Over the years think I've seen just about every sort of CD defect there
is.  Last year, for instance, I bought a CD of Veracini flute sonatas on
Symphonia only to discover the booklet was for a disc of Renaissance vocal
music (Symphonia has such plain booklet art that I didn't even notice until
I got it home).  I wrote to Symphonia and never heard anything.

When in the mood for some Renaissance vocal music a few days ago I grabbed
a disc from my largish pile of unheard CDs.  It was the motet and Missa
Regali ex progenie with the Regali Magnificat and a couple of songs by
Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521).  Into the CD player it went, and a few seconds
later what came out of my speakers was a rather poor-fidelity, mono
recording of Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

Now, I like this song, and Judy in her heyday had quite a voice, but this
was rather jarring.  So I opened the player and extracted the mystery disc
only to discover that it was actually printed with two labels.  The first
is "Forces' Sweethearts - 23 Songs from the Heart Throbs of World War II",
and then, over that and rotated 180 degrees, the label for the Fayrfax mass.

I know there are people who collect mutant CDs and LPs such as
this.  Anyone interested in this before I try and get a replacement from
Academy Sound & Vision?

By the way, I highly recommend the first four volumes in this series of
the complete Fayrfax sung by The Cardinall's Musick lead by Andrew Carwood.
These discs are a good introduction to what was happening in England forty
years before Tallis and eighty years before Byrd, besides the Eton
Choirbook of course.

Dave
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