Revisiting your music collection

[VonStupp]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?
Fennell, Holst Suite, Telarc

2. What is the newest?
Vaughan Williams, 49th Parallel, Yates, although not really classical, I store it there.

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!
Beethoven; maybe Mozart, perhaps Haydn

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?
Sibelius, Davis, RCA; many on BMG/Columbia House record clubs ended up this way. I might even include Maazel's Strauss on RCA too.

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)
Box sets. I usually don't buy them because I tend not to listen to them all or revisit; no more paperweights. Be gone, J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?
Anytime I buy something I already own is frustrating, at least when I am not trying to upgrade with a remaster. I think I did that with Markevitch's Lili Boulanger last, which I thought I had lost from a move.

7. Are there any recordings/composers/works you went in blind on but now have become firm favourites?
Magnard Sym 3 & 4 Ossonce. Loved the cover; ended up loving the music.

[Karl Henning]

Be gone, J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

(* chortle *)

[JBS]

Whether you have a physical collection, a flac archive, or just receipts because you only stream you can participate in this.

I was inspired by a tag on booktube... and also from some of the revelations I had looking over old purchases.

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?

Oldest recording per se would be the stuff Caruso recorded in his first sessions via an EMI GROC issue. First LP I bought with my own money was Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Don't remember the performers, but it was on the Odyssey label, so if it ever appeared on CD it would have been on Sony or an allied label.
First actual CD was the score to Amadeus.

2. What is the newest?

Bacewicz Symphonies 3 and 4 on Chandos*; Mozart Symphonies 29 and 40 with Oboe Concerto on Aparte; Beethoven Missa Solemnis conducted by Savall; Shostakovich Symphonies 2,3,12,13 conducted by Nelsons on DG

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!

I've got several sets of Wagner's operas that I've never got around to listening to.

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?

None. There have been some I bought because they were cheap, and I was willing to take a chance at the price, and ended up not really liking--but "regretting the purchase" is not the best term to use.

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)

Cameron Carpenter's Bach CD.

6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?

It's happened several times to me.

7. Are there any recordings/composers/works you went in blind on but now have become firm favourites?

Peteris Vasks would be the likely answer here.


*I happen to be listening to it now.

[71 dB]

You're absolutely right, but between various relocations and selling vinyl or CDs over the years, I no longer own any of "my original library," so my replies reflect my library as it presently exists. The first CD I bought was actually the Rykodisc Frank Zappa issue with both Lumpy Gravy and We're Only In It For the Money.

Oh, that surely explains it Karl.    I believe this thread is for classical music. The Mussorgsky CD I mentioned was my first classical CD. The first music I ever bought in any format was S-Express - Original Soundtrack on vinyl in 1989 and then I re-bought the same album on CD when I bought my first crappy JVC CD player in summer 1990 for 700 Finnish marks (about 120 euros converted without inflation).

[Iota]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?

Ashkenazy's first recording of the Chopin Etudes on a Saga LP. It probably changed my life more than any other non-organic artefact ever has done.



2. What is the newest?

Scriabin: Morceaux & Piano Sonata No. 5 - Rachmaninov: 13 Preludes Op.32, Konstantin Lifschitz (Denon)


4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?
 
Beethoven symphonies, Masur, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (Philips Classics)
 

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)

Mahler 5, Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic (EMI Classics)

Great reviews, couldn't stand it.


6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?

Take your pick. In the early days when I was rapidly acquiring LP's, there were a lot more than one.

[springrite]

I want to add a 7th question to the survey, for a more positive spin on things:

7. Are there any recordings/composers/works you went in blind on but now have become firm favourites?

Suk! I bought 5 or 6 Suk CDs (Supraphon) for the beautiful paintings on the cover. As it turns out, the music is beautiful and I went back to buy more!

[Atriod]

1. Non classical I bought Outkast ATLiens and NIN The Downward Spiral roughly around each other and both remain favorites though for NIN I typically reach for The Fragile more these days. Classical it was Horowitz playing Scarlatti in one of those blue cover Sony CDs, I still adore Scarlatti and if I had a time machine Horowitz would be on the list of musicians I'd want to see.

