How not to advertise classical music

[dormouse1953]

Just received a confusing e-mail from Amazon puffing a new release called Verdi: The Complete Works.  Curiously, it says I received it because I bought Stravinsky's complete recordings, not two composers often listed together.

It's confusing, because the e-mail contains the track listings, which is just a list of opening lines, so Disc 1 starts:

1. Overture (Sinfonia) - Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
2. Di Vermiglia, Amabil Luce
3. Son Fra Voi! - Già Parmi Udire Il Fremito
4. Ah! Sgombro È Il Loco Alfin! - Sotto Il Paterno Tetto
5. Oh Patria Terra - Guardami! Sul Mio Ciglio

There is no indication of which opera is on which disc, only one singer listed - Pavarotti - and it gives only ten discs, not enough for a complete Verdi, I would have thought.

Opening the item in Amazon gives slightly more information.  It's actually 75 discs, and a couple of other names are mentioned: Solti and Domingo.  But the track listings are still only for ten discs, no indication of who is singing what opera.  Clearly a case of some sort of automated system trying to do a job it wasn't designed for.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Reminds me to ask if you've read Swan Song by Edmund Crispin, a nicely dotty little murder mystery with an operatic background. I've just finished it over lunch; not one of the world's great mysteries, but fun.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Don't think I've read any Crispin, but didn't he edit a number of SF anthologies? I kept getting him confused with Edmund Cooper.

Curiously, the Independent crossword had "swan song" as an answer yesterday, a very nice clue referring to Gloria Swanson.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's Crispin. Wrote a series of detective stories about an eccentric don turned detective called Gervease Fenn, this is one of them.

I'll try to remember to bring it to the next Thing.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I hope you are not expecting me to read it. Eight and a half year backlog of unread books, remember. :-)

I sometimes think I'm the only person in fandom who takes a non-infinitesimal amount of time to read a book.