GG: Images

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

Dear All,

An afternoon spent shopping for books with my youngest daughter; always a
long but enjoyable job. And now, at 8.20pm, the WAM complete piano trios
with Pressler (piano), Guilet (vln) and Greenhouse (cello), on a Philips
Duo. Not *great* music but rather lovely, and, playing quietly on 'phones,
a superbly realistic and intimate sound as I write this.

In HMV this afternoon I finally got to see the Gould two CD set IMAGES
which Sony has now released in the UK through some special deal with HMV to
give them exclusive rights. There's no doubt that at L12.99 it's excellent
value -- I believe that originally it was retailing at around 30 dollars --
but nonetheless disappointing. The much proclaimed "35 page booklet" is one
of these dreadful little stapled-into-a-cardboard-packaging-sleeve affairs,
a bodge of clever-clever typefaces and not very startling photos. The first
disc -- "Bach" -- is a collection of very short extracts, of which I have
the complete versions of everything except the Italian Conc. There's about
6/7 mins of that on this disc. The second disc -- "Non-Bach" -- is a
similar collection of, er, non-Bach works: Scriabin, Gibbons, Brahms,
Mozart, Haydn and so forth. No Scarlatti; a superb Gibbons, but taken from
the "Consort of Musicke" disc which I bought recently. So, taken all in
all, I decided to save my money.

The whole thing slips inside a pretty ordinary clear plastic wallet.
Frankly, given that it has a "special collector's item" sticker on it, I
thought it was pretty much a rip-off, and Sony went down another notch in
my estimation. If they really wanted to provide eager, keen, loyal GG fans
with a genuine collector's item, they could have done so much better.
Anybody out there really *like* Images?

Best,  Alun

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ALUN SEVERN        *  Snailmail              1 Chestnut Rd  Oldbury
                                        W.Midlands  B68 0AX England
                   *  Tel                      + 44 (0)121 422 9509
                   *  Fax                      + 44 (0)121 643 0661
                   *  Email                  alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk
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"Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and
                entertainment without moral passion is television."
                                                   - Rita Mae Brown
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