Absurd Singularity

Due to recent viewings of Together and Nodame Cantabile, my current music interests have veered back into the classical realm. More on that later. But while trolling iTunes for music by noted violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, I found it absolutely hilarious that for her Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto CD (live recording), they had split out the applause that she gets in the beginning and at the end into 2 individual tracks and they were on sale for $.99 each! "Opening Applause" is 25 seconds long while you get more clapping for your buck with "Closing Applause" which clocks in at 1:18. Unreal. Although I guess after looking at the CD track list it's not really iTunes' fault since the 2 applause sections do seem to have their own individual track numbers.

Another annoyance that I find when purchasing classical pieces through iTunes is that not all works on a CD can be purchased separately from others. Many times they are but sometimes they aren't. I wonder how they decide how tracks on a CD should be sold. Seems rather random. Sometimes they'll let you purchase one movement of a piece by itself but the other 2 you can only get if you buy the album. The hell.