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PRESENTATION
I - As its name suggests, the company Classical Music Digest (C.M.D.)has committed itself to selecting the best parts of a whole in order to initiate a wide public to the discovery of works which are not accessible in their entire state, for reasons of difficulty of understanding, lack of time, etc.
II - With this aim in mind, C.M.D. has perfected a sophisticated method for selecting these extracts. Thus we propose to respond to the demand of a vast public which, having little or no knowledge of classical music, would nonetheless gladly take an interest, were the music to be made more accessible by putting the emphasis on the amenity and ease of assimilation of the afore-mentioned extracts.
III - This method has been applied to over 3000 works from the classical repertoire (opera, orchestral, piano, organ, religious music, etc...) chosen according to the following process :
- they come from a wide range of well-known and less well-known composers from every age, but especially from the eighteenth and nineteenth century ;
- one, two or more works by each composer are chosen following a certain number of criteria, including the interest of the work, its position in the creative evolution of the composer, the availability of an outstanding performance, etc...
- finally, as a result of a certain number of comparative studies, the best existing performance, or one of the best, is chosen to have extracts selected from it.
These musical extracts are compiled into a musical "data base". The exploitation of this "data base" is the principal activity of the company.
IV - After this method has been applied to a given work, we do our utmost to guarantee that all the selected extracts are immediately accessible to the majority of the targeted audience, and that no such extract has been overlooked.
V - These extracts, of a length ranging from ten seconds to a few minutes, represent on average between ten and forty per cent of the original work. They are published only on audio CD and cassettes, the following "cultural rules" being scrupulously respected :
- extracts from a single work remain grouped together on the same cassette or CD, thus forming a complete summary of the original work (each link is subjected to a careful editing which aims to make the listening as pleasant as possible) ;
- in no case are the selected extracts modified or deformed ;
- the order of extracts from a particular work is always respected.
In a case where the sum of the extracts from a chosen work is shorter than the average length of a reference, approximately 60 minutes, this reference will be completed with one or two other works, normally in a different style so as to avoid the lassitude which too similar a type of music would provoke in an uninitiated public.
VI - It must be made clear that this represents an activity of significant proportions,
- without precedent nor equivalent,
- intended for a wide public,
- concerning a practically inexhaustible repertoire,
- very difficult to compete against,
- aimed at an international audience,
- independent of notions of time, since the study of an outstanding version of a work always conserves its value as a reference.
VII - This activity aims to promote the classical music
heritage by initiating a vast public which can only gain access to this
important part of our culture by this means, and which, after being
introduced to musical themes that it would otherwise never have discovered,
will not fail to take an interest in this heritage.
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