Larry Sherwood asks:

>I recently purchased a CD from mp3.com with piano trios by Arthur Foote
>(#1 op. 5) and Dmitri Shostakovich (#2 op 67).....
>
>Like, who are these folks?

These folks is us! I'm the Serafino cellist, Jennifer Peck the violinist
and Suzy Bradbury is our pianist.  Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sherwood, and
thank you very, very much for your lovely note about our CD. Boy oh boy,
did you make my day!  Isn't the internet cool, folks? The other day I
noticed on the mp3.com admin page that we had sold a CD (the first one in
a while) to someone in Maryland. I thought how nice of that person! Then a
couple of days Larry Sherwood happens to post to his classical-music list
about a CD he'd just bought, and in a matter of minutes, from another
continent, I can respond and extend my thanks for your comments, and say
how glad I am that you enjoyed the CD. Cool.

>But the surprise to me was the wonderful trio by Foote, a composer
>with whom I am largely unfamiliar.  It is joyful, melodic, spirited, and
>hauntingly beautiful, and I suspect it's an underappreciated work that many
>on this list would value knowing if they do not do so already.

Isn't it a wonderful piece? Underappreciated it is, in fact ours is the
first CD recording of it and it is rarely performed, outside of Mallorca,
that is.

>The CD is marred, IMO, by the lack of liner notes.  Even the performers
>are unidentified, other than being something known as the Serafino Trio.

There should be some information on the inside of the booklet on the CD.
If it's not there it should be because we created and uploaded it, and I
don't know why it wouldn't be there. There are, however, no liner notes,
only "who are these folks", the movements of the works, a couple of fotos
and the thanks to the engineer and the page-turners. I wanted to put some
notes on there but they didn't really fit. In any case there are some short
program notes on those works on our website at:

   http/www.serafinotrio.com/serafino/dates.html

This page has our concert dates (not enough of them!) plus program notes on
rep we've played, including the Foote and the DSCH.

>Like, who are these folks?  For that matter, who were the composers?  Notes
>about the music also would have been appreciated.  Probably most of mp3's
>customers don't give a fig about the key in which their music is played,
>but people who purchase this kind of music frequently do like to learn
>something about the music they hear.

Well, even if one person gives a fig, you're right, there should be liner
notes about the composer and maybe I'll change the inside book and put them
in there, now that you say that. Also, I don't know if you've put the CD
in your computer or not yet. There are mp3 files that you can copy to your
disc, and there's also a little multimedia presentation in there. It has
our pic, some discription of the music and each movement, our bio, and it
also acts as a control panal for playing back the disc over your computer.
At http://www.serafinotrio.com/serafino/mp3faq.html there's a little FAQ
about this and other aspects of mp3.com.

>But excepting this caveat, the Serafino Trio's CD would make an excellent
>gift to those unfamiliar with either Foote's or Shostakovich's music.

We really really appreciate your note, Larry, and appreciate that you
bought the disc at mp3.com, too. CD sales there actually give considerable
support for artists, since we get a 50% "royalty" on those sales. Also CD
sales give a big boost in an artist's rating on the charts, which in turn
increases hits and downloads for which we also are paid. So, thanks.

David Runnion
http://mp3.com/serafinotrio
Mallorca, Spain