How do get hold of many versions?

[Don]

Now, 71Db, I vividly recall offering to send you some versions of your favourite music, but you told me basically you were not a charity case.

You may all feel free to consider me a charity case.  I've got a very large mailbox that's always ready to receive large packages.

[Don]

Well, of course it feels strange to receive music from strangers. 

I don't know how to respond such offer....

Just say YES!

[71 dB]

But....Brahms piano concertos are never-before-heard repertoire to you; so why do you feel digging into the obscure to be a superior preference?

Mike

yes, a year ago I didn't even know/remember Brahms had Piano Concertos! I have added them to my wishlist (Chailly) and I am waiting for the price to drop (currently £10.60+shipping). I have used my budget for this month thou. 

[MishaK]

71db,

Are there no used CD stores in your neck of the woods? That was a prime source for me for many years when I was a students or had other budget constraints. Also, do you have a record player? Used LPs can be found for ridiculously cheap these days. I still have a fair number of LPs in my collection.

But remember: where there is an obsession, means will be found. 

[George]

Well, of course it feels strange to receive music from strangers. 

I don't know how to respond such offer....

Just say "Send them to George." 

[knight66]

Well, of course it feels strange to receive music from strangers. 

I don't know how to respond such offer....

Evidently.

Mike

[71 dB]

71db,

Are there no used CD stores in your neck of the woods? That was a prime source for me for many years when I was a students or had other budget constraints. Also, do you have a record player? Used LPs can be found for ridiculously cheap these days. I still have a fair number of LPs in my collection.

But remember: where there is an obsession, means will be found. 

O Mensch,

Yes, there are used CD stores in Helsinki. I have bought some discs from those places of course. I just need to get my ass up and visit those places. I am planning of selling some of my discs away.

I don't have a record player. I am a supporter of clean digital sound and vinyls represent stone-age technology for me.

In fact I don't have an obsession. I just feel incomplete while compairing myself with many veterans of classical music collecting. Four new CDs per month is petty much enough for me but it means only ~50 CDs per year.

It's interesting how differently people buy CDs.

[MishaK]

In fact I don't have an obsession. I just feel incomplete while compairing myself with many veterans of classical music collecting. Four new CDs per month is petty much enough for me but it means only ~50 CDs per year.

Well, the difference is that those "veterans" are obsessed.    For me, it started with comparing performaces of Symphonie fantastique (I own 20+), then Brahms, Bruckner, etc.

[knight66]

In fact I don't have an obsession.

Elgar?

Mike

[Bunny]

Well, I have never found Bruckner or Mahler that interesting. Years ago a working pal borrowed me all Bruckner symphonies and I found it a boring process to go thru them. Also, I am pissed off by the fact that people keep these guys in so high esteem while Elgar's superb symphonies are kept in marginal, especially the 2nd. So, it takes some mental effort from my part to explore these composers "again".

I found it easy to get used to "romantic" opera singing but getting used to Verdi's and Rossini's music has been hopeless so far. Puccini I like a lot, he is operatic Italian Elgar!

I'm waiting for their turn! I am awaiting the arrival of Bach/Suzuki 18 and the new album of Swedish pop band Standfast. I also have 7 Naxos discs inside plastic wrapping to be listened to. The next disc I buy is most probably by Persian world music group Axiom of Choice. So, the world of music is crowded and even the best composers in history need to wait for their turn.

A tall stack of unopened cds never stopped this music lover from purchasing more.  We multiple junkies go weak at the knees at the sight of a great recording at a good price.  If the recording is rare or oop, we have been known to beg, borrow and steal to acquire it.  I draw the line at murder, but there are some...   

[71 dB]

Elgar?

Mike

Well, yeah but how many Elgar discs are there? Not many! Mozart would be different!

A tall stack of unopened cds never stopped this music lover from purchasing more.  We multiple junkies go weak at the knees at the sight of a great recording at a good price.  If the recording is rare or oop, we have been known to beg, borrow and steal to acquire it.  I draw the line at murder, but there are some...  

Well, if you didn't see I lost my temper earlier today because I lost an eBay auction of Complete Cantatas by Nikolaus Bruhns. 

[dirkronk]

It may be shocking for many that a classical music fan with 600-700 classical CDs does not have single dics by Verdi, Mahler or Brucker! I just haven't been interested of those composers yet.

You'll get there.

