Complete Works

[SimonNZ]

I'm considering starting a Schoenberg chronology project.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I'm considering starting a Schoenberg chronology project.

That would be very interesting, especially with the variety of tonal, pantonal and dodecaphonic works he wrote at different stages of his life mixed in with various arrangements and orchestrations of music from other composers.

[Mirror Image]

I prefer listening to a variety of composers and never really bothered myself with listening to a composer's complete oeuvre even though I'm sure I own many composer's complete oeuvre twice over.

[Madiel]

I'm considering starting a Schoenberg chronology project.

That's on my to-do list of composers I don't know well. Right after Szymanowski... and Taneyev and MacDowell and Bruckner and maybe Tippett and Britten and Prokofiev and Enescu and...

[Jo498]

But do you really strive for "complete"? E.g. there is a disc with early? piano music by Bruckner on cpo? and there are also very rarely recorded choral works and of course quite a few rather alternative versions for some symphonies. So would you buy the supposedly niche/minor stuff to get close to complete or do mean listening to "standard" versions of the symphonies (incl. 0 and f minor), the three great masses and the string quintet.

I'd assume that for someone like Taneyev the discographical situation is even more of a challenge for anything resembling "complete"...

[Madiel]

But do you really strive for "complete"? E.g. there is a disc with early? piano music by Bruckner on cpo? and there are also very rarely recorded choral works and of course quite a few rather alternative versions for some symphonies. So would you buy the supposedly niche/minor stuff to get close to complete or do mean listening to "standard" versions of the symphonies (incl. 0 and f minor), the three great masses and the string quintet.

I'd assume that for someone like Taneyev the discographical situation is even more of a challenge for anything resembling "complete"...

No. Well, let me expand on that answer in various ways...

For starters you've talked about buying. Buying is different from listening these days.

For composers I'm exploring, I would never go for "complete" in that sense. It's opus numbers if they used them, and possibly some other things depending on how easy a source like, say, the Wikipedia entry on their compositions makes it to know what exists. In some cases (and Bruckner is probably one of them) I would only intend to go for a major series of works such as symphonies.

In some cases, including when I'm dealing with a composer that I have some works for, I may well decide to listen to everything I can find, but I'm not going to spend hours and hours hunting down a recording. I basically look at a couple of basic sources to see if anything obviously exists - my preferred streaming site Deezer, and Presto Classical because they're so good at cataloguing what they have available.

I'm certainly not going to decide I can't do it if not everything is recorded or I can't find every recording. I've effectively written the book (or rather, blog) on what's available of Holmboe and I know there are pieces I just can't hear.

Also, total completeness is overrated. I've commented before on GMG that I think the BIS Sibelius edition is totally over the top, not only recording every single alternative version of a work but recording tiny fragments found in notebooks.

The short answer is that I set parameters around what it is I'm trying to do.

And when it comes to buying this also applies. I have shopping lists of works I want, and for the composers I really love it does gradually extend to more and more obscure things, but it's not a quest for everything. Despite my Holmboe obsession extending to exploring multiple Copenhagen shops and visiting the offices of Da Capo, I'm still not inclined to do something as extreme as hunting down the self-published LP from a choir in the Faroe Islands. My desire to find out what exists is quite strong, but my desire to actually have it all is a fair bit weaker. I will buy recordings that are readily available and/or I will look for recordings that tick a number of boxes.

[Gurn Blanston]

But do you really strive for "complete"? E.g. there is a disc with early? piano music by Bruckner on cpo? and there are also very rarely recorded choral works and of course quite a few rather alternative versions for some symphonies. So would you buy the supposedly niche/minor stuff to get close to complete or do mean listening to "standard" versions of the symphonies (incl. 0 and f minor), the three great masses and the string quintet.

I'd assume that for someone like Taneyev the discographical situation is even more of a challenge for anything resembling "complete"...

Yes, I do. Complete is complete, it isn't 'everything I have' or 'all the main works'. Sorry, I'm anal that way.

[kishnevi]

Yes, I do. Complete is complete, it isn't 'everything I have' or 'all the main works'. Sorry, I'm anal that way.

Same here. But usually my complete-compulsion is focused on performers, conductors, and series like the Naive Vivaldi Edition and not composers.  All the composers I mentioned before are conveniently gathered up in box sets so I did not have to probe the outer recesses of the Internet....

[Jo498]

That's why I asked. For me complete means complete as well. With the qualification that fragments or alternative versions can be excluded. Even this depends on the composer, that's why I mentioned "Blumine", because in the case of a composer with not that many works like Mahler, not having heard Blumine (a piece that has been recorded several times) seems like lack of completeness whereas not having heard some unfinished Mozart or Beethoven fragments would not be necessary for complete in my book.
Also of course stuff that is only available on self-published LPs may be left out as there are limits to the pains of acquisiton.

But listening to all Bruckner symphonies in the "standard" version would hardly be a "complete" traversal of the symphonies because some of the original versions ( e.g. the 4th) are so different. And at least the string quintet and a handful or so of sacred works (3 masses, Te deum, a few motets etc.) are also very important works (more so than the f minor symphony I'd say).

Anyway, I am more of a non-completist, I guess

[Gurn Blanston]

That's why I asked. For me complete means complete as well. With the qualification that fragments or alternative versions can be excluded. Even this depends on the composer, that's why I mentioned "Blumine", because in the case of a composer with not that many works like Mahler, not having heard Blumine (a piece that has been recorded several times) seems like lack of completeness whereas not having heard some unfinished Mozart or Beethoven fragments would not be necessary for complete in my book.
Also of course stuff that is only available on self-published LPs may be left out as there are limits to the pains of acquisiton.

