My recordings of the famous saxophone works by Jacques Ibert, Frank Martin and Lars-Erik Larsson were originally released on the small "Line Classics" label, founded by the established German music production and distribution company, Line Music of Hamburg. Despite its excellent catalogue and high aspirations, the Line Classics label did not survive the industry-wide challenges of 1990's. Following Line Classics' demise, this CD was reissued along with several others from its catalogue by "Arte Nova", the low-priced classical music series of BMG Music. I was neither asked permission nor consulted in any manner about this re-issue, and Arte Nova's omission and alteration of various significant historical details concerning the recording, as well as their piecemeal use of the extensive texts I wrote for the original issue, are most regrettable. For the record, allow me to clarify the following points:
1) Original Texts: The texts included with the Arte Nova release include various factual errors and erroneous suggestions. My texts were never intended to be printed in the highly-edited, excerpted form found in the re-release. The complete, original text can be downloaded in .pdf format at the following link: (unfortunately this link is broken)
2) Recording Principles: The recording itself was made by the renowned Swedish recording engineer Bertil Alving of Stockholm, one of the most respected and experienced persons in the field of digital sound recording. In order to create a concert-like atmosphere, the recording was made in the city concert-hall of Kokkola, Finland, using only two B & K ball-pattern microphones, placed approximately 10 meters before the orchestra and 6 meters apart. As with all of my recordings, no solo-microphone was used and no attempt was made to artificially "correct" the balance. The recording was intended to be as natural-sounding as possible, with no technical intervention in or correction of the hall's natural acoustics. It was recorded on Sony 2-track DAT recorders, at the time considered state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, some of the natural clarity and sheen achieved by Bertil Alving in the original recording was lost in the unmonitored transfer to the Arte Nova release.
Audiophiles will be interested to know that all three works were produced without correctional editing. The editing process - completed under my supervision - consisted only of the montage of complete movements, all of which were recorded in continuous takes.
3) "First Recording" Claim: The producer of the original release proudly and correctly announced to the press that these recordings were the "first CD-recordings of the original versions of these works". On the Arte Nova release, however, it is indicated that they are the "First Recordings, Original Versions", which is completely untrue. Sigurd Rascher made a live 78 RPM recording of the Larsson Konsert in the late 1930's, and he made numerous radio recordings of all three works. Although these were the first commercial recordings of the original versions of both Martin and Ibert and the first CD-recordings of all three, the claim as indicated on the Arte Nova release is false and was made completely without my knowledge or consent.
- John-Edward Kelly, June, 2001