2. Reissue - Celibidache Conducts Bruckner 4, 6-8, Munchner Phil live recordings on Sony, six SACD compilation. New music - Het Collectief Messian Quatuor pour la fin du temps, Murail Stalag VIIIa (bought mainly for the Murail piece, I have too many Quartet For the End of Time performances).

3. Composer I don't think any. Performer Alfred Brendel Complete Philips though not sure if that counts as I sold it.

4. Alfred Brendel Complete Philips, I am just not a Brendel fan.

5. I can't remember any.

6. I generally have a decent memory so I will include three CDs I purchased twice by accident - Gardiner Brahms Requiem, Robert Shaw Dvorak Stabat Mater, Polyansky Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil. This is some really strange coincidence that they're all choral music. Assuming there are six major subgenres of classical music it's a 0.4% chance that they'd all be choral music.

[steve ridgway]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?

For proper classical music, the Varèse Complete Works, Chailly.



2. What is the newest?

The Reiner Complete RCA Album Collection (download).

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!

Probably Beethoven in the above. There's too much twentieth century stuff I want to hear.

I don't have anything in the remaining categories, have been very careful what I buy.

[pjme]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?
LP: cannot remember. probably something by Debussy or Ravel.
CD: Koechlin: Le buisson ardent / Segerstam
2. What is the newest?
Uuno Klami: pianoconcerto nr 1 "Une nuit à Montmartre"

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!
Bach

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?
Several - but d'Indy symphony nr . 3 stands out.

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)
Several - but Bach/Vivaldi (4 pianos) stands out. I discovered not liking Bach on the piano.

6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?
Not really. I should listen to Schütz Psalmen Davids more often.

7. Are there any recordings/composers/works you went in blind on but now have become firm favourites?
Brahms choral music.

[Papy Oli]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?

Circa 2006, A handful of introductory HMV Classics CD's (Handel, Vivaldi, Wagner, Shostakovich).

Once I discovered GMG a weeks later, my first "proper" purchases were: LVB Symphonies by Karajan '63, Tallis Spem in Alium by Summerly/Naxos, Pergolesi Stabat Mater by Alessandrini/Naive

2. What is the newest?

LvB String Quartets by the Alban Berg Quartet.

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!

JS Bach - approx. 3/4 of the Cantatas cycle by Harnoncourt/Leonhardt, the full cycle by Rilling, the partial cycle by Fritz Werner.

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?

The Complete JS Bach edition by Brilliant. it never convinced me about JSB at the time. I gave it away for a church fair tombola. It took me 15 years to eventually find my entry point in JSB, with him now representing 12% of my collection. See also (3) 

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)

The Beethoven Sonatas by Brautigam, the sound of pianoforte never worked for me. Probably the complete DG & RCA  recordings by Sviatoslav Richter. Never really got into those at all. I might re-assess all those sometimes.

6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?

Not really. I see the covers on MusicBee every day,

7. Are there any recordings/composers/works you went in blind on but now have become firm favourites?

Based on word of mouth here, two spring to mind: The Secret Labyrinth and De Leidse Koorboeken sets. 

[DaveF]

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?

The Complete JS Bach edition by Brilliant. it never convinced me about JSB at the time. I gave it away for a church fair tombola.

Oh yes!  I only ever had one of the Cantata boxes from this edition, but mine went the same way.  The solo singing was painfully bad, as I recall.

[DavidW]

Oh yes!  I only ever had one of the Cantata boxes from this edition, but mine went the same way.  The solo singing was painfully bad, as I recall.

The only thing I liked in that box were the Harry Christopher and the Sixteen recordings of the great vocal works (Leusink did the cantatas).  It is a shame because I think Brilliant did a pretty good job with the Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven editions.

[Karl Henning]

Tallis Spem in Alium by Summerly/Naxos

Quite a few of my first-ish CD ourchases were Summerly/Oxford Camerata.

