Which Composers are Best Represented in Your Library?

[SonicMan46]

Not quite—I have 34! Although two of those are multi-composer discs (Cherubini/Onslow String Quintets by the Diogenes Quartett, which is very good incidentally, and the "Romantic Piano Quintets" compilation with the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet, also containing works by Cramer, Dussek, Hummel, Limmer, Ries and Schubert) so I guess it's more like 32 full "albums". Onslow's quintets, quartets, and chamber music with piano are some of my favourite early romantic examples of the genre from the generation before Schubert/Schumann/Chopin/et al.

("What Onslow albums do you recommend, amw?" That's a great question. If you're into string chamber music from the early 19th century—perhaps you've enjoyed music by Hummel or Spohr or Dussek in the past, or perhaps you're simply looking for something similar to Haydn and early-period Beethoven—I would recommend starting with either L'Archibudelli's collection of three string quintets or the Quatuor Diotima's collection of three string quartets, depending on your level of comfort with period instruments. For the chamber music with piano, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet album I mentioned is worth it if (again) you're ok with period instruments; if not, try Gianluca Luisi and the Ensemble Concertant Frankfurt's album of two Piano Xtets (the Sextet Op. 30 and the Quintet Op. 79bis, for piano and string quartet, which in turn is an arrangement of the Septet for piano, strings and winds Op. 79. Onslow arranged his own works quite a bit.) or look for a good album of the Sonatas op. 16 for violin, viola or cello and piano.)

(You weren't asking that question? Well, too bad. You heard all about it anyway.)

Well, I did say 'could be.....' - so may still be in the top 5 -     Interesting that you mentioned Dussek, Hummel and Spohr (and there are others from that era) - have nearly 20 discs by Dussek and two dozen each by the other two, so should have included them in my '20 cutoff' - obviously we likely own a lot of Onslow in common (not a LOT out there?) - I prefer his chamber works, especially the String Quintets (probably account for a third of my recordings) - in fact my most recent purchases are the quintets w/ the Elan Quintet shown below - more to come?  Dave

     

[SonicMan46]

70 Boccherini (I have about 25 and thought this was a lot...) and 77 CPE Bach as well as 32 Joh. Chr. might be records, though.
65 Telemann did seem a lot at first glance but he has such a huge oeuvre, I have over 40 myself.

For Onslow on modern instruments jpc/cpo has/had a bunch of string quartets and some larger ensembles with the Mandelring Q. but I also have and apparently liked enough to keep (despite not having listened to Onslow in years, I guess) the Archibudelli and the mixed Nepomuk piano quintets

Boccherini is a favorite on mine and according to the Yves Gérard catalog there are over 500 G. numbers, so even 70 is like skimming the surface (LINK 1 & LINK 2).  As for Telemann, he is the most prolific composer in history as suggested in the quote below - his catalog HERE which is astounding to me (even at 65 CDs, my toe is just in the lake -  ) - in fact for the prolific especially Baroque composers, I have about a half dozen in Google Docs w/ a listing of the individual pieces I own SO I don't buy a new recording that just duplicates my collection (see the PDF attached to appreciate 'keeping tract' of GPT); BTW, Telemann was the godfather of CPE Bach, hence the same middle names.  Dave

Telemann holds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as being history's most prolific composer. In addition to composing more than 1000 cantatas and 600 suites, he also created operas, passions, oratorios, and concertos for a variety of instruments. It has been suggested that he may have written more than 3000 pieces. Although many of his original scores were destroyed in World War II, some works once thought to be lost have been found in recent years. (Source)

[DavidW]

Hi David - couple of threads on Onslow - longest one HERE - now up to 2 pages - 

Snyprrr was active on the first page - assume 'our former GMGer' into String Quartets!  Dave

No there was a much longer thread started by the poster Egmont who is no longer with us.  He mailed me a ton of Onslow recordings as well back in the day.  He sent them to Gurn as well.  I think he was also my introduction to Hummel, Spohr and some other composers.

[SonicMan46]

No there was a much longer thread started by the poster Egmont who is no longer with us.  He mailed me a ton of Onslow recordings as well back in the day.  He sent them to Gurn as well.  I think he was also my introduction to Hummel, Spohr and some other composers.

