Review from Library Journal January 2006
Naxos Music Library, Naxos Music Library Jazz, Naxos Spoken Word Library
Naxos Online Libraries
SheetMusicNow?
Sheet Music Now.com
Content Since our first look at the Naxos Music Library (NML) (Spring 2004 netConnect, 4/15/04), the company has further enhanced its reputation by adding the 2005 Classic FM/Gramophone Label of the Year Award to its résumé. In recognizing Naxos for this award, Gramophone editor James Jolly noted the ever-increasing number of Editor's Choice classical CDs? and praised the label for “filling in corners of the repertoire that other companies leave untouched,” adding that its “electronic and online presence with Naxos Web Radio and the Naxos Music Library show that the label's visionary zeal remains as acute as ever.”
We concur. For starters, NML subscribers can explore virtually every facet of the classical music repertoire and nearly every corner of the globe through the World, folk, New Age, and contemporary jazz recordings that complement the Naxos classical holdings and the East Asian music from the Marco Polo label. The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music has been added to the basic subscription as well. Currently, some 8800 CD titles represent the combined output of Naxos, Marco Polo, and nearly two dozen independent labels. Performances are first rate and so is sound quality. So how do you improve upon a resource that is already this good?
Naxos turned inside to its own audiobook label, and outside to one source—SheetMusicNow?—that complemented the core NML resources and to a second—the Fantasy label and its well-respected subsidiaries such as Milestone, Prestige, and Riverside—that took NML even more boldly in the direction of jazz.
The Naxos Spoken Word Library currently offers subscribers access to over 340 books from 200 authors. It includes classic works of literature, drama, and poetry from the medieval period through the 20th century, plus a growing roster of nonfiction titles. The text of most of the recordings displays on screen while the audio plays and may be printed out.
Naxos Music Library Jazz—with the work of over 500 musicians represented on 1850 albums—will have jazz lovers drooling. Fantasy was an aggregator, in effect, and eventually over 20 labels—record companies responsible for releasing some of the most brilliant work of the most visionary voices in jazz—spun in Fantasy's orbit. Albums that jazz aficionados worship—Brilliant Corners by Monk, Afro Blue Impressions by Coltrane, and Workin', Steamin', Cookin', and Relaxin' by Miles Davis—are all part of this library (and so is Creedence Clearwater Revival plus a nice mix of blues and R&B). Unfortunately, because of licensing issues, original liner notes are not reproduced.
Complementing the classical and jazz offerings is the SheetMusicNow? collection of 15,000 sheet music editions from a variety of well-regarded publishers.
Searchability The first route into the collections is the alphabetical Browse/Search mode. Accessing a specific piece or composer is somewhat tedious this way, however, given the sheer volume of classical and jazz libraries' contents. The Advanced Search template remains a bit overwhelming as well. While the search options for the three NML libraries vary with the content, the interface is consistent enough that users will have no difficulty moving from NML to Jazz or Spoken Word .
We searched SheetMusicNow? via its own web site to get a taste of its contents and navigability. A search on hildegard von bingen produced a list of 40 editions from a variety of different publishers. A search on monk as Composer produced numerous hits on “'Round Midnight,” including the Lead Sheet, Piano/Vocal/Chords parts, and Guitar Tab/Vocal sheet music. There is no Mac version of the SheetMusicNow? reader. The Naxos products run on both Mac and Windows platforms. MARC records for 3900 Naxos titles are priced at $875, which makes the library OPAC another search option.
Price Annual subscription pricing for NML starts at $750 for five simultaneous users and progresses to $3750 for unlimited access. Considering that subscribers at the $750 level will be adding the equivalent of nearly 250 new classical CD titles per year at just a shade over $3 each, we should probably note that the only better deal in the online music universe involves some risk of jail time. The NML Plus package, which includes the Fantasy Jazz catalog, adds $60 per user to the annual rate, and the Spoken Word Library costs $50 per user. The Streaming Upgrade costs 50 percent above the subscription price.
Pricing for the SheetMusicNow? collection is based on institution size. Subscriptions start at $1500 for schools below the 2000 FTE level and top off at $1750 when the count exceeds 4000. There is a 15 percent discount if SheetMusicNow? is bundled with NML .
Who Needs It? When we first made the point that NML—with its daring and expansive coverage of the classical repertoire and heralded performance quality—is a much better music collection than most libraries could manage to assemble from scratch, we had no idea that Naxos could improve on the original in such dramatic fashion. Right from its initial release, Naxos Music Library was one of the most impressive products we had ever reviewed, but with an exquisite jazz archive, an acclaimed spoken word library, and an invaluable sheet music collection added to the mix, about all we can do is recalibrate our standard for excellence and hope that we can upgrade our subscription.