How much do you spend on CDs and recorded music?

[mathias broucek]

10 club could take a while

Mahler 1-9
Bruckner 3-9
Beethoven 3, 5, 6-9, Piano Concertos 3-5, Late Pf Sonatas
Mozart 33, 40, 41, Piano Concerto 27
Schubert 8, 9
Brahms 1-4
Dvorak 8
Schumann 1-4
etc etc

[Roslynmuse]

Re the 10 club - how many members keep a catalogue of their collection? I try to, but it's like the Forth Bridge and like others I have on several occasions excitedly bought a CD to find it already sitting on the shelf/ precariously balanced in a stack...

The thrill of the chase (the last elusive disc in a series); a reissue of a dimly-remembered, once-favoured LP; a vain attempt to recapture the past - all come into play.

Going back to the original question - well, I set myself a weekly limit, although I'm often derailed when two large purchases are unmissable. The arrival of a new catalogue of second-hand scores is a Health and Safety (for my bank balance) issue too.

One day I shall listen to it all and not simply build up a reference library!

[vinteuil]

"And so, one of the key problems which face the person who keeps the books that he has read - or which he promises to read one day - is that of the expansion of his library. Not everyone can be Captain Nemo:

« .. the world ended for me on the day my Nautilus sank for the first time beneath the waves. On that day, I had purchased my last books, my last journals, my last newspapers, and since then I have chosen to believe that humanity has no longer thought or written. »

The 12 000 volumes of Captain Nemo, in their uniform bindings, have been classified once and for ever... "

[from Georges Perec, Penser/Classer , transl vinteuil]

Today I have spent the day rejigging all my CDs in what my partner with her deft turn of phrase calls a major peristalsis (it's all right buying Weiss or Zelenka, they can be stuck on the end - but if you buy Bach - let alone Alkan or Albeniz - then everything has to be moved along, moved along. You will gather my classification is primaily alphabetical. Unlike my books, which are largely classified chronologically... ) and in so doing I have really finally realised - I think - that I DON'T NEED TO BUY ANY MORE CDs ... Nudging sixty, there's no way I will be able to listen to what I already have...

And yet the temptation is still there... thank you, Caliban: five CDs of Fauré due here any moment...

[Nick Armstrong]

And yet the temptation is still there... thank you, Caliban: five CDs of Fauré due here any moment...

[Dave2002]

I do my best. Not sure whether to post these here or on the Bargain thread. First, the Bohm Ring cycle for £18.50
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...usicguideco-21

I was about to write that I don't need/want this as not a great Wagner fan, but then it's pretty cheap (CD set). Is it good?

and second, Jarvi's Martinu symphony cycle for £4.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Martinu-Symp...=2W8NQTHIR3KZ6

Fortunately I really don't need this, nor the Alfven set which Amazon recommends with it, as I have both already, and I've remembered that. V. Good price for the Martinu though.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I think the only works I have more than 10 versions of are Lieder, which are something of an obsession and, being short, are easily accumulated. eg Schubert:

An die Musik, Erlkönig 19
Gretchen am Spinnrade 18
Nacht und Träume 15
Der Tod und das Mädchen 10 exactly (one in Russian - Feodor Chaliapin)

Like gurnemanz a lot of my 'tenners' are Lieder. He's ahead of me on some - An die Musik (16), Erlkonig (14), Gretchen (15) but I can pip him on Nacht und Traume (16) and Der Tod und das Madchen (13 - also including the Chaliapin).

Individual Schumann Lieder don't get into double figures, but Frauenliebe und Leben manges 10.

Elsewhere Percy Grainger is good for a few - Children's March (10), Country Gardens (14), Irish Tune (11), Molly on the Shore (12) and Shepherds' Hey (11). Might even have to add a few to some of those totals having just got the big Chandos Grainger Edition box for my birthday, not yet catalogued...


The Bach Toccata & Fugue in D minor manages 12, Beethoven Pathetique sonata 13, Moonlight 11 and Apassionata 10. The only Beethoven symphony that gets into double figures is, for some reason unclear to me, the 7th.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Re the 10 club - how many members keep a catalogue of their collection?

I tend to catalogue (by card indexes) the short pieces - songs and shorter keyboard pieces particularly - that get filed all round the record collection because of misc anthologies.

The big works are all instantly accessible via my immaculate alphanumeric filing systems for 78s, LPs, cassettes and CDs...

...and press the button when you think I'm bluffing

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One of the consquences of buying more CDs than you have time to catalogue/listen to - is that there are works of which you have recordings (mainly couplings) that you may well be unaware of. For example, I think I have Strauss's Aus Italien, but I'm not sure.

[makropulos]

Some of my "10" club pieces:

Bach Mass in B minor
Bach St Matthew Passion
Bruckner Symphonies 7, 8, 9
Debussy La Mer
Dvorak Symphony 7
Dvorak Symphony 8
Elgar Symphony 1
Elgar Symphony 2
Elgar Dream of Gerontius
Elgar Enigma Variations
Janacek Sinfonietta
Janacek Taras Bulba
Janacek Glagolitic Mass
Mahler Symphony 2
Mahler Symphony 6
Mozart Nozze di Figaro
Mozart Jupiter Symphony
Mozart Piano Concerto K453
Strauss Heldenleben
Strauss Till Eulenspiegel
Strauss Don Quixote
Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia
Wagner Die Meistersinger (complete opera)

All looks worryingly like too many CDs to me...

[barber olly]

Re the 10 club - how many members keep a catalogue of their collection?

I have used EXCEL for some years now - it works a treat and I can search by Composer Conductor amongst other headings, but is only as good as my regular updating.

[reinerfan]

The "10 club" would be too many to list as I have over 11000 Cds, but all are cataloged on computer using the "Classifile" programme which, unfortunately, is no longer available. I tend to leave cataloging to rainy days which, because I live in Spain, makes it difficult to keep up!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The "10 club" would be too many to list as I have over 11000 Cds, but all are cataloged on computer using the "Classifile" programme which, unfortunately, is no longer available. I tend to leave cataloging to rainy days which, because I live in Spain, makes it difficult to keep up!

11,000 CDs . I reckon it would take you 6 years to listen to the lot at the rate of 3 per day.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Can anyone beat this for multiple recordings?

[Ariosto]

I don't spend anyfink 'cause I'm waiting for the next riot so I can nick some ...

[Ariosto]

CD's by the thousand

People put on CD's by the thousand but they don't hear them.