OK - remember the name - thanks. Dave

[amw]

Well, I did say 'could be.....' - so may still be in the top 5 -     Interesting that you mentioned Dussek, Hummel and Spohr (and there are others from that era) - have nearly 20 discs by Dussek and two dozen each by the other two, so should have included them in my '20 cutoff' - obviously we likely own a lot of Onslow in common (not a LOT out there?) - I prefer his chamber works, especially the String Quintets (probably account for a third of my recordings) - in fact my most recent purchases are the quintets w/ the Elan Quintet shown below - more to come?  Dave

     

I'm not super in love with the Elan Quintet as an ensemble, but I also obtained these just because I couldn't resist hearing the composer's own versions of the quintets with the second cello part arranged for double bass (he otherwise exclusively wrote quintets with two cellos, being a cellist himself—and only a few have the first cello part arranged for viola, whereas I think he did make bass versions of all 35-ish quintets on a request from a bassist friend). I do really like the string quintets in general though. The "problem" is that all the music is similarly high in quality and similar in style, and therefore equally recommendable, which means it's hard to recommend a specific place to start. (And of course not all of the music is particularly memorable. But that's always a problem with prolific composers.)

I haven't even tried to dip into Boccherini or Telemann; I look for albums by artists I like and if they happen to be recording Boccherini or Telemann I pick it up with pleasure. That was still enough to get Telemann into the 10+ GB range. Any quantity-focused attempt to describe one's music library will of course always end up privileging the more prolific composers over the less prolific, unless the latter have dozens of recordings of each major work in their catalogues and you buy a large number of duplicates. (Does anyone have 10GB of Varèse or Ruggles? Is that even possible?)

[Olias]

I'm kinda old school and prefer CDs so I have five shelves of CDs

Shelf 1 - Haydn
Shelf 2 - Mozart
Shelf 3 - Beethoven
Shelf 4 - Dvorak
Shelf 5 - everyone else

[Mirror Image]

I'm kinda old school and prefer CDs so I have five shelves of CDs

Shelf 1 - Haydn
Shelf 2 - Mozart
Shelf 3 - Beethoven
Shelf 4 - Dvorak
Shelf 5 - everyone else

I hope they're shelves that both deep and wide. I'd love to see a photo (if you can supply one).

[Olias]

I hope they're shelves that both deep and wide. I'd love to see a photo (if you can supply one).

Haha, actually the collection doesn't LOOK big because its a lot of boxed sets with lots of CDs in each box.  Plus, I tend to cull when I find a version I like better.

Just to give and example...my Dvorak shelf has the following:

All seven of the Supraphon boxed sets for Dvorak's complete catalog (that's about 50 CDs right there)
Slavonic Dances - Mackerras
Moravian Duets - Supraphon
Violin Concerto - Akiko Suwanai
Cello Concerto - Alisa Weilerstein
Complete Symphony Cycles (Suitner, Anguelov, Valek, Neumann, Belohlavek)
Incomplete Cycles - Levine 7, 9  Mackerras 8, 9  Bernstein 7, 9)

So that's about 100 Dvorak CDs but they only take up about 18" on my shelf. 

[Mirror Image]

Haha, actually the collection doesn't LOOK big because its a lot of boxed sets with lots of CDs in each box.  Plus, I tend to cull when I find a version I like better.

Just to give and example...my Dvorak shelf has the following:

All seven of the Supraphon boxed sets for Dvorak's complete catalog (that's about 50 CDs right there)
Slavonic Dances - Mackerras
Moravian Duets - Supraphon
Violin Concerto - Akiko Suwanai
Cello Concerto - Alisa Weilerstein
Complete Symphony Cycles (Suitner, Anguelov, Valek, Neumann, Belohlavek)
Incomplete Cycles - Levine 7, 9  Mackerras 8, 9  Bernstein 7, 9)

So that's about 100 Dvorak CDs but they only take up about 18" on my shelf. 

