I reached the milestone of 400 DVD/Blu-ray reviews on June 20th 2016.  The 500 mark came up last weekend.  Let’s see how the stats have evolved.

Italian has increased its lead to 35% with German now on exactly 25%.  English has dropped marginally to 12%, despite its prominence in contemporary works.  I think multiple Salzburg Mozart cycles are playing a role here.

What surprises me about century of composition is that 21st century works have only risen from 19 to 24.  So still basically only 5% of what is coming my way.  The 20th century has actually dropped to the benefit of the 19th.  Have I subconsciously been trying to ensure that the “standard rep” is comprehensively covered?

Unsurprisingly the biggest swing is in date of recording.  Fully 37% are now recordings made since 2010, up from 26%.  Recordings from before 2000 (which might, in technology terms at least, be considered “historic”) are down from 30% to 25%.

In terms of where the recordings were made, Glyndebourne, Salzburg and thr Royal Opera House have all moved up past studio or location shot films. The top two houses remain the same though the ROH has moved past the Met into third place.  Zurich joins the houses with 20 or more recordings.  Some of this is influenced by who I can easily get review copies from; Euroarts typically for Salzburg and Zurich and Opus Arte via Naxos for Glyndebourne and the ROH.  Most of the Met recordings come out on the BMG stable of labels or Sony where I don’t have an in.

Blu-ray now accounts for 137 of the 500 recordings versus 84 of 400 at the last milestone, so a majority (just) of the last 100 have been Blu-rays.

It took 15 months to get from 200 to 300 recordings and 25 months to get from 300 to 400.  Getting fro 400 to 500 has taken 28 months.  Clearly I am slowing down.