: Suite for Flute and Strings
283-305 I Solisti di Zagreb, Boyce: Eight Symphonies
Currently $1.29
Thanks, BT
Indeed, Clemencic's ornamentations are jaw-dropping.
Thanks for the Baroque rec. For some reason Amazon isn't letting me purchase it right now (getting an error and told to contact customer service -- maybe they are on to me being so cheap.)
So I bought the mass-collection, got the error, but it is in the cloud no problem there, selected the album and it is downloading fine. Then I played the first track - fantastic. Great quality, very nice piece of music. Well worth the price (almost nothing), I probably would have bought it for 10 times the price (but do not tell the Bach Guild). I have some re-tagging to do, but BT has made that easier. Thanks for the heads up on this one!
Craig