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Just found this: http://www.abc.net.au/classic/content/2012/04/25/3477385.htm. It's only just been broadcast so perhaps it will available as a podcast shortly. I was sent the first link when I posted to a Gallipoli forum about my grandfather, who was there at Gallipoli too. He was a sergeant-bugler, and in his photo collection is a shot of a brass band at one of the base camps.

Hi all

Another couple to add. Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881-1916), an Australian who went to England to complete his education and settled there, except for a musical home-visit or two. He was an Olympic Games Gold medalist in 1908. He joined the Royal Navy Reserve in 1914 when war broke, mainly to serve with some of his British mates, including the poet Rupert Brooke. He ended up as an officer in the Royal Navy Division (which did its fighting on land, from what I can make out) and received the Distinguished Service Cross for valour at Gallipoli in 1915. He was killed while leading an attack during the Somme campaign of 1916. He was a good pianist and respected composer - more promising than Butterworth, according to the liner notes of a disc featuring his Elegy for Strings 'In Memoriam Rupert Brooke'. A really nice piece. At least one song (text by Shakespeare) has made it into recorded form. Anyone know of anything else?

Here's a link on Kelly's Violin Sonata, composed at Gallipoli: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-13/lost-gallipoli-sonata-returns-home/2714850

Even if a lot has been written on the end of the CD and everything heading towards download, my recent experience has been that there's nothing quite like the physical object in one's hand to show to someone, to be able to make a spontaneous sale. 

Another aspect I now appreciate is having a CD orientated around the theme of a particular instrument, and another little point, to keep things economical, that really applies to local conditions (ie. in my case French postal tarifs!) is to consider the weight of the total package when designing the booklet and choosing the cover/case format.

In the last couple of years I've been directly involved in the production of two different CDs. The first of these was born out of the initiative of an oboist who had had a concerto written for him by NZ composer Edwin Carr. This work was put on the CD in its version for oboe and piano with the primary goal of getting the work known. It's since been performed with orchestra. The programme of the CD was therefore constructed around chamber works including oboe from composers with a NZ association. This CD was replicated at 500 copies and as a French/German production, with myself in France, was titled Diversions - Autour du hautbois. The sponsor of the CD and myself, between the two of us, have sold probably 120 copies mostly to our own contacts, this includes copies I've sold to specialist CD shops for reselling (which they have done). Beyond that some of the participating musicians may have sold their own copies but I don't have details. I've given away several dozen copies as promotional copies eg. to musicians who might be interested in performing the repertoire, or libraries etc. In any event the bulk of the replication has dispersed without going through a classic distribution channel.

Not much was made of the NZ connection, that may have helped me sell a few copies here, and so far only a couple of dozen copies have even gone to NZ. Overall I consider the CD a success in helping to get the music out there, and the instrumental theme is something I'd definitely aim to do again. We produced a 12 page booklet for the Diversions CD, bi-lingual in French and English, reducing multiple composer and musician biographies, and programme notes to the minimum - it weighed 107 grams. La Poste has since ditched their economy post, and to send anything between 100g - 250g to the other side of the world now costs €5.60, a considerable addition to the cost with the currency conversion. That's something I certainly took into account with the CD that came after, going for a lightweight Digipak format. I've got a website so all the info is on a special page there for anyone interested in finding out about the individual works.

I played the clarinet/viola/piano trio about 18 months ago; it's the only CR music I know at this stage, or at least can recall. Some musicians I know are soon going to be recording the oboe/horn/piano in a couple of months and I'll be involved with that. The clarinet trio was nice to play and interesting melodically even if the harmonic language remains conservative. Certainly not dry. It's affable music; any moments where the harmony starts to get interesting with promise of adventure are short-lived and turn back to cosy territory rather quickly as in the slow movement.

Martin Lodge's new CD "Toru" is now available through Sounz even though it's still listed as "coming soon" on the Atoll site. The cello features prominently, with a solo cello work opening the CD, Epitaph for Douglas Lilburn. The recorded sound is superb - detailed and intimate. There are three works for two cellos. The eleven works are all single-movement works.

