Collections and Sub-Collections

[Gurn Blanston]

If I only had one recording of Mahler 9** that would still be more than I have of Beethoven 9 

Or: If I only had one recording of Beethoven 9 that would still be more than I have of Mahler 9* 

*(or every other Mahler symphony combined, for that matter) 

[Gurn Blanston]

I ought to make it clear that the set itself is still well worth getting.   And it is possible that I merely had a bad ear day, so to speak.

Yeah, that happens to me too. In both directions! I'll be like "what did I ever hear in this the first time??".   

[mahler10th]

I have a side collection of CD's and MP3's which is called "NOT".
In the MP3 folder of "NOT" is everything that is not Classical Music - Radiohead, Muse, ELO, Movie Soundtracks, The Sex Pistols, this kind of thing  ...  anyway, within "NOT" and jostling at the top of the folder list is a folder called...er..."Atonal".      
***Runs away screaming***

[Gurn Blanston]

I have a side collection of CD's and MP3's which is called "NOT".
In the MP3 folder of "NOT" is everything that is not Classical Music - Radiohead, Muse, ELO, Movie Soundtracks, The Sex Pistols, this kind of thing  ...  anyway, within "NOT" and jostling at the top of the folder list is a folder called...er..."Atonal".      
***Runs away screaming***

[Karl Henning]

Reminds me that I promised to write a wee atonal piece for Johnnie . . . .

[Leo K.]

Over the years of collecting Mahler recordings, the focus narrowed to the M3, M6 and M9 works. Eventually the M9 became the focus, with the M6 following close behind.

A sub-collection slowly but surely started to develop into an obsession with acquiring recordings of the M9 by Japanese orchestras and conductors, that can include European conductors leading Japanese orchestras on rather obscure labels,i.e. Bertini w/ the Tokyo Symphony.   

I wanted to acquire a decent collection documenting the performance history of Mahler's 9th in Japan, and I've done pretty well! Someday I'd like to write an article about it.

[Leo K.]

Another obsession/interest of mine is forgotten American symphonists, this collection is almost all from taped broadcasts, from the years c.1938 up until 1969 thereabouts. I look for those composers born late 19th century generally. I am interested in both tonal/conservative and experimental/atonal composers, most particularly the very academic composers who were professors all their professional lives.

[Leo K.]

Like Gurn, I've been fond of collecting every fortepiano/harpsichord recording that features 18th Century composers, most particularly off the beaten path, this collection also started an interest in classical opera seria from the rather unknowns.

A long time focus has been a collection representing the history of the symphony and concerto as it developed in the 18th century from composers known only by scholars and historians, musicians now lost in the annuals of time...for many years, (after Mahler
Collecting abated), this became an obessive focus. Thank God for
Naxos and CPO labels!

[Leo K.]

And my obsession with the academicism of Brahms led me to collect all (I can find) Germanic/Austrian composers that wrote in the Brahms style, this includes Brahms' unknown contemporaries as well as the generation after Brahms. Again, academic composers and  professors more known as teachers than composers.  I focus on both pseudo-Brahms chamber music and symphonies.

[listener]

I have a couple of labels that have dedicated shelf space ( LP's) viz. New World - for their deep annotation and Louisville for the unusual repertoire,, and a batch of Argo/Transaccord discs of train sounds (Steam on the Lickey Incline, etc.)

[Florestan]

In the last 2 years my fastest growing sub-collections were:

1. Jordi Savall on Alia Vox
2. Baroque music for flute / recorder
3. Romantic music for solo piano / solo violin / piano & violin

[Coopmv]

"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" - Albus Dumbledore

I have almost literally every Beethoven symphony cycle released since 2000: Barenboim, Abbado, Nelson, Zweden, Haitink/LSO, Immerseel, Vanska, P. Jarvi, Chailly. If I don't have a set, it's either because it's available to me on Naxos Music Library (Dausgaard, Skrowaczewski, Rattle, Bruggen II, Krivine) or because of a combination of extreme recency and my own relative poverty (Thielemann, which is actually the only one I know I can't access at the moment).

