CLASSICAL LOST AND FOUND
(CLOFO)

WHY NOT TRY LISTENING TO SOMETHING OFF THE BEATEN PATH, BUT WELL WORTH THE DETOUR!
- SEE THE CROCKS NEWSLETTERS LISTED BELOW -



WELCOME TO THE CLASSICAL LOST AND FOUND HOME PAGE


FORGOTTEN MUSIC BY GREAT COMPOSERS AND GREAT MUSIC BY FORGOTTEN COMPOSERS

Back in 1982 the digital entertainment medium blossomed with small silver discs known as CDs. They've become an invaluable source of music that's off the beaten path, but well worth the detour! Moreover, those recent ones that are of more than passing interest and potentially lasting intellectual value, could be regarded as Classical Releases of Current Key Significance, or "CROCKS".

CROCKS NEWSLETTER

CROCKS are the sole subject for the reviews that appear in the CROCKS NEWSLETTERs published periodically on this web site. These will introduce those looking for rare Classical repertoire to forgotten music by great composers and great music by forgotten composers (subsumes little-known, living ones). These write-ups also flag those superior-sounding discs, which will appeal to audiophiles. Incidentally, each has a "RECOMMENDED CLASSICAL MUSIC WEB SITE OUTLETS" panel with URL links to the following major, online retailers:

Amazon
ArkivMusic
Berkshire Record Outlet
Records International

CROCKS NEWSLETTER REVIEWS

Every CROCKS NEWSLETTER review includes an album cover photo, descriptive caption, rating stripe and pertinent commentary with a signature tag. Additionally, each ends with a product "AVAILABILITY" panel. This has as many as four URL boxes that invoke different internet vendor's product pages for the subject album, thereby facilitating the ordering process.

DESCRIPTIVE CAPTIONS

The descriptive captions are concise titles summarizing an album's content. They're of three types, the first and foremost being "COMPOSER" oriented. Then there are "PERFORMER" ones, having the names of artists as well as ensembles, and "ALBUM TITLE" tags that often read like something out of a TV commercial.

BASIC RATING STRIPES

As for the rating stripes, they're meant to categorize overall listener/reviewer reaction to a given album, and come in four varieties. These are differently colored and bear the names "RECOMMENDED", "AUDIOPHILE", "SUGGESTED" or "QUESTIONABLE", e.g.,

- CROCKS BASIC RATING STRIPES -
- RATING STRIPE - - LISTENER REACTION -
RECOMMENDED Uniformly good
AUDIOPHILE Uniformly good and superior sounding
SUGGESTED Some reservations
QUESTIONABLE Serious reservations

They also show the number of CDs or SACDs involved.

BEST FIND RATING STRIPES

At the beginning of each year, all "RECOMMENDED", "AUDIOPHILE" and "SUGGESTED" reviews that appeared during the previous one, are carefully compared. The most outstanding earn permanent, somewhat darker colored stripes with "BEST FIND" added after their original rating name, e.g.,

- CROCKS BEST FIND STRIPES -
- ORIGINAL RATING STRIPE - - BEST FIND STRIPE -
RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED BEST FIND
AUDIOPHILE AUDIOPHILE BEST FIND
SUGGESTED SUGGESTED BEST FIND

Admittedly, all this is subjective, considering it depends on personal musical tastes, which brings to mind that old expression, "One man's meat is another man's poison". What's more, "AUDIOPHILE" ratings also involve an individual's hearing perception, to say nothing of sound equipment and listening room characteristics.

IN-HOUSE CLOFO SEARCHES

Those looking for particular CROCKS NEWSLETTER reviews can access them via three URL boxes respectively labeled "AUDIOPHILE SELECTIONS", "BEST FINDS OF LAST YEAR" and "CLOFO RECOMMENDATIONS". These appear at the bottom of this as well as other CLOFO pages and represent separate, search domains.

They each invoke menus with panels having four URL boxes respectively labeled after the general classical music genres of "ORCHESTRAL", "CHAMBER (INSTRUMENTAL)", "VOCAL (CHORAL)" and "OPERATIC (SHOWS)". These in turn call up indexes listing captions for all albums in the chosen domain and genre, each of which has a URL prefix indicating the year its parent CROCKS NEWSLETTER appeared. Clicking them brings up their associated reviews, and perusing these is like browsing through albums in one of those old time, brick-and-mortar, record stores.

GOOGLE-POWERED CLOFO SEARCHES

Besides the above method of ferreting out reviews, there's also a powerful search engine courtesy of GOOGLE. Entering any classical-music-related key word or phrase in the box below will call up something on CLOFO.com, providing there's relevant material on at least one of it's pages.


NETWORKING SERVICES

Hopefully CLOFO will be a source of many rewarding classical discoveries, which you may want to share with others on these networking services:

QUESTIONS

Any questions should be sent to McQ@CLOFO.com .



- FOUR MOST RECENT CROCKS NEWSLETTERS -
(CLICK DATE TO SEE NEWSLETTER)
DATE FEATURED COMPOSERS
28 FEB 2024 Auerbach · Grau, Eduardo · Nörgård · Vainberg · Weinberg, M.
31 JAN 2024 Alfano, F. · Enna · Farrenc · Leiviskä, H.
31 DEC 2023 Cooke, A. · Fuchs, K. · Noskowski · Wranitzky, Paul
30 NOV 2023 Bacewicz · Clarke, N. · Ichmouratov · Lutosławski · Stöhr · Tubin

- TABLES OF ALL CROCKS NEWSLETTERS -
(CLICK YEAR TO SEE TABLE)
YEAR TABLE
2023 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2023
2022 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2022
2021 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2021
2020 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2020
2019 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2019
2018 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2018
2017 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2017
2016 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2016
2015 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2015
2014 All CROCKS Newsletters for 2014


- SEE OTHER CLOFO SERVICES -
AUDIOPHILE SELECTIONS BEST FINDS OF LAST YEAR CLOFO RECOMMENDATIONS