Multiple recordings on your shelves

[Pulcinella]

We all know Alpie's predilection for (obsession with?) recordings of his eponymous tone poem, but an upcoming BaL (on Mahler 1) has revealed that he is not alone in having multiple versions of a work on his shelves: cloughie and Petrushka both have impressive numbers of recordings of this symphony.
While streaming technology will surely affect future collecting habits, there are many of us (of a certain age, perhaps) who still enjoy the physical aspects of a CD, even though our shelves are already groaning and we might have to store them out of their brittle cases.


Which works have YOU got the most recordings of (and why, if you want to tell us)?

In my case, it's The rite of spring, partly because I bought both the Decca and Sony Centenary box sets.
Oh: I happen to think it's a great work too!

A sub-thread could be about works that have only a few available recorded versions, all of which you have.
For me, this would include the Tippett and Rubbra symphonies (I think).

Over to you!

[crb11]

Bruckner 9, with 22 (I think), including 6 of the various completions. It's a work which means a lot to me and where different interpreters seem to bring different things out. With the completions, it feels that conductors are still developing their communal experience of how to play them, so I forecast more and better interpretations to add to the collection in future years! (I have 10 sets of the Bruckner symphonies, or at least complete from 3 or 4 on, so I expect the last six will occupy the top places on my list)

[cloughie]

We all know Alpie's predilection for (obsession with?) recordings of his eponymous tone poem, but an upcoming BaL (on Mahler 1) has revealed that he is not alone in having multiple versions of a work on his shelves: cloughie and Petrushka both have impressive numbers of recordings of this symphony.
While streaming technology will surely affect future collecting habits, there are many of us (of a certain age, perhaps) who still enjoy the physical aspects of a CD, even though our shelves are already groaning and we might have to store them out of their brittle cases.


Which works have YOU got the most recordings of (and why, if you want to tell us)?

In my case, it's The rite of spring, partly because I bought both the Decca and Sony Centenary box sets.
Oh: I happen to think it's a great work too!

A sub-thread could be about works that have only a few available recorded versions, all of which you have.
For me, this would include the Tippett and Rubbra symphonies (I think).

Over to you!

Is this open mic time in the CD Buyers Anonymous confessional booth, Pulcie? I need to check my index but I think I have one work which tops the ton! Over 60 years of buying recorded music and 35 of these in the CD years I have added a few, including CD replacement of cherished LPs.

[Petrushka]

I suspect that this, Alpie apart as a special case, will be between Cloughie, HighlandDougie and myself!

In my case the runaway winner is Beethoven's Choral Symphony which romps home at 80 versions on CD with possibly another dozen on both DVD and off-air recordings.

The earliest recording is from Weingartner (VPO 1935) and the latest is Haitink (BRSO 2019). Both Mengelberg (1940) and Nelsons (2018) complete cycles are on my wish list and I'll get round to them eventually.

I know that Mahler's Resurrection and Bruckner's 8th will fight it out for second place but without physically getting down on hands and knees and counting them I can't say how many but both will be over 50.

[kernelbogey]

... the CD Buyers Anonymous confessional booth....

Speaking as a voyeur here, with a small CD collection and very few duplicates, I'm very curious to know about why you guys have these multiple versions.

(IIRC a former member, and purported Swedish royalty had 114 versions of Sibelius 2.)

[gurnemanz]

Winterreise: a mere 46. (An obsessive's site - https://winterreise.online/ - lists nearly 600 CDs alphabetically with clickable cover pics.)

It seems to me that song is a most intimate, personal genre, which offers the greatest and most constantly fascinating potential for individual communication:

Singer: age/gender/voice type/nationality/personality/singing style/recording date
Accompaniment: pianist, concert grand/period instrument, ensemble, orchestration
Balance of above two.
Interpretation: emphasis, word pointing, tone, dynamics, tempo

As an individual song, Erlkönig just beats the cycle with 52.

[Tapiola]

I cannot compete with any of this! The most recordings of any one work on these shelves is 13 Ring Cycles (11 mono, 2 stereo), plus 6 partial cycles, predominantly from the 1950s. During the 1st lockdown, I managed to complete the collection of all extant Bayreuth 50s recordings of The Ring (with the exception of the 2 Testament supplements of the 1955 2nd cycle with Martha Modl as Brunnhilde).

46 Winterreises, gurnemanz! I have only 4. We may have had this conversation before, but do you know the Hans Duhan (very first) recording?

[MickyD]

For me, it's undoubtedly the Brandenburg Concertos. Each time I say that I am going to stop collecting them, another new recording comes out that I just cannot resist acquiring.

[mikealdren]

Speaking as a voyeur here, with a small CD collection and very few duplicates, I'm very curious to know about why you guys have these multiple versions.

(IIRC a former member, and purported Swedish royalty had 114 versions of Sibelius 2.)

My top scorer is the Brahms violin concerto with 50 versions, closely followed by the Tchaikovsky with 49 and the Beethoven with 47.

Why? Well I enjoy hearing different interpretations and, with the low cost of CDs/downloads nowadays, it's a cheap enough hobby. I frequently buy CDs now expecting to hear them only once or twice, a bit like going to a concert used to be in the good old pre-Covid days.

[Rolmill]

For me, it's Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto, with 25 versions. However, this is not deliberate - it's not even my favourite of his PCs! This piece just seems to have popped up in other boxes and collections more than the others.

I am much cheered by seeing how paltry is my effort compared with some here, as it gives me ammunition I can deploy to fend off domestic criticism.

I am agog to see what leads cloughie list with over 100!! Surely this must run EA's Strauss collection close?

I'm with mikealdren on the 'why' question. It's a relatively cheap and harmless hobby; I view having multiple versions in the same way that I view my CD collection generally: it's a library - there to pander to my particular mood and preference at any time.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm very curious to know about why you guys have these multiple versions.

I've mostly resisted [the] temptation, apart from having two versions of Debussy's "Jeux", two of the Webern Symphony and his Orchestral Pieces Op 10, and three of the Schoenberg Op 16 Orchestral Pieces. In the case of the Schoenberg, one of those is of his original and more uncommonly performed scoring of the work; in the Webern, duplicates often come with compilations - and Webern is obviously an ideal compilee! When it comes to "Jeux" it boils down to some bits of it being played exactly as I would wish on each version, and I have not been able to make my mind up as to which to keep. This would probably go for other recordings - preferences for this conductor or orchestra's slow movement over that one's scherzo, etc., but in life one has to settle for the truth that one can't always get what you want, notwithstanding Trump's purloining of that famous Stones' chorus for his rallies! And in the end I'm not that fussed.

[HighlandDougie]

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 ....

[Nick Armstrong]

Mahlers 5, 6 & 9 (but all in single figures - just - I think)

[Bryn]

For me, it's Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto, with 25 versions. However, this is not deliberate - it's not even my favourite of his PCs! This piece just seems to have popped up in other boxes and collections more than the others. . . .

Back around 1980, it was the same for me. At that time, I had, IIRC, 25 LPs of the 5th Piano Concerto. I don't keep that much of a track, these days but I possibly have more recordings of the Diabelli Variations than any other work.

[Edgy 2]

I'm a bit of an RVW completist but not quite there yet,so almost as many recordings of any of his output as are out there.
Plenty of Larks Ascending for sure.
Thing is I don't have any filing or cataloguing system whatsoever so actual numbers I've no idea,they are all over the place