The only record to sell 100 copies in the US this week
mainIt’s the CD that I described as ‘the one we’ve all been waiting for’, but it’s a poor state of affairs when only one recording tops 100 weekly sales in the whole of the US on the Nielsen Soundscan rankings.
Four, five years back, one hundred sales would not have made it into the top twenty. That’s how far we have fallen.
Just for the record, the next best-selling record was Tetzlaff-Vogt Brahms sonatas. In third place was a Kevin Puts symphony, with 80-odd sales.
I think it is far more interesting to see the staying power of recordings over the long term, rather than day by day, week by week, month by month. Some of the most successful sales are coming out of The Bach Guild downloadable only products. Susan Napodano Delgiorno masterfully concocts tasteful and, quite frankly, brilliant re-packaging of well known (and some lesser known) works that tend to remain in the old file system of ‘by composer’ categories.
The one we’ve been waiting for? Who was waiting? After spending a pile of money on the BIS (almost) complete Sibelius edition, who is champing at the bit for another Sibelius set? With our cd shelves cluttered with superb Sibelius from Barbirolli, Bernstein, Jarvi, Rattle, Maazel, Blomstedt, Ashkenazy and many more, I haven’t been enticed, yet. And this new recording has not been given universal praise. Some critics have been quite harsh in its appraisal. To me, the Halle recordings with Mark Elder are more interesting than what’s coming from Minnesota. But then, that’s my opinion.
MBHAZ has a point. Aside from the cycles he mentions there are Berglund (3 cycles) plus some LPO live concerts, Colin Davis (also 3 cycles), Sanderling, Gibson (remember him?). Perhaps it’s a tribute to Sibelius that there are so many fine performances out there. And, of course, there’s Vanska himself in Lahti, not a cycle I have warmed to, largely I suspect because of what seems like rather mannered sound engineering and a lack of real substance when it is needed. It’s Berglund in Bournemouth and Blomstedt for me and if it had to be just one, then it would be Blomstedt. But I always remember that DH Lawrence wrote that all criticism is rationalised prejudice.