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The matter of CD shops and their clerks is timely for me today
since I just came back from one such and then found a message on the board here
talking about it. I have to agree that the small record store that
speacialized in "service" seems to have all but disappeared. I owe a lot
of my musical taste today to a wonderful shop clerk named Fritz Heinrich who
worked in a music store that also sold records over twenty years ago. This
was back in the "dark ages" of vinyl. Fritz was great. He was from
Vienna, and through one form of employment or another, eventually found himself
working at this music store and being put in charge of the record
department. What would usually transpire would be a case of just going in
quickly to check something out and spending two or three hours with him talking
about music, having stuff played for me that I should 'check out', and probably
leaving with an armful of records... thanks to a charge account he had worked
out for me. This account would later prove somewhat difficult to get
settled after he was "downsized" and new management took over. I was in a
pub years later talking about classical music with someone, when the subject of
Fritz Heinrich came up. We had a good laugh over all the different
recordings that he'd turned this fellow onto as well. Evidently Fritz has
a number of disciples, probably now spread far and wide. I have to
honestly say that there would be a number of recordings, artists, composers or
certain styles of music that I would still be ignorant of today some twenty
years later, if Fritz hadn't added this or that record to my pile - and my
account - and I hadn't taken it with me on that certain day. A number of
GG recordings came my way through this arrangement, one of them a box set called
Glenn Gould Plays Bach - the one with the black and white photo of GG
in the chair, leg crossed, looking at the camera - that I have never seen on CD
to this day. Does this exist in CD format?
Anyway, I thought I would share this memory of my favorite
record store clerk from another age. Maybe someone on the list even has a
Fritz Heinrich story of their own to tell. I know certainly that this type
of service... and lasting influence seems sorely missing today. It may be
possible I suppose, in an all-classical store somewhere if the size and location
were conducive, but certainly not in the chain-stores prevalent today.
This store of my memory was a free standing structure as well, not anything
found in a mall.... which may have some bearing also. For the most part,
the classical sections in pretty well any store I go into - other than an
all-classical specialty shop - are usually not worth the time and
effort. What exists of the sorely lacking selection is usually
terribly disorganized, and no one knows what you're talking about if its not
connected to the current top ten. There are the odd exceptions to the rule
of course, but they are rare indeed to find. I think I lucked out in the
fact that Fritz was born and raised in Vienna also. For now, mail order
may be best.
Incidentally, I was reading something on the Naxos site about
an alternative GG edition of some kind... as an alternative to the one put out
by Sony. Has anyone tried these recordings? You can navigate through
the Naxos site a bit and eventually find something under the heading of "The
Glenn Gould Edition ".
Sincerely,
Tim Hitchner.
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