Music Lane

RE: Misleading CD promotion

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In Reply to: RE: Misleading CD promotion posted by John C. - Aussie on April 29, 2015 at 15:06:36

For myself, I usually have a pretty good idea about the quality of the music I want to purchase and so in a review I usually look for opinions on the quality of the performance and the sound quality. Sometimes, I do use reviews to suggest music I don't have. I don't think ArkivMusik had any obligation to indicate that the reviewer doesn't think much of the music itself.

Some reviews do go on about the quality and characteristics of great music, say a Beethoven symphony, but usually with an eye to giving an opinion about the way the music was interpreted. It would be relevant to point out whether it was HIP and how that worked. I think the reviewer here used unnecessarily colorful phrasing, but it seems many people like an acerbic critic.

For the premier performance of a work, a reviewer would certainly comment on the quality of the work performed as well as how well it was performed, although these things can be difficult to separate--the early reviews of Rachmaninoff's First Symphony is an example. I suppose popular music is often reviewed like that, since much of it is new.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser

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