New Duttons on the way

[albion]

There is still an extremely rich vein of neglected English music yet to be mined. I am very disappointed..........for purely selfish reasons, I have to admit. However, the Holbrooke, the Benjamin and especially the Ronald Corp choral music (interestingly, Mr. Corp is also a Church of England priest) all sound mouth-watering.

More Rootham, W.H. Bell and some R. O. Morris pretty please!!!!!!

Having digested the contents of the November release-schedule, I feel slightly more miffed than I did half-an-hour ago (see post above), although the Holbrooke is still a must-have. Dutton have assiduously striven to acquire a 'brand image' by providing a particular tasty product - as the makers of Coca-Cola and HP sauce will testify it is more than a trifle unwise to tamper with an essentially unbeatable formula.



In principle, it would be wonderful for Dutton to have a double-pronged approach and begin to satisfy 'other' niche markets (their Toivo Kuula disc got a rave review in the latest IRR), but if this is going to 'dilute' the British strand, I (for one) would be more than willing to contact them and express a very strong opinion.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Better let CPO and Cameo Classics  know that Dutton are bringing out the Holbrooke Saxophone Concerto before we end up with a Saxophone Trio

No chance of that. I advise both Cameo and CPO on their Holbrooke repertoire. You can rely on me to see that there is no duplication.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I (for one) would be more than willing to contact them and express a very strong opinion.

I will support you in that. Maybe we could draft a letter and collect a number of signatories.

[Dundonnell]

Better let CPO and Cameo Classics  know that Dutton are bringing out the Holbrooke Saxophone Concerto before we end up with a Saxophone Trio

No chance of that. I advise both Cameo and CPO on their Holbrooke repertoire. You can rely on me to see that there is no duplication.

Excellent

So we can expect "Apollo and the Seaman", Symphony No.3 "The Ships", "Queen Mab" to come can we?

[Dundonnell]

There is still an extremely rich vein of neglected English music yet to be mined. I am very disappointed..........for purely selfish reasons, I have to admit. However, the Holbrooke, the Benjamin and especially the Ronald Corp choral music (interestingly, Mr. Corp is also a Church of England priest) all sound mouth-watering.

More Rootham, W.H. Bell and some R. O. Morris pretty please!!!!!!

Having digested the contents of the November release-schedule, I feel slightly more miffed than I did half-an-hour ago (see post above), although the Holbrooke is still a must-have. Dutton have assiduously striven to acquire a 'brand image' by providing a particular tasty product - as the makers of Coca-Cola and HP sauce will testify it is more than a trifle unwise to tamper with an essentially unbeatable formula.



In principle, it would be wonderful for Dutton to have a double-pronged approach and begin to satisfy 'other' niche markets (their Toivo Kuula disc got a rave review in the latest IRR), but if this is going to 'dilute' the British strand, I (for one) would be more than willing to contact them and express a very strong opinion.

I am more than happy to join in any approach to Dutton.

I know that Lewis Foreman advises the company on British repertoire and a good friend of mine is in regular, professional contact with him.

[RoothamRVWFinzi]

I will support you in that. Maybe we could draft a letter and collect a number of signatories.



I would certainly lend my name to that!!!!

[Gareth Vaughan]

So we can expect "Apollo and the Seaman", Symphony No.3 "The Ships", "Queen Mab" to come can we?

You can expect "The Ships" and - possibly - "Queen Mab" at some stage in the not-too-distant future.

[albion]

Maybe we could draft a letter and collect a number of signatories.

In all honesty, I think that more impact would come from a plethora of individual emails (or letters), all differently worded but all expressing (roughly) the same concerns: namely, that there is a very real perception that a broadening of the company's recording remit will irreparably weaken their pioneering commitment to hitherto-unrecorded British music.

One petitioning letter (however many signatures are attached to it) can be easily answered and then filed away under 'I' for 'irritating' or 'E' for 'eccentric opinion', whereas a whole raft of such complaints will need to be answered individually and thus create more of a stir amongst staff at the company concerned.

It is, of course, vital in any such communication to stress the wonderful things that Dutton have achieved for British music and perhaps highlight (many) personal favourites from their extensive catalogue!

[Dundonnell]

Very sound advice, John    Will send them an email.

I wrote to Dutton once before thanking the company for its work on behalf of Stanley Bate. I don't think that I got a reply....but never mind

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, good thinking, John. I'll get on with it next week.