But listening to all Bruckner symphonies in the "standard" version would hardly be a "complete" traversal of the symphonies because some of the original versions ( e.g. the 4th) are so different. And at least the string quintet and a handful or so of sacred works (3 masses, Te deum, a few motets etc.) are also very important works (more so than the f minor symphony I'd say).

Anyway, I am more of a non-completist, I guess

Even though I am philosophically inclined to agree with you, I actually made a huge effort to acquire, specifically, the Mozart and Beethoven fragments, simply because they had been recorded. With other composers I probably wouldn't make that effort, mostly because it would be in vain. And Haydn didn't do 'partial' so that was no decision either. But yes, I certainly do versions.

[Jo498]

While technically they are fragments, I would not count Mozart's c minor mass and requiem, Haydn's last quartet or Schubert's b minor unfinished as such, because they became repertoire pieces.
I am interested in a few fragments/completions, e.g. I like the piano/violin double concerto and similar stuff by Mozart as well as the several unfinished Schubert symphonies and fragments. But I think they could be discounted when talking about "complete".
The ominous Beethoven's 10th by Barry Cooper felt more like a spoof for me but I lost that disc years ago (either in a move or lent it out and never got it back) and will not make a big effort to get another copy.

[Gurn Blanston]

While technically they are fragments, I would not count Mozart's c minor mass and requiem, Haydn's last quartet or Schubert's b minor unfinished as such, because they became repertoire pieces.
I am interested in a few fragments/completions, e.g. I like the piano/violin double concerto and similar stuff by Mozart as well as the several unfinished Schubert symphonies and fragments. But I think they could be discounted when talking about "complete".
The ominous Beethoven's 10th by Barry Cooper felt more like a spoof for me but I lost that disc years ago (either in a move or lent it out and never got it back) and will not make a big effort to get another copy.

No, I agree, I hadn't even thought of those in any other way.

Mozart has a ton of 'fragments' which are hard to even tell they are. He would be writing string quartets, for example, and write extra movements which are, like 90% or more complete, but then never use them, changing his mind about fitting them in. Some of them are quite special. Some famous works are fragments too, like the d minor Fantasia for keyboard, which he got right to the end of and abandoned with just 8 measures left, and repeated measures at that. It was completed by Abbe Max Stadler at Constanze's request. Most people don't even know it is an incomplete fragment, but it is.  There again, as you say, it has entered the standard repertoire, so we just absorb it. Beethoven also has a lot of, especially, keyboard pieces that nearly qualify as bagatelles, as well as many shorter pieces. They have been recorded, so I have them. I wouldn't have lost sleep if they hadn't been recorded, so I am not that fanatical.

This doesn't mean I'm not seriously pissed that there are some unrecorded, completed works by Haydn... 

[Karl Henning]

Give in to your anger, Gurn: feel the power of the Dark Side!...   

[Bogey]

On Mozart, I fell down a little, I used KV6 numbers, which are as close to correct as are generally available, but this is only because I haven't learned the NMA numbers yet. My bad. Researching this stuff isn't difficult, it is part of the enjoyment of collecting.

I remember you guiding me on Wolfie, Gurn. Difficult, but piecing it together was half the fun.

[Gurn Blanston]

I remember you guiding me on Wolfie, Gurn. Difficult, but piecing it together was half the fun.

Yes, good times. I really did enjoy working up from K1 to the end of the Anhang. Amazing amount to learn, it only took me 6 years, I was proud.

[DaveF]

Right after Szymanowski... and Taneyev and MacDowell and Bruckner and maybe Tippett and Britten and Prokofiev and Enescu and...

Sadly, you may have problems getting hold of New Year or even an uncut Midsummer Marriage, unless you can find off-air recordings.  (Please let me know if you do.)  More generally, there are lots of complete works I'd like to hear if only they were recorded - no chance of hearing a lot of Byrd's English songs, for example, or Berwald's operas, or Rosenberg's 5th symphony, or some of John Browne's 9 surviving works...

[Madiel]

Or a great big heap of Holmboe's opuses. I should start a Kickstarter campaign or something.

[SimonNZ]

This reminds me that I once started on a project of hearing all the Schutz opus numbers, believing that they at least were now all recorded, even if some of his other bits and pieces weren't - only to find there is still nothing for the complete 160 psalm settings that make up the Op.5 Becker Psalter (a few on one side of an old lp, just a few more scattered around recent cds)

[DaveF]

I should start a Kickstarter campaign or something.

I once contacted Naxos to suggest a complete recording of the Byrd English songbooks, that being the sort of thing they do (or did), but apart from getting an acknowledgement from someone with the delightful and unforgettable name of Miss Honeylyn Panganiban (whom I find it impossible to imagine not strumming a ukulele under a palm tree, dressed only in flowers), I heard nothing.

[James]

As I have aged I do this less & less. The last composer I did this with was Stockhausen .. it took me about 5 years, and was supplemented with much reading, discussion and video too .. but I have did this my whole life really, with a wide variety of musicians and cumulatively it has been rewarding, a deepening of appreciation. It offers tremendous insights into not only the artist specifically and what that path is like, but also, the art-form in general .. technical, historical, political, psychological etc., etc. I didn't necessarily go chronological every time, but tried to get my hands on everything that I could to do as complete a survey as possible, to get a more complete picture/understanding. Even going as far as consuming their musical influences too. It is hard to put into words exactly, but there is a benefit and a deepening of one's self and a widening of perspective, and how you come to view the world, it just rubs off on you after being immersed in something for so long. If the artist really speaks to you, I'd say go for it .. do the deep immersion, even if you don't like everything you discover - you'll come away learning quite a bit and most likely appreciating the artist & the art even more than before.