By request, I have accumulated and augmented nearly five years of posts from
my WWW site and offer them here on the following pages.
Singers - alphabetically by last name and
Technical aspects and comparisons
Video - play outside the browser
Two collections from which extracts are made occasionally:
Composers in engravings from 1900
Musical oddities from all sources
Truth to tell, there are weeks when I wonder whether the effort of the site is worth the trouble. Most of the time, I find it far more fun than burden. And on occasion, more than justifying the negative and neutral weeks, there is a thrill when I can offer something particularly timely or insightful. The greatest pleasure comes when I receive a post expressing delight at a visitor's discovery or a plea for more of the same.
There is no pattern to these selections. Some of the featured singers passed away decades ago; others have not yet begun substantial careers. Several topics are not operatic at all and those which deal with vocal technique are incomplete and superficial. It is my hope that you will be able to use this disc to save some space on your hard drive now occupied with favorites you have saved. Even more, I hope you will find that it opens your ears to material you have missed and inspires you to seek related materials in conventional format.
One caution is in order: the selections have all been compromised for the needs of the WWW and by my limitations in processing them. Where I provide extracts from a performance, a broadcast or a recording, a commercial release will offer far better sound quality and greater convenience than I supply here. This disc, like my WWW site, is intended to introduce the visitor to a subject. It serves as an aural or visual review - usually de facto since you need no opinion from me when the sample is there for you to draw your own conclusions. For the first few years, I minimized file size with low-rate WAV files. I have processed those now to MP3 in order to facilitate listening and to reduce file size; the result is that they will not have the quality of the later recordings, but should be adequate for the intended demonstrations.
Macintosh users are urged to read macread.txt on this disc as well as the following.
The audio files on this disc are recorded in WAV and MP3 format. Players for such audio are available for most platforms. Since most users of personal computers when this disc was published have 32-bit Windows installed on their systems, I include a licensed browser and a freeware player for their convenience.
Those running Windows who do not find that the browser begins automatically may start it by running I_VIEW.EXE from the root of the CD-ROM drive. Those running other systems, such as Mac and Unix boxes, will need both a browser and an installed MPEG and WAV player. Even on Windows, you may use your preferred browser. Operation with any browser other than the one on the disc requires that you point it to the CD-ROM and WELCOME.HTM as the URL. You may also find that some files, such as MP3 playlists in M3U format, will not play automatically.
A few video files are on the disc in a separate folder, VIDEO. Those are not supported by the built-in browser and are not linked to these pages. To access them, please note which you wish to watch, exit your browser and explore the disc to the Video folder. Once there, double-click on the video. If you have an appropriate player for the format, it will open and will play the clip.
Every effort has been made to ensure that all files are accessible to all users. The prototype of this disc was tested on a variety of computers and all reasonably modern ones have worked in the configurations tested. There is little that can be done if your computer has problems with these files short of upgrading the computer. As an indication of its modest needs, the disc proved fully functional except for video on a Pentium 75 laptop with 8 MB of RAM and a 2x CD-ROM drive. Video playback from the CD-ROM will require a fast drive, a powerful computer and a good player for best results; with some CD-ROM drives, you may need to copy the files you want to your hard drive.
Those using their own browsers will certainly need no assistance from me. That is fortunate, since it would be difficult to cover all the options of browsers and MP3 plugins and helpers. If you are running the I_VIEW browser on the disc, you should find all operations familiar. Simply click on a link to access it. If you have trouble seeing everything in the browser, please ensure that the page is maximized by clicking the icon one to the left and one down from the top-right corner. Unfortunately, the browser does not 'remember' that setting and you will need to click the icon each time you start the program.
One easy way to integrate MP3 playback into a Windows browser is to visit http://www.audioactive.com and to download and install the helper appropriate for your system. At the time of publication, they offered helpers not only for Win95, Win98 and NT, but also for Windows 3.x and Macintosh; however, the Mac versopm at this time does not handle these files.
The WinAmp player here is not the current version but a freeware release quite sufficient for the needs of this disc. We thank the developers at Nullsoft for permission to include this excellent program. WinAmp has been preset to the values needed for operation - which is fortunate, since those values cannot be recorded to the CD-ROM and therefore will return to the presets whenever the disc is accessed. This disc contains only monaural files.
At this writing, I can be reached by e-mail at
mrichter@mindspring.com, through
http://mrichter.simplenet.com or at
Michael Richter
2600 Colby Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90064-3716
310-477-7969