Hornimint Records today issued a full and appropriately abject apology to all of those customers who had downloaded its new release of Hortense Threadbone's Requiem Canticles VII but had yet to receive the advertised free digital booklet which should have accompanied it.
Company spokesperson, Abe Jekta-Pologi said: "We realise that people paid a fair whack for this premium product and what they got just wasn't good enough". In a later clarification, he stressed that he had "been referring to the incompleteness of the package not casting aspersions on the music itself, still less on the performance" which he described as "just unbelievable".
The first Hornimint release since lockdown, the new recording features a socially-distanced Thrupiece Philharmonic Orchestra under acting Music Director Maestro Såphpäar O'Hands who is "filling in" for permanent Music Director Maestra Irina Legova whilst she undergoes psychiatric assessment and a required course of musical re-education. Ms. Legova has, in four seasons with the TPO, managed to reduce audience attendance by 85%, leaving executives worried about "the bottom line". "Sadly our bottom line is nowhere near as attractive as Ms Legova's" TPO CEO Ivor Ballans-Sheete said in a press conference convened originally to allow him to deny charges of sexism and inappropriate behaviour "laid" by several female members of the orchestra.
The new CD - which can be obtained directly from the TPO's Marketing Suite [for more information go to merchandising@tpo.co.uk] - is the first-ever recording of a work by justly neglected Dorset composer Hortense Threadbone. One of Dorset’s least known and least understood female composers, Hortense was born into a branch of the well-established Dorset Threadbone family [Mrs. Amanda J Threadbone’s husband Mr. Threadbone was a second cousin thrice removed [finally by a mini-tractor with improperly secured nuts]]. She was an autodidact, her parents having much preferred that she join the family business. However cockle-gathering was not her chosen metier and after early struggles, she secured a place at the Summer Composition Class of Russian emigre composer Vladimir Dmitri Probonovich from whom she learned to draw a bar line and under whose direction she finally mastered the treble clef. She wrote a large number of works, most of them "straying very little" from the Requiem Canticles theme.
This is not the first time that Hornimint Records have found themselves in the digital dock. In 2017, they were fined £12.50 by Dorset Trading Standards [Tribunal Chairperson Mrs. Amanda J Threadbone] for failing to print an EXPLICIT ADULT MATERIAL warning on Ziggy and the Boners Men's Men, the title track of which [heard on a quiet night through clarity enhancing headphones] contained lyrics said to describe a typical night "boning with the boners". Following the DTS ruling, the album was withdrawn and repackaged minus the offending track*.
*Fine auctioneers and valuers Sotherbones recently sold a copy of the original album for £43. The musicporkpie resale app typically values a second-hand copy of the re-issue at 0.10p, though several intending sellers have told professorthrupiece.com that when its bar code is scanned the app reports that "we are not interested in this item at the moment".]
In the meantime, rumour has it that trouble is brewing once again at the TPO where Russian friends of Ms. Legova are said to have taken a keen interest in her contract situation and are threatening to "lend a hand" in negotiations to resolve the outstanding issues between the fetching 36-24-32 Maestra and the orchestra board.
Purchasers of Hortense Threadbone's Requiem Canticles VII who have not received their digital booklet can download it HERE
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