Rehousing My Collection

[Holden]

I noticed that I had CDs all over the place and now that I'm on vacation my first task was to put them all in the same place - bad move as it turned out as there was not enough space. So I came to the conclusion that I had to resize yet I didn't really want to cull at the moment. I eventually decided to take a leaf out of the days of the LP and put all of my CDs into cardboard/paper covers and throw away those pesky jewel cases. This took me several days and had some interesting results. I found CDs I thought I'd lost, I found a number of double ups and I found recordings I hadn't heard in ages which I'm now rectifying!

It also gave me a good perspective on the most important recordings in my collection. Beethoven takes up nearly 25% of my collection with his solo piano music responsible for about half of that - mostly the sonatas. It was when I looked at the pianists playing Beethoven that I got a shock and here is the list of them alphabetically(for those interested).

A- Argerich, Arrau
B- Barenboim, Brendel, Brautigam, Barere
C - Casadesus, Cziffra, Ciani
F- Fischer A, Fischer E, Fiorentino
G - Gilels, Gulda
H - Hungerford, Horszowski, Hofman, Haskil, Hess, Horowitz, Hamelin
I - Isler, D
J - Jando
K - Kissin, Kapell, Kovacevich
L - Levy,
M - Malcuzynski, Michelangeli, Moravec
P- Perahia, Pollini
R - Rachmaninov, Richter, Renard, Rubinstein,
S - Sofronitsky, Solomon, Schnabel
T - Tomsic
W - Wild

I've probably missed a couple but that's over 40 different pianists and yet, when I think about it, this barely scratches the surface. I also imagine that Todd and probably George would be able to compile a larger list. Also when I look at it there's no Gieseking, no Goode, and a number of other well respected LvB interpreters. Anyone else I should really investigate?

[George]

I've probably missed a couple but that's over 40 different pianists and yet, when I think about it, this barely scratches the surface. I also imagine that Todd and probably George would be able to compile a larger list. Also when I look at it there's no Gieseking, no Goode, and a number of other well respected LvB interpreters. Anyone else I should really investigate?

I'd recommend Rudolf Serkin (early especially, up to 1970) and Maria Yudina. 

[12tone.]

More Beethoven? 

Enough... Let's move on to another composer!

[Bogey]

Holden, now that they are in paper sleeves, how do you "shelf" them for easy access?

[12tone.]

Holden, now that they are in paper sleeves, how do you "shelf" them for easy access?

Do it like the libraries do.  Get a rectangular drawer and put all the cds inside slips in there.  On the very upper part (the part you'd put your first or middle finger to in order to roll down the cds to look) you'd put perhaps colored tags with names and such so it goes like this:

Green color: Ren period
Blue: Baroque
Yellow: Classical
Red: Romantic
Brown: Modern

So one tag could look say Yellow and have Mozart: symph 1 / such and such conductor


How's that sound?

[Bogey]

Do it like the libraries do.  Get a rectangular drawer and put all the cds inside slips in there.  On the very upper part (the part you'd put your first or middle finger to in order to roll down the cds to look) you'd put perhaps colored tags with names and such so it goes like this:

Green color: Ren period
Blue: Baroque
Yellow: Classical
Red: Romantic
Brown: Modern

So one tag could look say Yellow and have Mozart: symph 1 / such and such conductor


How's that sound?

I may get there some day.  Sounds like a good system.  However, right now, I enjoy browsing my cds by their "spines" like library books, so just curious to Holden's adopted measure.

[12tone.]

I may get there some day.  Sounds like a good system.  However, right now, I enjoy browsing my cds by their "spines" like library books, so just curious to Holden's adopted measure.

Something like this.

Instead of paper cards each drawer is filled with cds.

[Mozart]

Go Digital! It's a ton of work at first but then its so easy to find music and it takes up so little space!

[Holden]

Holden, now that they are in paper sleeves, how do you "shelf" them for easy access?

I bought some plastic dividers to go in between the composers/genres/performers, these are about 2 cm taller than the sleeves so I can read the labels easily. The CDs are stored in suitably sized boxes which I can take off the shelf to peruse. What I've done is put each CD booklet in the sleeve (which has a round window at the front) for quick ID. This enables me to pull out the appropriate box and quickly peruse the contents.

I've sorted My CDs into 3 sections. The first alphabetically by composer. The second grouping is for CDs where more than one composer is represented and I've divided this into genres - instrumental, chamber, orchestral, song, etc. The final section is for my rock and jazz CDs, grouped by performer.

[RebLem]

You definitely need to get some Wilhelm Kempff CDs.  I have the Richard Goode set; believe me, you can do without it.  It tends to smoothe everything out, and obscure tempo changes within movements so they becvome more like fantasias than sonatas.  Don't really like it at all.  The best set of the sonatas is Annie Fischer's, and I see you apparently have that, so that's really good.

What you probably need to do most is investigate other composers more.  Would you mind telling us what other composers are represented by, say, at least 25 CDs?

[Holden]

You definitely need to get some Wilhelm Kempff CDs.  I have the Richard Goode set; believe me, you can do without it.  It tends to smoothe everything out, and obscure tempo changes within movements so they becvome more like fantasias than sonatas.  Don't really like it at all.  The best set of the sonatas is Annie Fischer's, and I see you apparently have that, so that's really good.

What you probably need to do most is investigate other composers more.  Would you mind telling us what other composers are represented by, say, at least 25 CDs?

I saw the Kempff set (stereo) second hand yesterday, taken from the DG Beethoven centenary edition but that would have exceeded my budget - maybe I should go back and look again. I must admit I was tempted.

My composers start with A for Albeniz, Alkan and Arne, have a heck of a lot of 'Bs' and follows the mainstream through 4 - 5 centuries. Yet it includes the likes of Gottschalk, Vorisek, Weber, Hummel, Katchaturian, Gododwsky, Respighi, Donizetti, Ravel, Satie, Spohr, Leopold Mozart, Albinoni, Stamitz, Scriabin, Hertel, Borodin, Rodrigo, De Falla, Piazolla, Faure, Copland, Rameau, Busoni (PC), Chabrier, etc. So I feel that I do have a reasonably eclectic range. It's just that Beethoven and Chopin are the two leaders in my collection. There is very little of Chopin's compositions that I don't have.