I have the complete recordings of the Pavel Haas Quartet and almost everything by Yevgeny Sudbin and Alexandre Tharaud. I'll soon be ordering the complete Byron Janis and William Kapell boxes on GMG's recommendation, having little and no experience, respectively, with those performers. Brilliant's box sets made it all too easy to acquire the complete Rachmaninov and Brahms; ditto Hyperion and Chopin.

I have probably 9-10 cycles of Sibelius symphonies.

EDIT: And thirteen Gaspards de la nuit.

I have some 30 Beethoven Symphonies cycles, though the set by Haitink is the only post-2000 cycle in my Beethoven collection.  But my interests also extend to early/baroque/choral music and historical recordings. 

[Coopmv]

In the last 2 years my fastest growing sub-collections were:

1. Jordi Savall on Alia Vox
2. Baroque music for flute / recorder
3. Romantic music for solo piano / solo violin / piano & violin

For me, the fastest growing sub-collections were:

1. Early muisc - from about a dozen titles to over 200 titles spanning over 300 CD's.
2. Historical recordings - from next to nothing to almost 40 titles in Naxos Historical label alone. 
3. Bach Cantatas and Passions

[marvinbrown]

Pretty much everyone here, to some degree, is a collector of music. I suppose that there are those who are here simply for the stimulating company or the intellectual discussion, but in the main, we are collectors.

What I am curious about are the little sub-collections that grow up inside the more mainstream parts. The special interest, so to say.

For example;

I delight in having possibly 2 or 3 (modern and period instruments most likely) versions of everything Beethoven composed. I really like his music and so having all of it seemed reasonable enough a goal. However, within that group, I am well-known to also have nearly 100 versions of the 9th Symphony. I don't have 100 versions of everything else Beethoven wrote, just that.

I suppose it is specialty enough to have all of Haydn's music on period instruments. But I also have every keyboard sonatas and trios disk I could ever find on period keyboards. There are, amazingly, dozens of them!

Then, more diversely, I collect (not duplicate though) keyboard sonatas on period instruments from the time period 1740 to 1830.  I have used William Newman's great book The Sonata in the Classic Period as a guide and amassed great quantities of composers who are otherwise unrepresented in my collection. Very interesting music, too.

So, my question, what sorts of oddments have you fastened onto yourself?  Share it with us here, maybe it will give ideas for specializing rather than just grabbing any intriguing sounding disk that comes along. Either way can be a voyage of discovery, but the focus could also be a help.   

  Reading your opening post I must admit that I do have one oddity.  I like to specialize and subcollect Wagnerian operas, especially the Ring Cycle across the decades and with different casts.  Only Wagner has been awarded this honor.


  For the Ring Cycle:

  From the Golden Age of Wagnerian singing: 50s : I have Krauss 53, Keilbereth 55
  From the Silver Age of Wagnerian singing: 60s: I have Solti 50s-60s, Bohm
  From the Wood Age....brief period of decline: Karajan '67-'70
  From the Bronze age of Wagnerian singing 80s- 90s: I have Barenboim and Levine
 

  I consider myself a Ring affectionado.  The Ring Cycle is a work of art that lends itself to multiple interpretations: varying the casts, conductors, venues, and orchestras give a different feel for the music dramas. I must say that I get great pleasure from all of them.

  marvin
 

 

[Moonfish]

I just finished reading this thread being a newcomer to GMG! Very, very interesting to sense the echoes and reflections of fellow collectors. I can never quite figure out if it is an obsessive habit or a benign interest in music? At times it seems to be a quest towards some type of holy grail of music - the accumulation of listening and wrapping oneself in webs of sound. Or is it the imprint of composers and musicians?  - in a sense all these creative individuals composing and playing are bringing part of themselves forward in time - partial immortality.  I wonder..... are we drawn to that aspect? Or is it a combination of them all and more....?

