# Musical Gifts Given and Received



## phoenixshade (Dec 9, 2008)

In the course of this holiday season, did you give and/or receive any musical gifts?

While I am not in any way religious, I still exchange gifts this time of year. Unfortunately, among my family and closest friends, only a very few have any musical inclination whatsoever. However, to those few I gave:

To my brother: Frank Sinatra, _The Columbia Years: The Complete Recordings_. This boxed set of 12 CDs also includes a very nice box, with a portrait of a young Sinatra frosted on its glass front.

To a friend who recently inherited a piano: _The Piano Music of Robert Schumann_ (Series I and II) edited by Clara Schumann.

As for gifts received, I got...

From my mother, the RCA Victor box set _The Chopin Collection_ by Arthur Rubinsein.

And my brothers and sister pooled together to get me *Finale 2009!* WOW! I've wanted this for some time, and I've spent the last few hours playing around with it. (I still have to use alphanumeric keyboard entry, as I have no MIDI instruments...) Expect me in the not-too-distant future to be contributing to the composers forum!


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## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

> (I still have to use alphanumeric keyboard entry, as I have no MIDI instruments...)


That version of entry is the fastest and easiest. I don't use 'a' for the note 'a' (etc.) and for that reason I hate Sibelius. It's a shame that Garritan uses the Aria player, it isn't as good as Kontakt. I find that Simple entry is far better than Speedy entry (maybe I need more experience with the latter, but the formers seems to give you more options.



> did you give and/or receive any musical gifts?


I got my g/f something for her iPhone and she got me http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheise...adphones_audiophile-headphones&product=005341 .

Apart from that no gifts were given or recieved.


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## R-F (Feb 12, 2008)

I recieved a pair of brilliant headphones from my parents, and my brother gave me a Midi Keyboard that I can use with Sibelius.
On the other hand my cousins gave me R&B Yearbook 2008. _Bad_ judgement of my musical preferences!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I do not give or recieve gifts during the holidays other than contributing to charities. I'm not trying to sound virtuous -- it's just that the whole scene makes me very uncomfortable.

But I did receive an odd gift of synchronicity. I have almost my entire music collection on mp3 discs now (retaining the original CD's packed away for archival purposes). The mp3 files on the discs are in no particular order and may mix classical with rock or jazz or juxtapose experiemental 24 tone electronic music next to celtic folk music. I take these discs to work and download one or two to my hard drive there for a week or so. I play them on the shuffle setting in my headphones, so I never know what I'm going to get hit with. It's pretty exciting.

All last week a piece kept coming up with melodies that sounded vaguely like Christmas carols. I couldn't place it. Sneaking a brief peek at Media Player, hoping the boss wasn't walking by, I saw it was a piece by Samual Barber called Die Natali - Christmas Préludes for Orchestra, Op. 37. This had been on a Naxos album of Barber music, not otherwise Christmas oriented.

What are the odds of this happening out of the eleventy gazillion files in my collection?

The piece is interesting in that it takes familiar carols and puts them in a completely different context - some even sounding like the soundtrack to a sword and sandal epic a la Miklós Rózsa.

This weird event came closer to giving me the Christmas spririt than any of the usual tedious rituals ever have.

I know that wasn't exactly the thread topic, but I always consider synchronicity a gift of Fate and wanted to share.


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## Knaves13 (Nov 29, 2008)

My entire family (12 people) pooled together to get me both the Complete Mozart and Complete Bach Brilliant Classics collections! I didn't give any music related gifts, my gifts were mainly books, and a DVD.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

phoenixshade said:


> In the course of this holiday season, did you receive any musical gifts?


Not really. Well - sorta. I got the equivalent of about 50 English pounds in euros. I spend that money ordering 12 classical dvd's (mostly opera) from a seller on ebay.

-Martha Argerich...Liszt Piano Concerto No.1
-Dvorak...Rusalka (with Renée Fleming)
-Rossini...Il Barbiere di Seviglia (with Cecilia Bartoli)
-Tchaikovsky...Mazeppa (Gergiev)
-Strauss...Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Wolfgang Sawallisch - two dvd's)
-Tchaikovsky...Eugen Onegin 
-Rossini...Le Comte Ory
-Anne-Sophie Mutter...The Mozart Violin Concertos (two dvd's)
-Verdi...Un Ballo in Maschera (with Placido Domingo/Georg Solti)
-Puccini...La Fanciulla del West (with Placido Domingo)
-Donizetti...l'Elisir d'Amore (with Anna Netrebko)
-Verdi...La Traviata (with Anna Netrebko - two dvd's)

I ordered them from a seller in HongKong. Very cheap - 3.5 pounds per dvd and 4.5 pounds for the two disc sets + 1 pound shipping for each item. And they are official releases - not bootlegs.


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## nefigah (Aug 23, 2008)

Indeed! My first recordings of the Well-tempered Clavier (on harpsichord no less) and the Brandenburg Concertos, as well as Deryck Cooke's _An Introduction to Der Ring des Nibelungen_.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Musical gifts received this year:
















































jhar26 said:


> 3.5 pounds per dvd and 4.5 pounds for the two disc sets


Still boggling at those bargains....


