Classical Music in Video (review)

For information regarding the scope of this column, consult the headnote in the September 2013 issue. The dates of access for each review of an online source indicate the dates during which the reviewer was evaluating the resource. All Web sites were last accessed to verify availability on 1 August 2013.

Introduction

Users familiar with Alexander Street Press's family of music streaming products, such as Classical Music Library, Jazz Music Library, Opera in Video, and others, will welcome Classical Music in Video, a relatively new addition to this group. As of this writing, Classical Music in Video provides access to 732 recorded performances delivered by streaming video. Classical Music in Video currently contains recordings from seventeen different publishers, and includes recent recordings from publishers such as EuroArts and Masterclass Media Foundation, and historical recordings from Bel Canto Society and Entertainment One, Ltd.

Navigation

Users may browse for recordings by many different access points—available on the left side of the home screen, or from the menu bar across the top of all screens—including people with responsibility for the recording (All People), composer, ensembles, genres, operatic roles (Roles), time periods, recording venues (Venues), and video titles (Videos). The actual browsing is done on separate screens, depending on which access point is selected for browsing. Users may also search for recordings by means of a basic search box available from all screens of the site, which allows the user to search by any keyword, or to narrow the search to People, Subtitles, and Title fields. The "Advanced Search" screen allows the user to perform precise searches. This screen will search many data fields simultaneously, and provides users with the assistance of controlled vocabulary through pull-down menus or, for large sets of controlled vocabulary, "Select Terms" links. Classical Music in Video offers straightforward browsing by title. The title list displays video recordings arranged in numerical order (for titles that begin with numbers), followed by alphabetical order. A navigation bar across the top of the screen allows users to jump to the beginning of each letter or to the numerical section. Users can also easily browse for people. One can browse for all indexed people at once or by one role at a time. Users can limit roles for browsing purposes to only composers, librettists, performers, directors, conductors, choreographers, or designers. Users can also link directly to the list of composers from the home page or the navigation bar under Browse. Within each list of people, occupations are listed, with some listed generically as Performer, and some with more specific occupations, such as Tenor, Pianist, or Musical conductor.

Users may browse for ensembles alphabetically. Clicking on an ensemble name on the "Browse Ensembles" screen will take the user to an ensemble page that links to a list of the video recordings featuring that ensemble. Some ensemble pages also contain a historical article about the ensemble (called a Biography) from All Music Guide.¹ Users may also browse by genre. The list of genres is arranged hierarchically with two levels. The list of top levels is arranged alphabetically, and within each top level is at least one second-level genre. Individual video recordings can be found by clicking on the top-level or second-level genre headings. The top-level genres include such terms as Chamber, Contemporary, Dance, Instrumental, and Vocal + choral. Because this site is entitled Classical Music in Video, and because Alexander Street Press also offers an Opera in Video database, I was surprised to see that this list included such terms as Drama, Jazz, Latin Music, and Opera + Operetta. The Jazz genre heading (at the top level) only contains three videos and they...