Multiple recordings on your shelves

[richardfinegold]

I start to feel guilty when I acquire to many versions of a work-as my sets of Beethoven and Mahler start entering double digits it makes me uneasy and I have managed to resist buying further for that reason. The one Beethoven set that I put off buying and went out of print was the Krivine cycle. Streaming from a hard drive ought to facilitate having multiple versions of everything, as it saves space, and it’s easier to hide the “evidence “ from your significant other—except that most of us I suspect don’t wish to part with our physical media

[Bryn]

I start to feel guilty when I acquire to many versions of a work-as my sets of Beethoven and Mahler start entering double digits it makes me uneasy and I have managed to resist buying further for that reason. The one Beethoven set that I put off buying and went out of print was the Krivine cycle. Streaming from a hard drive ought to facilitate having multiple versions of everything, as it saves space, and it’s easier to hide the “evidence “ from your significant other—except that most of us I suspect don’t wish to part with our physical media

The Krivine set is dead cheap on QOBUZ, replete with digital booklet: https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/be.../0822189017934

For around an extra £1, you could burn them to CD-Rs.

[MickyD]

Alpie's lists make it relatively easy to go, "tick", then "tick", then "tick" again and, like Mahler 1, end up aghast at the total which has accumulated but I don't otherwise find myself wanting to know quite how many Shostakovich 4ths or Mahler 3rds or Bruckner 7ths or Beethoven cycles I seem to have acquired over the years or I would be even more aghast. Having a house in France and in Scotland has made it worse as there is always the temptation to forget quite how many recordings of a particular work one has in the other place so there's no harm in buying another Nielsen symphony cycle or more late Beethoven quartets.

Anyway, I thought that I had weaned myself off CD buying on a large scale (due, I think, to being "confiné" in France with a much reduced postal service and no opportunities to slip into the local branches of FNAC) until one of my friends, who is the co-proprietor of a small number of independent bookshops, emailed to say that they had decided to stop selling CDs and, by the way, would I like to look at their current stock list, all at 60% discount, postage free? Child in sweetshop time, alas, as a large parcel arrived a few days later. I just couldn't resist ....

Oh my word, lucky you...I would have done the same. I used to love hunting in the second-hand CD shops in Lyon, where all sorts of treasure was to be found. I wonder if they are still operating...I rather doubt it.

I have no guilt about acquiring multiple versions of a work - except for the fact that any new ones take up valuable and increasingly restricted shelf space.

[Richard Barrett]

I used to love hunting in the second-hand CD shops in Lyon

It used to be that one of the great pleasures of travelling to foreign cities was to search out records and later CDs that were unavailable at home. I remember my first visit to Paris (actually my first trip abroad) at the age of 19 - I had most of a day to kill between trains, being on my way back from a holiday further south, found my way to some central-ish Metro station, I forget which one, and launched myself off in what looked like a promising direction. Sure enough I found a record shop before long, and came out with LPs of Berio and Penderecki which were nowhere to be found in London at that time. Imagine! Nowadays everything is available everywhere, which would have seemed like a vision of paradise to my 19-year-old self. Not only do I have more CDs of the Mahler symphonies than I can shake a stick at, but those I don't have are awaiting my attention at Qobuz. On the other hand I also have several hundred unsellable CDs of my own doings which I guess now will be sitting in boxes until they're found by archaeologists.

[silvestrione]

It used to be that one of the great pleasures of travelling to foreign cities was to search out records and later CDs that were unavailable at home. I remember my first visit to Paris (actually my first trip abroad) at the age of 19 - I had most of a day to kill between trains, being on my way back from a holiday further south, found my way to some central-ish Metro station, I forget which one, and launched myself off in what looked like a promising direction. Sure enough I found a record shop before long, and came out with LPs of Berio and Penderecki which were nowhere to be found in London at that time. Imagine! Nowadays everything is available everywhere, which would have seemed like a vision of paradise to my 19-year-old self. Not only do I have more CDs of the Mahler symphonies than I can shake a stick at, but those I don't have are awaiting my attention at Qobuz. On the other hand I also have several hundred unsellable CDs of my own doings which I guess now will be sitting in boxes until they're found by archaeologists.

In Florence you used to be able to buy Aura CDs of live piano recitals not available in UK....still have some by Pollini, Rubinstein, Arrau, Michelangeli, Serkin, etc

[visualnickmos]

Including the cut Karajan?

