response 33 of 74:

May 12 18:00 UTC 1999

On CD length:  The story was always reported that Akio Morita, the chairman
of Sony, decreed that the CD had to be long enough to record Beethoven's 
9th Symphony on one disc.  (Sony and Philips were the co-developers of
today's CD format.)  The original CD standard called for a 72 minute 
length.  Some releases started pushing that limit up by packing the 
tracks in a teensy bit more tightly and getting closer to the rim of 
the disc; when 80-minute discs came out, we found that lots of players
would not make it through to the end of these discs.  So the upper boundary
is now 78 minutes and change.
 
LPs:  Yes, the grooves (and stylii) got much smaller with the transition
from 78 to LP; that's why the LPs were called "microgroove" recordings 
for a while.  37 minutes may be a theoretical possibility for the length 
of one LP side, but it was not a market practicality.  In LPs, there would 
always be a tradeoff between how loud (=how wide) the grooves were cut, 
and how much time the LP could hold.  I rarely saw LPs packing in more than 
25 minutes per side and I doubt that I ever saw an LP with 30 minutes
on a side.  I suspect some exist at that length, but they were very 
rare. 
 
(Oh, it's important how loud/wide the grooves are cut because the 
signal needs to climb out of the vinyl surface noise with the LP.)

response 35 of 74:

Dec 29 20:22 UTC 1999

At the library, I took a look at which companies are now putting out classical
CDs:  Phillips, London, Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, RCA Victor and CBS
(Columbia) are the only ones that I recognized.  Are Angel/Seraphim,
Westminster, MHS and other record companies still in existence?  Did they
merge or get bought out?  Are there now fewer and larger companies or perhaps
more and smaller, now that anyone can make a CD?
Vox/Turnabout still around?  Mercury?  Oryx?  

response 37 of 74:

Jan 4 19:58 UTC 2000

In general, record labels are merging into a few big groups, rather like car
companies did a while back, although not to quite such an extreme degree. 
I don't know much about classical labels, but I'd assume they're following
this general trend.

response 39 of 74:

Jan 7 01:10 UTC 2000

This is off the top of my head, with some references to the web.
There are now five multinational conglomerates who control 85% or 
more of all recorded music sales  (not just classical):
In approximate order of size, they are:

   Universal  (formed last year by merging MCA and Polygram)
   Time/Warner
   Sony       (historically, Columbia in the US)
   BMG        (historically, RCA in the US)
   EMI        (historically, Capitol for pop and Angel for classical in US)
 
Of the labels keesan mentions:
   Polygram controlled the Philips, London and Deutsche Gramophon 
       labels, so they are now part of Universal Music Group.
       I think all three labels are still active, though I'm not
       sure about Philips.   Mercury is also a part of the Universal
       conglomerate; Mercury dropped out of the business of 
       selling new recordings many years ago, so today the
       Mercury name is only used for their old reissues.
   Nonesuch is still an active division of Time/Warner.
   The "CBS Masterworks" label was retired when Sony bought Columbia.
       New issues are under the Sony name, and historical issues are 
       usually under Columbia.
   The RCA name is used for many BMG classical releases, both reissues
       and new items. 
   Angel and Seraphim were label names used by EMI; Seraphim was for 
       budget-priced reissues.  I'm pretty sure the Seraphim name is retired
       but I don't know about Angel.  New releases seem to be marketed 
       as "EMI Classical."
   I don't know what happened to Westminster.  I vaguely recall that
       ABC bought them, and then ABC's music operations ended up in MCA.
       Westminster used to have the funkiest LP covers.
   Musical Heritage Society, primarily a mail order operation, was still
       active as of a few years ago, but I have not seen any advertising
       from them recently.  "MusicMasters" was their label for retail
       store sales.  (Response above: maybe BMG bought them?)
   Vox is still putting CDs in store racks, but I don't know if they 
       are new recordings or just repackagings of old work.
   I never heard of Oryx before.

