Gaping holes

[André]

What are the gaping holes in your discography ?       

I received today my first ever recording of Handel's Royal Fireworks Music. I know it well, probably through too much listening to Radio Classic in the car  . Now that I'm retired and don't commute any more, these sounds seem to have receded in the background.

It simply NEVER occured to me to look for that work.

Any other familiar works you're not THAT familiar with ?

[amw]

Not entirely a massive hole but I didn't have a complete Bruckner cycle until just recently ordering one, and therefore lacked recordings of Symphonies 1, 2 & 3.

Also Brahms Requiem. I know what recording I want I just haven't gotten it yet.

[springrite]

RvW's Sea Symphony.

[Jo498]

If I don't consider them gaping holes after almost 30 years of collecting the stuff, I guess they aren't gaps for me.
I really cannot think of anything except for opera I'd consider glaring holes in the "standard repertoire". This is partly due to the fact that other somewhat gappy fields are music of the last ca. 70 years and before 1700 or 1600.

But in opera, I have only one by Donizetti, two by Bellini (and I don't think I listened to both), 3 by Rossini, gaps in Verdi and Puccini, no other Verismo, no Gounod, Massenet, only 4 of Strauss's, none of Prokofieff's...

Overall, I'd say my fault is more on the side having stuff on my shelf for "completeness" I (almost) never listened to (e.g. quite a few of the operas I do have). But I also have gaps in stuff I generally like, e.g. some of the lesser known Handel oratorios, no complete Scarlatti sonatas, Bach cantatas or Schubert Lieder... I also lack a recording of the earliest Brucker symphony in f minor... but I have 0-9, including alternative/earlier versions of 3,4,8.

[The new erato]

If I don't consider them gaping holes after almost 30 years of collecting the stuff, I guess they aren't gaps for me.

+1

I really cannot think of anything except for opera I'd consider glaring holes in the "standard repertoire".

+1

But in opera, I have only one by Donizetti, two by Bellini (and I don't think I listened to both), 3 by Rossini, gaps in Verdi and Puccini,

I have very little bel canto, and find Rossini distinctly unfunny.

Overall, I'd say my fault is more on the side having stuff on my shelf for "completeness"

+1

[Jo498]

While many (not all) opera buffs differ, I think I need opera on stage, except for the rare cases when I am extremely fond of the music (e.g. some Mozart, Wagner, Fidelio, maybe a little Verdi and Handel). The problem is that despite living in a country with an extremely high density of opera performances I lived most of my live in smaller - midsized cities or even in the country and I am very lazy, especially if there is no date/friend/etc. interested in opera to go with, so I have not seen a lot on stage, although I usually enjoyed it when I did. I liked Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" on stage and it was even funny but on disc the music is quite nice but not all that special for me.

[Maestro267]

I don't own, and have never heard in full, a single Beethoven string quartet. And as I vastly prefer music for orchestra above all else, I'm in no rush to pick up any of them.

[Jo498]

No Beethoven quartets certainly counts as gaping!
You should at least give them a try. I prefer the Beethoven quartets to 90% of the orchestral music I have heard and the late ones to 99,9% of all music I have heard
Although I grant that if one does not like the sound of a string quartet anyway the Beethoven quartets are probably not the best place to start.

[Todd]

I don't own a recording of Carmina Burana.  I don't want a recording of Carmina Burana.

[prémont]

I own about 35 complete Beethoven string quartet sets, so there is a small hole in my collection there.

On the other hand I only own 65 Beethoven piano sonata sets, so this counts as a gaping hole, at least compared to Todd's collection.

[Turner]

Paganini´s violin concertos.

And I´ll remain stubborn on this.

[Jo498]

Paganini violin concertos.
And I´ll remain stubborn on this.

I have the first concerto but I tend to think of it as a filler to the Saint-Saens on the same disc...  I have no other Paganini but I thought I should get a recording of the solo capricci at some stage. But overall I probably do not care enough about fiddling even for those astonishing pieces.

Another (moderately glaring) gap that came to my mind is that I have very little solo piano music by Rachmaninov, one anthology with Kocsis and a few fillers on other anthologies (mainly Richter, I think). Same goes for Albeniz, Granados, de Falla. I "inherited" two discs or so of Satie but I don't much care for the stuff either.

While is is probably not what was meant by the threadstarter anyway, I usually do not consider the lack of famous recordings "gaping holes". But I could easily name quite a few of these, e.g. I have only a little Beethoven by Backhaus, Kempff or Brendel, no Mozart with Kraus, Haebler, Perahia, Uchida etc.

[kishnevi]

Paganini´s violin concertos.

And I´ll remain stubborn on this.

I have them. But I think you are being reasonable there. But his chamber music has received good mentions here.

[Turner]

I have them. But I think you are being reasonable there. But his chamber music has received good mentions here.

Agree, the string quartets are quite charming, I´ve got a couple of them, plus the solo violin Caprices.

[Maestro267]

No Beethoven quartets certainly counts as gaping!
You should at least give them a try.

If the opportunity arose, then I'd certainly be willing to try them. But it's extremely rare that I listen to non-orchestral music anyway. I'm just hardly ever in the mood for listening to basically a single sound-world for an extended length of time. At least with orchestral music, you get the varied sounds that each group of instruments adds to the overall palette of colours. Again, that's not to say that I outright reject all chamber music. I do quite enjoy Mendelssohn's string quartets from time to time. And I'm certainly interested in hearing more modern takes on the form that perhaps incorporate a more varied technique on the instruments.

[aukhawk]

I have a few gaping holes where I don't particularly get on with the music, even if it is 'core repertoire'.
Beethoven's 9th Symphony    would be one example, and 'all of Mozart'    would be another.

There's more than enough music that I know I like, to last me out, is the way I look at it.

[Karl Henning]

The literature is such, that none of us might exhaust it.

How beautiful it is.

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[arpeggio]

Even though I have over 1600 CD's in my library I could not begin to list all of the gapping holes in my library.  For example I do not have any recordings of the lieder of Schubert and I have only one recording (that I received in a CD that comes with my BBC Music Magazine) of any piano music of Schumann.

Since I am a band junkie I have multiple recordings of the some of the classic band works like:

Granger Lincolnshire Posey: 12 copies
Hindemith Symphony in Bb: 8 copies
Gould West Point Symphony: 6 copies
Persichetti Symphony No. 6 for Band: 7 copies
Holst Suites: 16 copies

[mc ukrneal]

Holst Suites: 16 copies

I didn't realize there even were 16 versions to choose from! Which is your favorite (or favorites)?

[Karl Henning]

I'm more surprised at eight recordings of the Hindemith Symphony in B^b!  Fantastic piece.  I'll repeat this story, since arpeggio may not yet have joined GMG when I mentioned it last, but playing that piece in a New Jersey All-State Band was one of the biggest motivations for me to want to composer music, myself;  "This music is so exhilarating," I thought; "where can I get a piece of the action?"