Phase and polarity are often confused but they are not the same.

I'm not too surprised that they are often confused; I used "invert phase" because that's what the function that flips the polarity on the DAW that I use is called. I read through an article that I felt clarified things rather well. In my mind, in my original post, I was thinking of invert polarity so the second paragraph still stands if "invert polarity" replaces "invert phase".

This a a quote from Amphissa:
The final reason given as to why a CD-R sounds better than a commercial CD is a standard CD burner inverts the polarity of the music on the copy relative to the original CD. And because most CD players also invert the polarity, this is a great sonic and musical improvement for the CD-R relative to the original CD since most CDs are recorded in the correct polarity.

To me there seems something rather odd about this statement. By polarity I take it that we are talking about "invert phase". If the burner inverts the phase, and most CD players (whatever "most" means) also invert the phase, then the player is simply going to invert back to the original phase, no?

Invert phase can be useful to check whether what's burnt onto a CD-R is the same as the original source by importing the audio from the CD-R back into a DAW, then inverting its phase and playing simultaneously with the original. If it's an exact copy the result should be absolute silence. 

Nearly 30 years ago the Vox label had what I still think were the best cases ever: foldable cardboard with the cd on one side, booklet on the other.

Sounds like what's called a Digipak these days or perhaps it was the first. I didn't realize they went that far back. There's a version where a printed booklet sits in a slot in the cardboard on the left flap.

Seems that François Couperin might have been the first to mention ballade in a title, as follows from L'Apothéose de Lully: "La paix du Parnasse, faite aux conditions, sur la remontrance des Muses françoises, que, lorsqu'on y parleroit leur langue, on diroit dorénavant sonade, cantade, ainsi qu'on prononce ballade, sérénade, &c. Sonade en trio".

I think that at their origin there were substantive differences, even if their distinctions seem rather blurred today. I can't really think of a single source that explains this, but to me it seems that the key is in the French language.

Interestingly, two of the composers mentioned so far lived in Paris (Mozart & Chopin) so I'm sure they would have been sensitive to the French usage, or at least historical roots, of ballade as distinct from romance.

According to the "petit Robert" ballade dates from 1260 and in its oldest meaning is a dancing song. It's also given to mean a short poem of three or more couplets with a refrain. It's going to be trickier to give a succinct definition of romance but I think it's worth noting that in French there is the verb romancer that means to embellish, to make into a fiction, so romance seems more linked to narrative/song or recitative element (without the dance connection). In French romance is said to derive from roman - medieval verse recounting legends.

There's a recording of Turina's Rapsodia Sinfonica for piano & string orchestra on the discography web page of the pianist Florencia Raitzin. From details I've just discovered it seems that this recording came from an LP recording. On checking the Musical Heritage site I found nothing on any of the musicians mentioned.

....likewise, major "Google hits" fwiw include viola concertos by Schnittke, Hoffmeister, Penderecki, Rozsa, McEwen (because of the new CD perhaps), Walton and - erm, don't know how Nigel Keay's work gets there... ?!?...

er...terribly sorry about that old chap, it seems I've missed my calling; perhaps I should've pursued a career in search engine optimization instead of writing stuff like that....

There's an Oboe Concerto written by Edwin Carr (NZ) in 2002 that was dedicated to Dominique Enon (France). It received its first full performance with orchestra only last year with Gordon Hunt as soloist. Details on this event here.

The work was recorded on CD in 2010 in its version for oboe and piano played by Paris-based oboist Marika Lombardi. This CD is available from blumlein records. The work is in three movements: 1. Allegro (5'00") 2. Larghetto (6'16") 3. Allegro moderato (2'38")

There's Four Poems for Mezzo soprano, Viola, and Piano, Op. 5 by C.M. Loeffler. I discovered them a couple of years back and would give them a strong recommendation. Loeffler also has a something for oboe, viola and piano but I don't know it.

I just tracked down this page (it had moved on the Radio NZ Concert site); recordings in the Radio New Zealand archive recently brought to light in a program called "Resound". Symphonic and chamber music all mixed in here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/audiofeatures/resound