[Jo498]

A lot of the harpsichord and organ recordings from the Brilliant Bach edition were quite good, certainly solid, also the secular cantatas (East German 70s/80s recordings).

[prémont]

1) My first purchase (LP) was Beethoven's symphony nr. 2 with The Philharmonia Orchestra and Otto Klemperer. I haven't kept it because I have purchased the recording on CD.

2) My latest purchase was vol. 2,3,4 and 5 of Helga Schauerte's Buxtehude organ integral. I owned vol. 1 already.

3) Must be Beethoven. I own 40 complete sets of the string quartets and have only listened to about 25 % of the CDs so far.

4) If it is on a deep sale I don't expect much and concordantly there is little to regret.

5) Don't recall precisely because this has happened to me more times and because I probably have culled the CD at some point. Oh, wait - a four CDs box with organ works of Messian played by himself may qualify as answer to this question.

6) If so I have forgotten about it.

7) Hindemith. Purchased many years ago Ludus Tonalis with Hans Petermandl (his first recording on Supraphon). I didn't know anything about Hindemith at that time and took the chance. And this became the beginning of my love for Hindemith.

[brewski]

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?
Rachmaninov Isle of the Dead and Symphonic Dances with Ashkenazy and the Concertgebouw. Heard it while browsing at Tower Records in Baltimore, and bought it on the spot.

2. What is the newest?
Mahler Symphony No. 8 with Vänskä and Minnesota.

3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!
Probably Bruckner.

4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?
Can't think of a single one, but then, I take pride in choosing carefully.

5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)
Again, can't think of one. I do get occasional review copies in the mail, and sometimes the sender clearly has no inkling that this recording is something I'm not interested in (e.g., some of the various "crossover" recordings).

6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?
If I forgot it then, I've probably forgotten it now. 

Thanks for an entertaining exercise, and I'm enjoying reading others' responses.

-Bruce

[ando]

Whether you have a physical collection, a flac archive, or just receipts because you only stream you can participate in this.

I was inspired by a tag on booktube... and also from some of the revelations I had looking over old purchases.

1. What is the oldest recording in your collection? i.e. what is your first purchase?
2. What is the newest?
3. What composer or performer do you have the most recordings of that YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO!
4. What recording did you buy because it was on a deep sale but regret purchasing?
5. What recording do you most regret buying or were just shocked that you even bought it (why did I buy this??)
6. Is there anything you bought that you completely forgot you owned?

I also challenge you to take at least one of your answers and give it a listen!

I'm running out of time so I'll post my answers later.

I'll assume you're asking only about classical recordings. The jazz records in my collection are far older and more numerous. That said;

1) The oldest:


Beethoven Juilliard String Quartet  Quartet In C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131 (1962, RCA Victor Red Seal)

2) The newest:


Gustav Leonhardt J.S. Bach English Suites / Partitas (1985, Virgin)

3) The composer most represented and undiscovered (listened): Easy


J.S. Bach

4) I don't regret purchasing anything. I've given away/donated most of my collection over the years.

5) Most regretted purchase: Ditto.

6) Neglected disc(s):


John Eliot Gardiner Mozart Operas
(2011, Archiv Produktion)

Ok, so I'm taking your challenge and listening (for the first time) to Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Serraglio). Luckily, some kind soul uploaded a fine version of the Gardner edition so I can listen while I watch the Eagles game. (I'll do a closer listen over the next few days. ) Thanks, David.

[ando]

John Eliot Gardiner Mozart Operas
(2011, Archiv Produktion)

Sorry, but I have to say it: The Krips version appeared in the sidebar and you know what they say about curious minds (no cracks)... I like it better. 

thanks again!

[DavidW]

Sorry, but I have to say it: The Krips version appeared in the sidebar and you know what they say about curious minds (no cracks)... I like it better. 

I know you didn't ask but my favorite PI recordings of his operas are Rene Jacobs and MI is Bohm.

[springrite]

I know you didn't ask but my favorite PI recordings of his operas are Rene Jacobs and MI is Bohm.

Same here!