What are you listening 2 now?

[aligreto]

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 [de la Fuente/Prieto]

I have always liked this concerto for its assertive ebullience and power in the outer movements. I also like the work for the intensity of its inner movements. All of that is delivered here to some degree. It is a good presentation yet, for me, there is something lacking. I think that it is perhaps a strong sense of presence and pathos that is lacking. These elements are there but not consistently delivered throughout the work for me. 
I find the quality of the recording to be a problem for me. It is very detailed but I find it to be a bit too open, reverberant, empty or hollow, bright and harsh. This was a first listen to me but it was a listening session using headphones which, I find, usually warm things up a bit. I will go again at a later stage and pay attention in detail to this aspect of the recording.

Garrido-Lecca: Cello Concerto [Prieto/Prieto]

This is a first listen to this work for me and I really liked it. I liked its musical language and its innovative, inventive approach. The scoring is relatively lean yet full sounding and never harsh. I find the sound world to be very exciting, powerful, intense, appealing and stimulating. It is filled with energy, tension and drama. This is no "filler" work. Wonderful; a great find.

[Incidentally, I did not have the same recording issues as experienced with the Shostakovich above.]

[Traverso]

Traditional music (and its daily life presence) was created & nurtured and thrived within a traditional culture and a traditional way of life. With both of the latter gone, how could traditional music (and its daily life presence) have survived? The places where traditional music is still practiced and appreciated by a considerable amount of people is exactly where traditions are still active and practiced more or less, ie Southern and Eastern Europe. For instance, traditional music is the only kind of music enjoyed by many Romanians, including some of my in-laws, and it's taught in various art schools across the country, with a lot of villages and small towns having their own local band or ensemble. The Romania's Got Talent tv show is full of such performances, ranging from solo players, singers or dancers to ensembles of more than a dozen people, and they are mostly children or very young.

Do not forget that also in a country like Sweden, for example, traditional music is still very much alive.

https://www.youtube.com/v/yWnj_Kxwt8g

[aligreto]

A very fine disc, that, methinks.

[aligreto]

Do not forget that also in a country like Sweden, for example, traditional music is still very much alive.

https://www.youtube.com/v/yWnj_Kxwt8g

I have seen a number oh his videos and he is a consummate musician.

[Florestan]

For me, a box set counts as multiple recordings. I'm thinking of doing an inventory of my classical collection starting in my room (I'll slowly make my way to the basement where the bulk of my classical collection is located) and my head is already beginning to hurt.

My physical music library (< 1000 CDs) has been located in the attic of my in-laws' house for several years now and I haven't accessed it ever since I moved it there. My digital library is located on three laptops and two external hard disks. I never counted the CDs but I estimate their number in the thousands, certainly more than two and probably less than five. 

[Harry]

J.S. Bach.
Complete Organ Works, volume IV.

Orgelbuchlein.
Canzona, Allabreve, Preludes and Fugues.

Ewald Kooiman plays on a Matthijs van Deventer organ 1756, in the Grote Kerk in Nijkerk, The Netherlands
Equal temperament. Pitch:A=438 tr/sec.
After a lot of misguided alterations from 1758 onwards, the instrument was brought back to its original state between 1975-1988, however a Pedal stop added in 1910 was retained.

This organ was a surprise for me! It must be surely one of the finest organs the Netherlands has. It has a beautiful full tone and a sweet character. Awesome voicing too. Kooiman plays well, and the recorded sound is most pleasing. This is the Bach I want to hear, pure without too much added aufschmuck.

[Que]

[Harry]

My physical music library (< 1000 CDs) has been located in the attic of my in-laws' house for several years now and I haven't accessed it ever since I moved it there. My digital library is located on three laptops and two external hard disks. I never counted the CDs but I estimate their number in the thousands, certainly more than two and probably less than five. 

My last count was near 40.000. A great part has too be examined, many giveaways, so after my investigation, it will probably be around 27.000. Too much for me, so I put some wheels in motion to get rid of it, and divide it over many classical friends, who are a lot younger than me, and can enjoy them for many many years.
In my active existing collection I will do some culling too, to bring it back to a essentials list, for me and my wife to listen. That will comprised about 5000 CD's.

[Papy Oli]

A very fine disc, that, methinks.

Hi Fergus,
It is quite special indeed. The one with the Piano quartets too.
I have hardly touched his piano music yet because I keep going back to those two (and Rogé & Ysaye's versions as well).