Anyways, why did the thread stop so suddenly? It is fantastic! Thank you all that posted in it - it was very pleasant reading/pondering all your thoughts!

[Gurn Blanston]

I just finished reading this thread being a newcomer to GMG! Very, very interesting to sense the echoes and reflections of fellow collectors. I can never quite figure out if it is an obsessive habit or a benign interest in music? At times it seems to be a quest towards some type of holy grail of music - the accumulation of listening and wrapping oneself in webs of sound. Or is it the imprint of composers and musicians?  - in a sense all these creative individuals composing and playing are bringing part of themselves forward in time - partial immortality.  I wonder..... are we drawn to that aspect? Or is it a combination of them all and more....?

Anyways, why did the thread stop so suddenly? It is fantastic! Thank you all that posted in it - it was very pleasant reading/pondering all your thoughts!

Moon,
Thanks for liking this and bringing it back up. I always liked the concept and it gave me a lot to think about. As did your post. Benign interest or wild obsession??  I have that exact same thought. For me, the music itself provides its own answer, it is benign interest, I love to listen to it. However, the things associated with it, particularly history, which is a lifelong passion no matter the subject, are what have obsessed me. There are such a range of potential interests; instruments, chronology, philosophy, biography etc., that one can find inexhaustible intellectual stimulation even in the narrowest focus, like my current project involving just one composer! And all the time, great music to listen to!

Cheers,
Gurn

[Pat B]

Looks like this thread died about a month before I joined... reading over it makes me feel relatively sane. I have about 30 Beethoven 9's, probably 15 Beethoven Violin Concertos, and I think everything else is under 10.  Once I have a recording I am really happy with, I slow down my collecting; at that point it becomes more about wanting to hear a performer than wanting to hear another version of the piece.

My sensibilities lean more towards singles than cycles, but of course it depends on what's available and at what cost.

As far as performers go, I have a lot of Archibudelli (and a handful of Vera Beths and Anner Bylsma separately), Bernstein, and S.Richter, though my collections of those are dwarfed by some GMGers. The big Toscanini box gave me most of his recordings in one fell swoop. I have modest collections of Nathan Milstein (no recent activity on him) and Fricsay.

And, oh yeah, Immerseel. I have his Beethoven and Schubert symphony cycles, 6/10 of the Mozart PCs, plus a handful of others (some of which overlap with Archibudelli). At the moment, though, I'm not sure his position in my mind is as high as those in the preceding paragraph.

[Gurn Blanston]

Looks like this thread died about a month before I joined... reading over it makes me feel relatively sane. I have about 30 Beethoven 9's, probably 15 Beethoven Violin Concertos, and I think everything else is under 10.  Once I have a recording I am really happy with, I slow down my collecting; at that point it becomes more about wanting to hear a performer than wanting to hear another version of the piece.

I agree with your basic premise; once I find something I like I'm happy with it. Although this works better on the composers that I am not rabid about better than it does with my favorites. It is more important to me to have every work by a composer than to have every recording of one of those works. Of course, in Beethoven's case I have the best of both worlds.   Actually, by now 110 versions of the 9th are a mere fraction of the possibilities. *sigh*   0:)

[San Antone]

I have a couple of smallish sub-collections.  I am trying to accumulate every recording of two works: the Duruflé Requiem and Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande .  I have a good start on both works, but when dealing with OOP recordings, things slow down.

Either way, far fewer than 110 recordings of either.  But we all know size does not matter.

[Gurn Blanston]

I have a couple of smallish sub-collections.  I am trying to accumulate every recording of two works: the Duruflé Requiem and Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande .  I have a good start on both works, but when dealing with OOP recordings, things slow down.

Either way, far fewer than 110 recordings of either.  But we all know size does not matter.

Man, I need to hook you up with Eric (Pinky). P & M was his absolute thing!