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Still boggling at those bargains....


http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/stubacker0_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

jhar26 said:


> http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/stubacker0_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ


Well, at these prices, I'm tempted to dip a toe into the water. Have you bought from this seller previously, Gaston?


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Well, at these prices, I'm tempted to dip a toe into the water. Have you bought from this seller previously, Gaston?


No, but his 100% positive approval rating tells me that this guy is an excellent seller. If this is the case I will definitely buy more from him. For the money that I have to spend at Amazon for one dvd I can get four or five from this guy - and they are exactly the same sets!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

jhar26 said:


> No, but his 100% positive approval rating tells me that this guy is an excellent seller.


I see he's been around for several years too - and he has a huge number of feedback ratings. I'll give him a go and see how it goes.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I see he's been around for several years too - and he has a huge number of feedback ratings. I'll give him a go and see how it goes.


I'll let you know when my dvd's arrive. It COULD be that I've ordered from this person in the past. I remember that a few years ago I bought a few dvd's from a seller in HongKong and they were cheap too - not as cheap as these though, and he included the cases, so it was probably someone else.


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## nefigah (Aug 23, 2008)

Hmm, I'd fear bootlegs, if you care about that sort of thing. It's a pretty common practice, unfortunately. The price is right, though!


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

nefigah said:


> Hmm, I'd fear bootlegs, if you care about that sort of thing. It's a pretty common practice, unfortunately. The price is right, though!


It could be that they are copies of original material, but since I owe some of the dvd's he's selling from other sources I know that it's definitely not unauthorized material with blurry picture quality and awful sound.


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## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

> Hmm, I'd fear bootlegs, if you care about that sort of thing. It's a pretty common practice, unfortunately. The price is right, though!


It's unlikely that, if they were pirates (note, I doubt they are bootlegs as some performances are several decades old), he'd have such a good rating.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Haha... I just received a $15 gift card for iTunes. Fun stuff...


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## Rachovsky (Jan 5, 2008)

I buy all of my pieces from iTunes. Cheap and easy.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Rachovsky said:


> I buy all of my pieces from iTunes. Cheap and easy.


Haha yes. I bought one-and-a-half BIS CDs with that $15... try THAT in real CDs (usually BIS costs $21 per CD...).


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## phoenixshade (Dec 9, 2008)

Rachovsky said:


> I buy all of my pieces from iTunes. Cheap and easy.


Not that I hold it against _you_, but I refuse to buy anything on iTunes, for several reasons...

First and foremost, their compression sucks. I archive all my CDs in the lossless FLAC format. Until online vendors move to a lossless standard (i.e., one that at least maintains current sound quality, rather than moving it backwards by a decade or more), I will not support them.

Second, Apple is trying to use the same strongarm bundling tactics that Microsoft used with Internet Explorer and Windows, albeit on a smaller scale. It is virtually impossible to install QuickTime (necessary for .mov support) without also getting iTunes, which promptly takes over all file associations without the user's explicit permission or indeed even notification. When I open an .mp3 or .mpg file in IE, I expect it to open with the application I configured my system to use (in my case, Winamp). It took me forever to break QT and iTunes' stranglehold on my files (and I had to make changes to my registry file, which I am loathe to do since this can be easily screwed up). I have since uninstalled QT, so I do without support for the .mov format.

Third, I can't stand their DRM. Apple took a step in the right direction when they began offering DRM-free, higher quality recordings (but they still use a lossy compression format- see reason one), but they also charge a premium for these files.

So, I still get all my recordings on a nice plastic disc... and with the arrival of SACD/DVD-Audio, I expect I will continue to do so for some time to come.


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## JSK (Dec 31, 2008)

I received the complete Mozart edition on Brilliant Classics. I know it was gotten for me at a discount, but the set is even quite good for its list price. What I've heard so far (especially Cosi Fan Tutte) has been quite good, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about the symphonies. The period instruments sound flat to me (both in terms of pitch and timbre).


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

I just got in the mail a Christmas present from a very close friend of mine, and among some not-musical things (two books of poetry) there was the Dover miniature score to Mahler's Sixth. It's very good. I've already learned quite a lot from it, and I only got it earlier this afternoon!


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## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

I just got my DVD's from that ebay shop mentioned on the previous page. I got 16 dvds, such cheap postage! Excellent quality!


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

World Violist said:


> I just got in the mail a Christmas present from a very close friend of mine, and among some not-musical things (two books of poetry) there was the Dover miniature score to Mahler's Sixth. It's very good. I've already learned quite a lot from it, and I only got it earlier this afternoon!


So I'm quasi-reviving this thread... this friend and I met again a few days ago (I'm staying with her for this chamber music thing I'm attending) and she gave me a delayed birthday present: the score of Beethoven's 8th and 9th symphonies. So now I've got the whole set of the scores; now I just need a really good set of them recorded.

Oh, and I gave her the score to the Elgar cello concerto; she's a cellist and she'll be learning that concerto pretty soon.

Hooray for months-late gifts...


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