[Que]

My last count was near 40.000. A great part has too be examined, many giveaways, so after my investigation, it will probably be around 27.000. Too much for me, so I put some wheels in motion to get rid of it, and divide it over many classical friends, who are a lot younger than me, and can enjoy them for many many years.
In my active existing collection I will do some culling too, to bring it back to a essentials list, for me and my wife to listen. That will comprised about 5000 CD's.

I'm doing a similar exercise, although I'm coming down from a significantly lower number! 

Q

[Roasted Swan]

My last count was near 40.000. A great part has too be examined, many giveaways, so after my investigation, it will probably be around 27.000. Too much for me, so I put some wheels in motion to get rid of it, and divide it over many classical friends, who are a lot younger than me, and can enjoy them for many many years.
In my active existing collection I will do some culling too, to bring it back to a essentials list, for me and my wife to listen. That will comprised about 5000 CD's.

Goodness me Harry that is a lot!  If you think CD has been around roughly 35 years - thats 1000(+) a year and roughly 3 a day EVERY DAY. 

[aligreto]

Hi Fergus,
It is quite special indeed. The one with the Piano quartets too.
I have hardly touched his piano music yet because I keep going back to those two (and Rogé & Ysaye's versions as well).

Wonderfully engaging chamber music. What is not to like there? Glad you are liking it so much Olivier.

[DavidW]

[Mirror Image]

My physical music library (< 1000 CDs) has been located in the attic of my in-laws' house for several years now and I haven't accessed it ever since I moved it there. My digital library is located on three laptops and two external hard disks. I never counted the CDs but I estimate their number in the thousands, certainly more than two and probably less than five. 

Anything over 1,000 is quite a lot I'd say. You went the route I have ended up going with ripping CDs to the computer(s). I'm certainly not going to rip my entire collection, but right now I have 2,877 recordings on my laptop and like you this collection is backed up on an external SSD drive.

[aligreto]

He's obviously a fine musician but doesn't look very traditional to me. What I'm talking about, especially in the context of what Jan said about being part of a culture that connects people, where there is not the personal but the common center, the fun and involvement dripping off.  is rather this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch/=/czgLBBnUkhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch/=/2AAgdScbALc

https://www.youtube.com/watch/=/3caaqvVUmMA

Unfortunately I cannot see those videos Andrei. I am getting the Adobe Flash Player is no longer supported message unfortunately.

[prémont]

I'm doing a similar exercise, although I'm coming down from a significantly lower number! 

Q

The last time I did a count was when I moved to another appartment four years ago. The count was by then about 12.000. To day it may be >15,000, approximately 1.000 of these in the shape of lossless downloads. I have largely chosen every CD with great care, so I find culling very difficult. If I cull a CD, I do so very early after the purchase, when I realize it was a dud. Yes, it has happened, that I regretted the culling later and reacquired the CD.   

[DavidW]

I'm slightly tempted to do a count of my collection, but an important question is whether a box of discs (whether 2 or 5 or 13 or... I think I've got one box of about 30 discs) counts as a single album or as a whole pile of recordings.

I think a whole pile.  Especially since often these box sets had individual issues, which you could have acquired that way.

[Harry]

Goodness me Harry that is a lot!  If you think CD has been around roughly 35 years - thats 1000(+) a year and roughly 3 a day EVERY DAY.

Some of my friends which were older then me, died the last couple of years, 4 in total, so they bequeathed about 70% of their CD'S to me.  They thought I could still listen to them all. Alas, impossible, so hence the culling. I must admit that in the early days on GMG, I bought entire catalogues with such labels as MDG/Chandos/Hyperion/Bis/Naxos/Ondine/Simax/ and so many others. Those days are over, I am selective these days in what I buy. Heck even Karl nicknamed me the Steamroller, or something like that, because of these buying bouts. But I am sufficiently tamed now.

[Papy Oli]

Wonderfully engaging chamber music. What is not to like there? Glad you are liking it so much Olivier.

Top notch music... Maybe I should just keep Fauré, Debussy and Ravel...and scrap the rest of the collection 

[DavidW]

Anything over 1,000 is quite a lot I'd say. You went the route I have ended up going with ripping CDs to the computer(s). I'm certainly not going to rip my entire collection, but right now I have 2,877 recordings on my laptop and like you this collection is backed up on an external SSD drive.

If done right, ripping an entire collection takes a VERY LONG TIME.  Not only do you have to rip them securely but you also have to retag them and properly manage your file/folder structure.  If I had to do it again... I wouldn't.  I would just start from scratch purchasing digitally from the beginning.  Sounds crazy sometimes time matters more than money.