VOX catalog soon to be on CD

[Mark Thomas]

New member Razorback has asked for this to be posted on his behalf:

Based on information from our site, I sent the following email to Archiv Music. 

About 1 year ago,  I purchased a CD of a cello concerto from you that was a copy of an LP on the Turnabout label.  I can't remember specifically what it was.  Thank you for that service.  I appreciated it very much.  Although I am unfamiliar with exactly how it works, I understand that you have an arrangement with certain record companies to transfer music from an LP to a CD; such was the case with the Turnabout CD I purchased from you. 

I am a very serious music collector with over 3,000 CD's.  Currently, I am into 19th century Romantic composers and am often frustrated when I can find their music on LP but not CD.  Since I am an 'older' guy and have an extensive physical CD collection, I am not into downloading at this time.  In addition, many collectors - including David English at Fanfare Magazine - have essentially given up on the standard repertoire – after all, how many Beethoven 5th do you need? We are buying either 'my kind of music' or modern avant garde releases.  In any case, we're all tired of the same-old, same-old.  I would like to think that this creates a 'golden' marketing opportunity for Archiv.

This brings me to Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf and his Piano Concerto in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 10.   You probably have had this inquiry before but here it is again.  Bronsart's PC is very desirable to us Romantic music lovers but, unfortunately, is available only as a download or on LP.  My computer search revealed two LPs with Bronsart's PC, one on Candide CE 31076 and VOX 2206.  Michael Ponti is the pianist on both so the music is the same.  If I want a 2-record set, I can purchase Vol. 4 of VOX's Romantic Piano Concerto series.  I can also purchase the entire VOX series from Archive for around $100.  HOWEVER, WHAT IF I JUST WANT BRONSART AND PONTI on a single CD.  Can you accommodate me?  In other words, can you transcribe this concerto from LP to a single CD?  Please tell me you can! 

Here is the response I received from Archiv:  Thank you for getting back to us -

The labels that you have referenced: Turnabout, Candide and VOX, all exist under the umbrella of the VOX label group.

We spoke to the owner of VOX about the album you are inquiring about being brought back into print in CD form and he confirmed that this specific release will be brought back as a CD and available on ArkivMusic at some point in the future, but we don't have a strict date yet.
VOX will start bringing formerly out-of-print CDs back into print in April 2018, and albums will continue to be reissued over the next 12-18 months, so this album will be reissued within that time period. This will include releases from the Turnabout and Candide labels. Also, albums that were previously available only on LP that have never been available on CD will be made available as CDs starting in April, and those albums will continue to be released over the next 3-5 years.

You can sign up for the VOX newsletter at this link  to get an announcement about these VOX catalog reissues: www.voxcd.com. These will include announcements regarding release of recordings that have never been released on LP or CD before.

[Richard Moss]

Mark,

Great news!

Whilst I have nowhere near as big a collection as yourself, I too have used the ARCHIV service occasionally to fill a gap  with a 'no longer available' CD.  I also bought quite a few of the VOX 'Romantic Piano Concertos (with Michael Ponti et al) when they were about.  This is very good news and I have used the link you kindly provided to sign up for their newsletter.  Now that MELODYA seems to have been largely (?) transferred to CD, all we need now is a similar piece of good news concerning the now defunct 'KOCH' family of albums (but I'm sure many UC cognescenti will undoubtedly have their own favourite 'defunct' LP labels they too would like to see resurrected!).

Is it just me or do the major labels rarely seem to trouble UC members with fond memories?

Best wishes

Richard

[Alan Howe]

If it's the Bronsart PC people are after, I'd suggest that Hyperion's forthcoming coupling of that work with Urspruch's PC would be worth waiting for. Although I understand that there are Ponti fans out there, my expectation is of a distinctly superior product from the Hyperion stable...

[Richard Moss]

Alan,

I'm sure you'll be proven right over the Hyperion.  It's only since I've had them pleasure of seeing UC contributions that I've learned about my earlier naivite in assuming what I was hearing on a CD was what the composer had actually writtene!  I understand the likes of Ponti (or the conductor or label management?) et al had the scores severely chopped about to fit the CD, so whilst Ponti's performances were usually very enjoyable, it wasn't necessarily exactly what the composer had written!

I too look forward to the forthcoming Hyperion release - very few have disappointed and never in terms of quality of recording or accompanying notes.

Cheers

Richard

[Ilja]

I understand the likes of Ponti (or the conductor or label management?) et al had the scores severely chopped about to fit the CD, so whilst Ponti's performances were usually very enjoyable, it wasn't necessarily exactly what the composer had written!

In more than one sense: Ponti was a very idiosyncratic performer, so it'd be good to hear the whole thing, played by a less extreme soloist. I'm really counting the days for this one.

[Alan Howe]

Me too. I agree 100%.

[MartinH]

Well it's about time - Vox/Candide/Turnabout had some really interesting material in their library and it should be available, although to be really honest, I don't think there's anything there that hasn't been done better more recently. Certainly the sound has gotten better, and Vox did use some scrappy orchestras - even worse than early Marco Polos. In the early years of the cd era I picked up many recordings on the label - Slatkin's Rachmaninoff, Martinon's Prokofieff and the entire Romantic Piano Concerto collection with Ponti and some others. The Hyperion recordings are superior in every respect. Maybe all the Unicorn recordings will once again become available in something other than a download.