There are a lot of new small classical labels.  Harmonia Mundi, 
Hyperion and Chandos leap immediately to mind, and I'm sure there are 
lots more.

response 41 of 74:

Jan 19 01:23 UTC 2000

Wow.  Hard to picture two more unlikely partners.

response 43 of 74:

Jan 20 22:01 UTC 2000

I found a website for MHS, but it's closed for renovations.

response 45 of 74:

Jan 21 03:42 UTC 2000

Another correction to my resp:39 ::  at Borders tonight I saw a big 
stack of Seraphim CDs in the $7-and-less classical bin.  So that 
imprint has been revived for a super-budget line of discs.
It's just a brand name, the small print on the discs identify them 
as coming from EMI Classical.

response 47 of 74:

Jan 30 20:25 UTC 2000

Music of the Rocco?  Like my cousin Rocco from
the North End?

response 49 of 74:

Jan 31 16:01 UTC 2000

You mean "rococo":  18th century, elegant, ornate.
The music of Rocco is mostly Sinatra and Lois Prima.

response 51 of 74:

Feb 13 23:58 UTC 2000

From a book by EMI.  The company was founded by several mergers, including
one with a branch of Columbia (later CBS, bought by Sony).  At one point they
also produced radios, TVs, refrigerators, etc., and owned some restaurants
and hotels, but undiversified.  Had licensing contracts with RCA Victor and
Columbia but antitrust laws ended this, so they bought Capitol Records in
1955, the fourth largest US record company.  (What was the third largest?).
Also marketed under Angel/Seraphim.
        First produced records in the 1890s, wax cylinders which were cut.
After about ten years switched to flat disks, first in the US then Britain,
where people were understandably reluctant to have to purchase a new
grammophone to play the new shape records.  Until around 1925 records were
recorded by making loud noises into a horn, they they got electric
microphones.  Eventually record players also electrified, somewhere around
the thirties when radio became more widespread.  You could buy a grammophone
or something that plugged into your radio for amplification.
        Stereo was first developed in the thirties but not marketed.  
        LP records (microgroove, on unbreakable vinylite instead of shellac,
which was short during the war), were sold starting in the later forties. 
78s were also sold at the same time for the next ten years (cylinder and disk
coexisted for about ten years earlier), but by the late 1958s only 33s and
45s were produced.  At which point everyone had had to buy a new record player
and new records.  In the late fifties the record companies then started to
make stereo records, meaning for the next ten years they sold both stereo and
mono (you could buy a special cartridge letting you play stereo records on
a mono player) and then only stereo.  Meaning people again had to replace
their record collection and record players.  (There was really no point in
coming out with stereo and LP at the same time, you would only have sold half
as many total records).
        By the late 60s only stereo records were made, and once everyone had
switched over they tried marketing quadraphonic, which flopped (but made a
comeback in the nineties).   Stereo records lasted 20 years before CDs came
out, but were seriously challenged in the seventies and eighties by 8-track
(a flop) and then cassette tapes.

        Can someone bring us up to date since 1987?  How widespread are formats
other than CD and cassette tape?  After 13 years are CDs due to become
obsolete?  We have noticed many working single-CD players coming in to
Kiwanis, so presumably the manufacturers managed to convince some people that
they had to replace their players with CD changers.  When do we start seeing
more working tape decks when people start replacing those with DAT?

response 53 of 74:

Feb 16 05:05 UTC 2000

re #51:
DVD is one thing that is supposed to replace CDs in the next few years,
though at the moment it seems that it is being used more for videos. (I think
it can hold about four times as much stuff as a CD, and I also think DVD
players can play CDs too.) Someone else can probably give a better answer than
me...

DAT is used in recording studios IIRC, but I don't know if it is going to
become a distribution format or not (didn't they already try that and find
that it was a commercial flop?)

re #52:
Scratched CDs tend to "skip" if they are scratched-probably it has something to
do with the laser not focusing properly. If it is a bad enough scratch the
player could skip for several seconds or possibly just "freeze" at that point.
Portable players generally come with "skip protection" these days (as jarring
the player will also make it skip). Perhaps a stationary player doesn't have
this kind of protection?  I have borrowed CDs from the library that were
scratched enough to make several tracks unplayable too.

response 55 of 74:

Feb 16 12:13 UTC 2000

I don't know why skip protection would be needed
on a stationary CD player.  Maybe for people who
live in earthquake zones?  As to CD vs DVD, our
DVD player will play any ordinary music CD.  Hook
it up to your amplifier and you're in business.
I note that there are DVDs of operas and "great"
performances.  (Karajan conducts Dvorak's "New World"
symphony, etc.)