How dare he! The philistine!

[mikealdren]

In Florence you used to be able to buy Aura CDs of live piano recitals not available in UK....still have some by Pollini, Rubinstein, Arrau, Michelangeli, Serkin, etc

Yes, I managed to pick up a 15CD Aura set of Michelangeli performances some years ago and we spent a long holiday listening to them in the car. A lot of repeated repertoire (well it was Michelangeli) but lots of really good performances.

[Bryn]

How dare he! The philistine!

No argument from me on that count. I doubt that Sir William was best pleased, either. What there was left of it was pretty well performed, however.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I must have at least half a dozen versions of " In the South" without having ever actually bought one deliberately.

This is lamentable, very nearly criminal!

The BSO/Silvestri (Bournemouth SO please note ts - support your local band!) was one of my first two full-price LP purchases after I left school and earned some real money. and I've bought a good few since, though never with the ambition for EA's style of completism/ market saturation

[vinteuil]

I must have at least half a dozen versions of " In the South" without having ever actually bought one deliberately...

This is lamentable, very nearly criminal!
:

... I don't think I have ever knowingly purchased any Elgar. I seem to have acquired a dozen or so Elgar CDs - inheritances, unwanted gifts...


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[MickyD]

It used to be that one of the great pleasures of travelling to foreign cities was to search out records and later CDs that were unavailable at home. I remember my first visit to Paris (actually my first trip abroad) at the age of 19 - I had most of a day to kill between trains, being on my way back from a holiday further south, found my way to some central-ish Metro station, I forget which one, and launched myself off in what looked like a promising direction. Sure enough I found a record shop before long, and came out with LPs of Berio and Penderecki which were nowhere to be found in London at that time. Imagine! Nowadays everything is available everywhere, which would have seemed like a vision of paradise to my 19-year-old self. Not only do I have more CDs of the Mahler symphonies than I can shake a stick at, but those I don't have are awaiting my attention at Qobuz. On the other hand I also have several hundred unsellable CDs of my own doings which I guess now will be sitting in boxes until they're found by archaeologists.

That is so true - right up until the internet, it was so difficult to get continental discs. A kind R3 producer friend (and a fellow Ramellian), was going over to Paris in the 80s and picked up a copy of the Leonhardt "Zais" for me, on STIL records. It's still as rare as hen's teeth now, which is such a shame as it's a lovely recording.

[vinteuil]

It used to be that one of the great pleasures of travelling to foreign cities was to search out records and later CDs that were unavailable at home. I remember my first visit to Paris (actually my first trip abroad) at the age of 19 - I had most of a day to kill between trains, being on my way back from a holiday further south, found my way to some central-ish Metro station, I forget which one, and launched myself off in what looked like a promising direction. Sure enough I found a record shop before long, and came out with LPs of Berio and Penderecki which were nowhere to be found in London at that time. Imagine! Nowadays everything is available everywhere...

... books too. When I lived abroad and had the privilege of travelling around as part of my work, part of the joy was scouting around for second-hand bookshops - my socio-geographic memories of so many provincial French and other towns imprinted by searching for the shops I had heard of. Of course with abe.books and similar the finding of books has become immeasurably easier, but so many of my memories have been formed by the necessary reconnoitring of obscure quartiers - which I wouldn't have missed for worlds...

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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is lamentable, very nearly criminal!

The BSO/Silvestri (Bournemouth SO please note ts - support your local band!) was one of my first two full-price LP purchases after I left school and earned some real money. and I've bought a good few since, though never with the ambition for EA's style of completism/ market saturation

Of my several In the Souths, the one that really stands out is a bit of a surprise: VPO/Gardiner. Neither of these is exactly associated with Elgar. (Vints might even like it.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I know it isn't good to admit this, but I have rather more versions of Handel's Messiah than I imagined, and three of them are conducted by Sargent!

[visualnickmos]

Of my several In the Souths, the one that really stands out is a bit of a surprise: VPO/Gardiner. Neither of these is exactly associated with Elgar. (Vints might even like it.)

Yes - an excellent CD, throughout. As you - a bit of a surprise, for the reasons you mention. I'm always happily intrigued when one comes across unlikely combinations that produce good results; one (for me, at least) is Rozhdestvensky's Vaughan Williams symphony cycle on Melodiya.