Skimpy Recordings - Can You Top This?

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I'm a glass half-full guy, over recent years reformed from a glass half-empty dude.  Still, I was a bit taken aback over the weekend when I brought home this DG Musikfest LP and discovered the sizeable empty portion of the record on Side 1.  It seemed excessive to me, particularly so as there did not seem to be any logical reason for it; it's an anthology album - LvB, Mozart (very fine Gilels Fantasia K.397), Schubert, Brahms (Kempff's Brahms Intermezzi are a revelation), and a less than listenable Papillons from Francesch.  No excuse not to find some other material in the library to put on this record, budget though it be.  Anyway, it comes in at 47 minutes, so is not the skimpiest I could find on GMG, which so far seems to be Anna Moffo's 1960 recital for RCA Living Stereo at 45 minutes.

Speaking of time, please don't waste yours on this enterprise!  But if you remember anything 'skimpy' - LP (sic) or CD please contribute titles and times to this thread.  CD-wise, I remember Nojima Plays Ravel on Reference (Gaspard, Miroirs) caused a bit of unhappiness on this point when it was released at 50.30 minutes.  In the booklet Reference included a statement :  "This program is somewhat short by compact disc standards. We at Reference Recordings wished to include more music by Ravel, but Mr. Nojima felt strongly that these are the pieces with which he is ready to make recorded statements."  He's got a point, I'll take quality over quantity any day...

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[Karl Henning]

It's one of Louis Andriessen's finest pieces, so there are mixed feelings here . . . but the Nonesuch CD which has De staat, and De staat only, and which as a result runs to a scant 36 minutes' total duration, has always struck me as rather miserly.

[North Star]

CD released in 29 July 2013, 28 minutes long.
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[Karl Henning]

Oof.

[Florestan]

A CD featuring only Cage's 4'33'' would win hands down. 

Oh, BTW, that piece would make for the best, hottest and most controversial blind comparison ever. 

[Karl Henning]

CD released in 29 July 2013, 28 minutes long.
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And at least in the case of the Andriessen, one can argue that there are few recordings on the ground.  Not a case the Arditti-plus can really make for the Schoenberg Op.4.

[North Star]

And at least in the case of the Andriessen, one can argue that there are few recordings on the ground.  Not a case the Arditti-plus can really make for the Schoenberg Op.4.

I imagine that the original release might have had more meat to it, but it's really stupid from naïve to not pair it with anything (Berg's Lyric Suite, for instance, would make for one tempting pairing, even if the disc was still on the short side)

[Jo498]

A rather short LP was Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven 5th, probably around 32 min. or so. I had this as a cassette tape. Of the few LPs I owned as a teenager among the shortest was a DG/Karajan with the 1812 Ouverture on one side, "Wellington's victory" on the other. This amounts to 30 min. at most, I'd assume.

Of CDs, the "original covers" boxes, e.g. the big Rubinstein Box have usually "LP length" CDs, so there are many with 29-35 and hardly any with more than 50 minutes.

Of CDs first issued as CDs a rather short one I have are the Chopin Scherzi with Pogorelich, about 40 minutes. This is comparably rare in the CD age, especially in repertoire where there are lots of potential fillers (e.g. the impromptus or a few mazurkas or the Fantaisie or whatever).

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Yowza!    Of course, there are constraints and contracts and budgets and personalities...but your examples seem excessive!    I'd love to have been the proverbial fly on the wall at these record firms when the decision to release "skimpy ones" is made...

[kishnevi]

Of CDs, the "original covers" boxes, e.g. the big Rubinstein Box have usually "LP length" CDs, so there are many with 29-35 and hardly any with more than 50 minutes.

Another good example is the Byron Janis set, in which all the CDs have short timings,  compounded by the fact that one CD is actually a duplicate release of performances included elsewhere but in the set.  Still a good buy, however.


ETA Just noticed the Amazon pricing, no longer a good buy.  I paid ~$20US.

[ibanezmonster]

25 minutes. $17.76 new.

[Drasko]

Nikos Skalkottas - Four Greek Dances
New York Philharmonic / Dimitri Mitropoulos
total playing time - 9:34 (that is nine minutes, thirty four seconds)

from Sony Greece, you can buy it here:
http://www.studio52.gr/info_en.asp?infoID=000011ev

[Jo498]

To be fair, the Wellington/1812 was a fairly cheap Resonance/Musikfest whatever issue and the coupling made sense thematically.

(And I bought the pink Rubinstein box at about 1 EUR per disc, so I don't care if I pay EUR 120 for 70 full discs or 130 LP length CDs.)

I have read that Kleiber actually had contracts according to which his recordings were not to be coupled with anything else or not sold in cheapo lines. Not sure whether it is true, but it took a while until his Beethoven 5/7 came out on one CD as "Originals" in 94 or 95. They had been on separate CDs in the 80s!

And LPs were rather short, also because the sound quality suffered from "too full" LPs. Noone demanded a filler for a "large" symphony, like Tschaikowsky or Brahms or most of Beethovens (not 1 and 8 and maybe also 2 and 5 were sometimes coupled with a filler).

[springrite]

The Nojima is so good that it is worth the money nonetheless.

The Pogorelich Chopin Four Scherzi is very short, a bit more than half hour (and it passed the half hour mark only because he played them so slowly).

[North Star]

(and it passed the half hour mark only because he played them so slowly).

Cheater! 

[Karl Henning]

25 minutes. $17.76 new.

To exploit the post-trauma market . . . John Adams as social vampire   

[Jo498]

The Pogorelich Scherzi has 41:50. He plays them with a lot of rubato, and some sections quite slowly, although the fast sections are still fast.

[springrite]

I have several in the teens to just over twenty minutes, including music of De May, Tanguy and Birtwhistle.

[Todd]

Around 21 minutes.  It has since been added to box sets.

[Todd]

A D960 only.  Two things make this alright.  First, it is one of the greatest recordings of the work, bettering Kovacevich's EMI recording.  Second, it was part of a fundraiser if memory serves.