Very nice. I love Dvořák. I own a good bit of his music on CD. Let's exchange notes! Here's what my collection looks like:

All of the Supraphon multi-colored sets --- purple, orange, red, etc.
The Slavonic Soul box set (Warner Classics)
Istvan Kertész symphonies, symphonic poems and Requiem deluxe set - CDs + Blu-Ray Audio --- hardcover book design (Decca)
Libor Pešek cycle (Warner Classics)
Rafael Kubelík cycle (Japanese SHM-CDs on DG)
Othmar Suitner cycle (Japanese issues on Deutsche Schallplatten)
Complete Published Orchestral Works box set (Naxos)
All of Harnoncourt's recordings w/ the Concertgebouw (Teldec)
Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9 - Mackerras/Prague SO (Supraphon)
Symphonies Nos. 6 & 9 - Ančerl/CzPO (Supraphon)
Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9 - Jakub Hrůša/Bamberg SO (Tudor)
Symphonies Poems set - Järvi/Scottish National Orch. (Chandos)
Symphonic Poems - Chalabala/CzPO (Supraphon)
Symphonic Poems - Mackerras/CzPO (Supraphon)
Cello Concerto with Rostropovich/HvK (DG)
Violin Concerto - Augustin Hadelich et. al. (Warner)
Violin Concerto/Piano Trio No. 3 - Faust et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Cello Concerto/Piano Trio No. 4 - Queyras et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Requiem - Ančerl (Supraphon)
String Quartets Nos. 12 & 13 - Pavel Haas Quartet (Supraphon)
Piano Quintet/String Quintet - Pavel Haas Quartet/Boris Giltburg (Supraphon)
Piano Trios Nos. 3 & 4 - Smetana Trio (Supraphon)
Songs - Bernarda Fink/Vignoles (Harmonia Mundi)
Songs & Duets - Bernarda Fink et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Rusalka - Mackerras (Decca)
Rusalka - Neumann (Supraphon)
Dimitrij - Albrecht (Supraphon)

I think that's about it. I could've left off one or two CDs, but this is the jest of it.

[71 dB]

I don't have music files on computer. I use CDs, but the list is something like this:

W. A. Mozart
J. S. Bach
Sir Edward Elgar
George Frideric Handel
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Dietrich Buxtehude
Ludwig van Beethoven?

Mozart is on the top thanks to the 170 CD Brilliant Classics box, but I don't listen to Mozart the most (note to myself: listen to Mozart more). J.S. Bach is ahead of Elgar, because he was much more prolific (the Church Cantatas alone equal the whole output of Elgar!).

[springrite]

Not counting operas:

Bach
Beethoven
Mozart
Schubert
Feldman
Liszt
Mahler
Bruckner
Chopin

[Madiel]

This was an interesting exercise. The easiest way for me to do this is by number of recordings of works, but that can be highly misleading given that a "work" might be a 2 minute song or something that spans a couple of CDs, so I decided that wasn't appropriate.

I've tried to do a rough CD count instead but it's a little tricky as my collection is partially rearranged in the new house and I'm not sure if this is how it will end up. All of the numbers are "at least" this many CDs, these are the ones I found

J.S. Bach - 91 (including 55 of cantatas which rather inflates things)
Haydn - 77 (plus 8 more now on order!)
Beethoven - 65
Dvorak - 46
Shostakovich - 41
Holmboe - 40, plus a decent amount of Danish compilations bought for Holmboe purposes...
Sibelius - 31
Mozart - 30
Schumann - 27
Brahms - 24
Schubert - 23

I'm pretty sure the main reason that no French composers made this list is that they spent their time writing refined works at a smaller scale... I own most of Faure's output for example, but it doesn't take up that many discs. You only need 4 for the piano works, 4 for the songs (though I have a few bonus recitals/repeats), and about 5 for the key chamber works. You get a couple of the greatest treasures in my collection in that small quantity.

I have specific plans to boost the Dvorak, Mozart and Haydn counts at least. Probably some others I've forgotten about on the "to be purchased" list.

[Olias]

Very nice. I love Dvořák. I own a good bit of his music on CD. Let's exchange notes! Here's what my collection looks like:

