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Guide
 We have tried to
make the JustClassical
database as user-friendly as
possible; browsing our recordings will hopefully be an easy and
pleasant experience. We offer these tips to allow people to get the
most from the site.
Choose your
Format
On the sidebar
you will see options to display only LPs or only CDs, if you wish to
restrict your browsing to one format or the other. Choosing "All" will
display LPs and CDs together.
Quality Grading
Tip: Roll the mouse over the Quality Grade
Every
recording has been given a quality grade, ranging from Mint (if
the recording is factory sealed) to Very Poor (if the recording is
begging to be put out of its misery). We offer a full discussion of our
grading system elsewhere on our
site, but customers can see a full definition of the grade assigned to
a given recording simply by rolling their mouse over the Grade.
Composers and Artists
Tip: Roll the mouse over the names of Artists and
Composers
Rolling the
mouse over the name of any Composer will display his or her dates,
while rolling over the name of an Artist will display his or her
instrument (or vocal range, in the case of singers). Clicking on all
names in the database (including the names of orchestras, ensembles and
record labels) will link to other recordings featuring the same person,
group or label (although please refer to our note about Searching for Orchestras).
Browsing by Artist
Artists
are listed in two ways: either by name, if you are
searching for a specific musician, or by instrument, if you wish to
see all Cello players for example, or anyone who plays the Ondes
Martenot.
Browsing by Category
If you
are not looking for a specific recording but simply wish to explore, LPs and CDs may be displayed
by category. Here you may view any recordings of Piano Concertos, for
example, or list only Hungarian Composers. This
is a useful way of finding recordings one might not have thought to
search for.
Photographs
Every
photograph on a recording page is a photograph of the actual recording
being sold; clicking on the thumbnail will expand the image to enable
closer inspection. With LPs, we try to include photos of the front and
back covers as well as the label of the record itself. Some box sets
have nothing printed on the back cover, in which case we don’t bother
photographing it - that would be a little too existential.
Feel free to ask us!
If you
have a specific question about a recording that isn’t answered on the
listing page, you can ask us by clicking Ask a Question.
We
will check the original recording and do our best to find the answer
for you. Be sure to include your email address or we won't be able to
respond. Don't worry; we won't keep your address after we have answered
your question. You can also write to us directly at
enquiries@justclassical.co.uk.
Pardon my Umlaut
We are
uncomfortably aware that a number of Composers and Artists in our
database are missing certain essential characters from their names: Furtwängler,
Martinů, Lutosławski, Dvořák and Fauré are
a few obvious examples. We have been compelled to standardise most
international names for the sake of our search engine: typing “Dvorak”
into the search bar would not find “Dvořák” and vice versa as
the computer regards these as separate names. Since most of us do not
posess a keyboard that includes the full range of international
characters required for a database of classical composers and
musicians, we have made an executive decision to level the playing
field and to restrict ourselves to standard characters only. We are
truly sorry if this is annoying to anyone; it is not a perfect
solution, but it did seem the most practical for the time being, at
least.
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Updated: 2008-12-10
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