[Christopher]

Does anyone know when they are planning to release the Catoire piano concerto?  I know he's not British, but am still looking forward to it.

[M. Henriksen]

I couldn't sit still anymore. I just have to comment on some of the reactions to Dutton's latest releases. I'm not British myself, but British classical music has always been a area of special interest for me. And what a fantastic job labels like Lyrita, Chandos, Hyperion, Dutton and others have done to record and promote all this music. The latest years I have also seen Dutton as our main "supplier" of the British repertoire, and I'm honestly overwhelmed by the quality of their productions.
So when this company now starts to issue non-British repertoire I'm still a very happy man. Why? Well, I agree that this will to some extent "dilute the British strand" as Albion puts it. But I guess Dutton will continue recording British music. Just look at the forthcoming Benjamin and Holbrooke discs! And I'm sure there will be more in years to come.

Now the Widor recording is another matter. It's a risk for any company to record any romantic piano concertos now that Hyperion's RPC-series has become such a great trademark. And these recordings being released almost simultaneously doesn't make things better... for Dutton in this case. I believe the average customer will prefer the Hyperion disc simply because of the trademark RPC. But when you look at Dutton's latest "international" discs; the positive thing here is what music they actually record. I was thrilled to learn that they will release a Frederick Converse disc, and the Kuula disc is highly recommended.

To be honest, you British live in a dream come true for the lovers of unsung music. Where else do you find a recording industry specializing in classical music, so strong as on the British Isles? Germany maybe? Certainly not in Norway. But as many of you point out, your arguments are slightly selfish. I do understand, I myself do prefer Simax to record Norwegian music since there's still so much to record.

There is enormous amounts of music that deserves to be recorded, wherever the land of origin might be. I believe that Dutton will continue to let British music be the backbone of its catalogue, and I'm equally happy to see them record other unsung music from around the world. Now the Widor disc aside (not that it's unwanted, just bad timing maybe) I say keep them coming! Well done Dutton!


Morten

[Dundonnell]

You make a number of very fair points and deserve a proper response.

Yes, we in Britain have been incredibly fortunate to have companies like Lyrita, Chandos, Hyperion and Dutton recording previously neglected British music. The contrast with most other countries is indeed acute.

Lyrita however have now worked through their back catalogue and have not released a cd for many months now while Chandos, having, so sadly, lost Richard Hickox, are employing Sir Andrew Davis and Edward Gardner but seem to be intent-in the main-to be re-recording British repertoire rather than looking further afield(the Bowen 1st and 2nd symphonies are an exception).

I have absolutely no difficulty with Dutton expanding into music from other countries but this move is clearly at the expense of the British Epoch series.
In March 2010 Dutton released 8 discs of British music, in July 7 discs, in November 7 discs, in March 2011 7 discs. Since then however the number has more than halved, 3 this June and 3 to be released probably in November.

Such a substantial cut in output is what is causing a number of us such concern.

I yield to no one in my amazement and enormous gratitude to Dutton for the fantastic job the company has done for British composers and for British music-lovers over the past few years. I have been collecting music for around half a century and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that much of the repertoire now available would ever grace my cd shelves. Dutton fully deserve all the praise they get.....but to more than halve their production is too much to accept without expressions of concern.

[M. Henriksen]

I can understand the concerns over which path Dutton will choose to go from here. Especially having the development of Chandos and Hyperion in mind. A couple of questions spring to my mind in this context: I know there's more high-quality British music to explore and record, but couldn't it be to the benefit of us all (globally thinking here!) that such an adventurous label as Dutton also record music with other origins? Take Frederick Converse for example, if Dutton doesn't do this then who will? I can't see many. And for all I know that record can be a revelation.
Should a record company, whatever the nationality, solely focus on the music of its own country just because of the nationality of the composers or look elsewhere to find exciting repertoire? Isn't documenting our musical heritage a common responsibility we all have to do?
For me, It's all about the quality of the music.


Morten 

[jerfilm]

I know most of us think just in musical and cultural terms.  But perhaps Dutton is finding it's market for just British music too limiting and feeling a need to expand their horizons?   Perhaps they're experimenting by issuing the Converse disc in hopes of finding a larger niche in one of the larger markets in the world? 

Instead of thinking in terms of why are they cutting back on production of British discs, we ought to be concerned about and asking the question:  Why have the halved their production in recent months?  Period.  Is there more to it than just repertoire?  Is it just a temporary phenomena or ?

Jerry