Bill Karzas replied:

>Richard Todd wrote:
>
>>There used to be contributor to this list, whose Polish-sounding name I
>>can't remember, who was an editor of a French publication very similar to
>>the Penguin Guide.  ...
>
>He is Piotr Kaminski, who co-authored with Jean-Charles Hoffele the "Guide
>des Indispensables du disque compact classique." ...
>
>I don't know if they are still bringing out up-to-date versions.

I forwarded Bill's note to Piotr Kaminski who replied with the following
note to the list:

   Hello, happy MCML members, hello Bill!  It's nice to hear we're still
   gratefully remembered after so many years.  Les Indispensables have
   slowed down; there have been no further installments in the series
   since the 1997 "Bargain" edition, and the reasons for it are twofold:

   1.  The market has collapsed, as all of you know.  The life-span of
   a CD is now (at least in France) of about one to six months; sometimes,
   the moment you read a review of a recording in a monthly magazine
   (Diapason, Le Monde de la Musique etc), it means that you won't be
   able to find it anymore.  Since we have based our work on the principle
   of availability, which was still valid five years ago, we should now
   publish follow-ups every three months or so, and provide a day-to-day
   detective work on what is, and what isn't there - the record companies
   refusing systematically to reveal any credible list of suppressed
   CDs.  This is simply impossible, neither to us (there is only two of
   us, period), nor to our publisher.  It doesn't mean Les Indispensables
   is dead - since we are still alive, listening, thinking, writing.
   The concept is being currently redesigned, and I leave to your
   imagination what it might become.

   2.  After four years of crazy work, the authors noticed Les
   Indispensables have killed all their other activities.  They had to
   catch up with it.  PK is currently writing a book which is +/- two
   years late, and JCH is the spiritus movens behind the Dante/Lys
   production, which is there for all to see.

   Many hours of happy listening

   Piotr Kaminski

Tim Dickinson
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