It took me years to get interested in Mahler and Bruckner...and that was with friends almost incessantly telling me how "great" these composers were, not to mention chiding me and urging me to listen. Long-winded, tedious, sleep-inducing...such were the ways I tended to look on their work. Finally, two of my friends kidnapped me (well...sorta), plied me with wine and forced me to listen to five or six different interpretations of the first movement of the Bruckner 4th. Not the WHOLE movement, but about 7 to 10 select minutes. The first three or four selections were almost painful...AND boring...and I figured I'd escape with my aural prejudices intact. But in the last two or three, I began to get a sense of the obvious differences in pacing, phrasing, separation of orchestral choirs...not to mention sonic differences and pure quality of playing. In fact, the last version they played for me made me sit up, perk up my ears and actually ENJOY what I was hearing. So I came away from my "captivity" not sold on Bruckner per se, but definitely convinced that interps make a BIG difference in whether you enjoy certain music. Also, after that, I gradually grew to love the Bruckner 4th more and more. Oh...and the version that convinced me was NOT a big name orchestra/conductor combo--it was a private tape of a local chamber orchestra. It wasn't a sonic blockbuster and the ensemble was even a bit scruffy. But such was the obvious energy and affection and committed playing by the group and its conductor that to my untrained ear this performance was preferable to versions by Karajan, Klemperer, Bohm, Jochum and others that I'd heard that evening.

That was well over 20 years ago.

Of course, you might not respond well to such a "musical intervention," but when you're ready to give the long-winded composers (Bruckner, Mahler et al) a try, don't ignore the importance of interpretation. In my own experience, I found Bruckner's symphonies 4 and 9 and Mahler's 1 and 4 to be shorter and perhaps more approachable than many of their other compositions. But naturally, YMMV.

Enjoy the music and enjoy the journey,

Dirk

[George]

A tall stack of unopened cds never stopped this music lover from purchasing more.  We multiple junkies go weak at the knees at the sight of a great recording at a good price.  If the recording is rare or oop, we have been known to beg, borrow and steal to acquire it.  I draw the line at murder, but there are some...   

Funny, Bunny! 

[Larry Rinkel]

You understand? It may be shocking for many that a classical music fan with 600-700 classical CDs does not have single dics by Verdi, Mahler or Brucker! I just haven't been interested of those composers yet.

Really? they are much more interesting than Elgar.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Years ago a working pal borrowed me all Bruckner symphonies and I found it a boring process to go thru them. Also, I am pissed off by the fact that people keep these guys in so high esteem while Elgar's superb symphonies are kept in marginal, especially the 2nd.

So let me get this straight: People(other than you of course) value Bruckner more than Elgar because:

a) During the past 100 years or so there is a vast conspiracy started by the so-called experts to inculcate this hideous lie that Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar. Many of these experts are composers, performers, or musicologists of the first order and are not related to either composer in any way. This has in turn lead record companies and the public to value the "wrong" music.

b) Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar.

[Larry Rinkel]

So let me get this straight: People(other than you of course) value Bruckner more than Elgar because:

a) During the past 100 years or so there is a vast conspiracy started by the so-called experts to inculcate this hideous lie that Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar. Many of these experts are composers, performers, or musicologists of the first order and are not related to either composer in any way. This has in turn lead record companies and the public to value the "wrong" music.

b) Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar.

This reminds me of a wicked but wonderful quip by Charles Rosen, responding to a complaint that there was a "conspiracy" to suppress the music of Hans Pfitzner. I'm slightly misquoting from memory, but Rosen replied: "If such a conspiracy exists, one wants to know where one can sign up to join." 

[71 dB]

Really? they are much more interesting than Elgar.

Not to me.

So let me get this straight: People(other than you of course) value Bruckner more than Elgar because:

a) During the past 100 years or so there is a vast conspiracy started by the so-called experts to inculcate this hideous lie that Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar. Many of these experts are composers, performers, or musicologists of the first order and are not related to either composer in any way. This has in turn lead record companies and the public to value the "wrong" music.

b) Bruckner is a better composer than Elgar.

I am not questioning Bruckners greatness. I am just trying to hint people that Elgar is much greater than they think. Elgar's music blows me away. Bruckner's music has not. If Bruckner indeed is better it isn't helping me.

[Don]

Not to me.

I am not questioning Bruckners greatness. I am just trying to hint people that Elgar is much greater than they think. Elgar's music blows me away. Bruckner's music has not. If Bruckner indeed is better it isn't helping me.

Can't we dump this "better" stuff and simply enjoy the composers we like and avoid those we don't.  Nobody can prove that Bruckner is better or worse than Elgar - best to leave it alone.

[Larry Rinkel]

Can't we dump this "better" stuff and simply enjoy the composers we like and avoid those we don't.  Nobody can prove that Bruckner is better or worse than Elgar - best to leave it alone.

We can try, but it ain't gonna work. Why? because no one wants to believe the music he/she likes lacks merit, and no one wants to believe he/she is deaf to music of quality. Of course merit can't be "proven" in the sense of a mathematical theorem, but the idea of greatness or merit is instilled in all of us from an early age and is not so easily set aside. Hence all these "my composer can lick your composer" battles. It's not the same thing as saying one likes or dislikes olives or oysters.

[Justin Ignaz Franz Bieber]

i for one get many recordings of something to find the perfect one & i don't stop until i've found it, but only if i like the work enough to make it worthwhile of course. then when i find the perfect one i might get more to make sure that it really is perfect. luckily i haven't done that with many things though. if i really get lucky (as with the goldberg variations) i could find the perfect recording right away. with others (the cello suites) it has taken longer. i can see myself doing that with bach's cantatas, if i had the cash .