All of the Supraphon multi-colored sets --- purple, orange, red, etc.
The Slavonic Soul box set (Warner Classics)
Istvan Kertész symphonies, symphonic poems and Requiem deluxe set - CDs + Blu-Ray Audio --- hardcover book design (Decca)
Libor Pešek cycle (Warner Classics)
Rafael Kubelík cycle (Japanese SHM-CDs on DG)
Othmar Suitner cycle (Japanese issues on Deutsche Schallplatten)
Complete Published Orchestral Works box set (Naxos)
All of Harnoncourt's recordings w/ the Concertgebouw (Teldec)
Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9 - Mackerras/Prague SO (Supraphon)
Symphonies Nos. 6 & 9 - Ančerl/CzPO (Supraphon)
Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9 - Jakub Hrůša/Bamberg SO (Tudor)
Symphonies Poems set - Järvi/Scottish National Orch. (Chandos)
Symphonic Poems - Chalabala/CzPO (Supraphon)
Symphonic Poems - Mackerras/CzPO (Supraphon)
Cello Concerto with Rostropovich/HvK (DG)
Violin Concerto - Augustin Hadelich et. al. (Warner)
Violin Concerto/Piano Trio No. 3 - Faust et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Cello Concerto/Piano Trio No. 4 - Queyras et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Requiem - Ančerl (Supraphon)
String Quartets Nos. 12 & 13 - Pavel Haas Quartet (Supraphon)
Piano Quintet/String Quintet - Pavel Haas Quartet/Boris Giltburg (Supraphon)
Piano Trios Nos. 3 & 4 - Smetana Trio (Supraphon)
Songs - Bernarda Fink/Vignoles (Harmonia Mundi)
Songs & Duets - Bernarda Fink et. al. (Harmonia Mundi)
Rusalka - Mackerras (Decca)
Rusalka - Neumann (Supraphon)
Dimitrij - Albrecht (Supraphon)

I think that's about it. I could've left off one or two CDs, but this is the jest of it.

Can't argue with that content.  Lots of marvelous performances there.

[Mirror Image]

Can't argue with that content.  Lots of marvelous performances there.

Thanks. One thing I was hoping Supraphon would've done when they issued these color boxes was an opera box set. Every other box set is dedicated to a particular part of his oeuvre. I would think Supraphon has larger discography of the operas than most other labels. I know Orfeo has released several of the less well-known ones.

[Madiel]

Thanks. One thing I was hoping Supraphon would've done when they issued these color boxes was an opera box set. Every other box set is dedicated to a particular part of his oeuvre. I would think Supraphon has larger discography of the operas than most other labels. I know Orfeo has released several of the less well-known ones.

It's rather glaring that Supraphon doesn't have some of them or they are not really the best option. They only have a shortened version of King and Collier, and a version of Vanda that is apparently from 1951. And no Armida at all.

Orfeo's series isn't entirely complete either, but it's closer than Supraphon. Gerd Albrecht contributed more to the discography than anyone else. Including doing one of Supraphon's recordings!

[Olias]

Thanks. One thing I was hoping Supraphon would've done when they issued these color boxes was an opera box set. Every other box set is dedicated to a particular part of his oeuvre. I would think Supraphon has larger discography of the operas than most other labels. I know Orfeo has released several of the less well-known ones.

True, at the very least get Rusalka, Devil and Kate, and Jacobin in a trilogy release.

[Mirror Image]

It's rather glaring that Supraphon doesn't have some of them or they are not really the best option. They only have a shortened version of King and Collier, and a version of Vanda that is apparently from 1951. And no Armida at all.

Orfeo's series isn't entirely complete either, but it's closer than Supraphon. Gerd Albrecht contributed more to the discography than anyone else. Including doing one of Supraphon's recordings!

Yeah, you would think Supraphon would be the better option and have the most recordings, but, alas, I guess this isn't the case. Thanks for the feedback.

P.S. Have you heard the Albrecht recordings on Orfeo? I think I remember you posting about one of them in the "Listening" thread, but do you have a favorable impression?

[Mirror Image]

True, at the very least get Rusalka, Devil and Kate, and Jacobin in a trilogy release.

I just realized something...I own this opera recording, too!

[Madiel]

Yeah, you would think Supraphon would be the better option and have the most recordings, but, alas, I guess this isn't the case. Thanks for the feedback.

P.S. Have you heard the Albrecht recordings on Orfeo? I think I remember you posting about one of them in the "Listening" thread, but do you have a favorable impression?

Yes, I've listened to them at some point previously, but at the moment I've started going through the operas again and I'm partway through King and Collier. I'm no opera expert, but I've certainly no complaint about that recording. The singers all seem pretty good.

I've also managed to find the booklet (it's in the Naxos music library) and the recordings come with good notes and a full libretto.

[Mirror Image]

Yes, I've listened to them at some point previously, but at the moment I've started going through the operas again and I'm partway through King and Collier. I'm no opera expert, but I've certainly no complaint about that recording. The singers all seem pretty good.

I've also managed to find the booklet (it's in the Naxos music library) and the recordings come with good notes and a full libretto.

Nice! Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into the Orfeo recordings at some point.