Unplayed CDs - confess your guilt!

[amateur51]

My favourite version! But the Levine/Met M'singer, and the Barenboim Ring, both on DVD, are on the pile to be listened to when I retire (in 2 months time ) along with the Noseda Boris G....It's boxed sets that I have most trouble with, there are still unplayed discs in the St P'burg complete Shosta string quartets (a bargain offer), and in Hesperion XX's España Antigua (ditto)......

All good wishes for your impending retirement RT - you'll wonder where you ever found the time for work if my experience is anything to go by

[cloughie]

I have yet to listen to the Rostropovich recording of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk purchased in 2003. Keep on saying I'll listen when I feel ready for it but somehow other CD's take priority. Also got three complete Rings to audition (Karajan, Furtwangler and Janowski), three Tristans (Bohm, Furtwangler and Solti, live 1971) and a live Gotterdammerung from Solti in 1970.

I've heard them all before (except Lady Macbeth and Karajan Ring) either live or on LP but have still to hear the CD's.

Full time work makes things so difficult to fit in. That redundacy cheque can't come soon enough for me!

Don't build up your hopes - 10 years on, busy, and the pile is higher than then, but I suppose the bargains come thicker and faster!

[umslopogaas]

There's a little pile sitting on top of the player, all recent purchases based on 'Gramophone' recommendations:

'The Spanish Album': piano music by De Falla etc played by Michael Block
Vols. 3 and 4 of the complete works of Bruno Maderna, cond. by Tamayo (might have over-reached myself here)
Complete chamber works of Poulenc

Must get a move on, the next issue will be here soon.

[MickyD]

Big boxes are the biggest problem for me - I was delighted to grab the Brilliant Classics set of the 555 Scarlatti Sonatas for under £30, but it has taken me ages to get through all 36 discs, and I have to admit that I will probably never go through them all again. I am similarly tempted by the same company's mammoth Haydn Baryton Trios set, but I fear it would be the same story. Yet I am sure I will succumb!

[amateur51]

There's a little pile sitting on top of the player, all recent purchases based on 'Gramophone' recommendations:

'The Spanish Album': piano music by De Falla etc played by Michael Block
Vols. 3 and 4 of the complete works of Bruno Maderna, cond. by Tamayo (might have over-reached myself here)
Complete chamber works of Poulenc

Must get a move on, the next issue will be here soon.

That made me laugh out loud, umslopogaas - thanks!

[gurnemanz]

Big boxes are the biggest problem for me - I was delighted to grab the Brilliant Classics set of the 555 Scarlatti Sonatas for under £30, but it has taken me ages to get through all 36 discs, and I have to admit that I will probably never go through them all again. I am similarly tempted by the same company's mammoth Haydn Baryton Trios set, but I fear it would be the same story. Yet I am sure I will succumb!

I have also bought a lot of boxes but unheard box items are surely a separate case and not a cause for "guilt". I can't imaging not listening to a single full-price disc I had bought. Boxes by their nature contain recordings that you have not specifically chosen but which are there if needed.
I am retired now and have time at least to make an effort to go through them but would not sit there doggedly ticking them off. From time to time it is fun just to grab a disc at random. The fact that they are usually dead cheap also reduces the obligation to actually listen to them. Boxes like the complete Hyperion Complete Schubert Songs or the Brilliant Haydn Symphonies are a library resource. I do own the Complete Works of Shakespeare but haven't read all the plays.
We are in the final phase of CD which is surely why we are getting these boxes at silly prices as a kind of last hurrah from the record companies. The ones I have bought so far would probably last me for at least another decade without the need ever to buy another recording. (I will, of course!)

[verismissimo]

I don't file them until I've listened to them a couple of times or more.

So if they sit in the yet-to-be-played pile(s) for over a decade (sic), I donate them to the church fete.

On the whole they don't do very well out of me!

[Dave2002]

I don't file them until I've listened to them a couple of times or more.

So if they sit in the yet-to-be-played pile(s) for over a decade (sic), I donate them to the church fete.

On the whole they don't do very well out of me!

I think the last time I could be reasonably sure of not having missed listening to a CD, apart perhaps from some BBC MM and other magazine CDs, was around 2002. However I do have some LPs and boxed sets of LPs - bought cheaply whan I thought that LPs were in their death throes. I feel sure that these include a box set of Shostakovich symphonies by Haitink, and maybe one or two Mozart operas.

PS: Britten War Requiem LP by Rattle, and perhaps even some string quartets. Virgin vinyl!

[Ferretfancy]

I suspect that Lady Macbeth is one of those issues that we bought because it seemed like a good idea at the time, my copy is still on the shelf alongside other sins of omission such as the Suzuki Bach masses. This in spite of the fact that I have been systematically listening to the cantatas. Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre and some EMI opera reissues including Werther and Faust are also languishing unplayed.

What about the highly praised issues that don't seem to sell at all? I have yet to meet anybody who has a copy of the Simon Rattle Porgy and Bess,a few years ago there were piles of it in HMV grimly awaiting purchase as the price fell.

I'm assuming that Petrushka's mention of the Janowski Ring refers to his purchase of the original issue. It has just reappeared with enthusiastic reviews, which means that for all those years in which it has been unavailable he could have been telling us how good it is and arousing our envy !

[Pabmusic]

I have an Erato set of Fauré’s Penélopé that I’ve had since the 1980s yet haven’t listened to at all. I feel ashamed of this, since I like Fauré. I can’t even explain why there’s been this protracted lapse, except perhaps that it was more difficult to find time to listen to an opera before I retired.

One of the positive things about the R3 Forum is that you’re encouraged to listen (often after a long absence) to so many things you’d forgotten about. Perhaps that will work with Penélopé.

[Dave2002]

Big boxes are the biggest problem for me - I was delighted to grab the Brilliant Classics set of the 555 Scarlatti Sonatas for under £30, but it has taken me ages to get through all 36 discs, and I have to admit that I will probably never go through them all again. I am similarly tempted by the same company's mammoth Haydn Baryton Trios set, but I fear it would be the same story. Yet I am sure I will succumb!

I'm still struggling with the Scarlatti set, plus I managed to get Scott Ross's set about the same time for a similar price! I've avoided the big Haydn set complete with the Baryton music, as I've still not got through my set of Haydn symphonies conducted by Adam Fischer.

[Dave2002]

What about the highly praised issues that don't seem to sell at all? I have yet to meet anybody who has a copy of the Simon Rattle Porgy and Bess,a few years ago there were piles of it in HMV grimly awaiting purchase as the price fell.

Guilty m'lud! I also have a DVD version, which doesn't look too great. Maybe that has now been improved in later versions. I assume that video productions do have something akin to a "master tape", though you'd wonder looking at the quality of some. I still like Maazel's version though.

[Gordon]

I'm pretty much up to date except for that big Ross/Scarlatti set that Dave mentioned and also a set of Haydn piano sonatas from Brilliant that I must finish, it's pretty good. One reason for getting behind is of course playing favourites to death!!

The converse of this post is: which favourite do you flog to death thus taking up the time that should be used to catch up!! My current flogger is the Parry Symhonies from Chandos, a real find!! I thought those old English guys from late 19thC were all boring, how wrong in this case. I wake up with the tunes in my head! Maybe I need a rest in a nice quiet hotel where the waiters all wear white coats and smile a lot.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No unplayed CDs as far as I'm aware, but one unplayed LP - Tippett's 4th Symphony - Decca/Solti, and and an unplayed Beatles 45 rpm single.

[Ferretfancy]

No unplayed CDs as far as I'm aware, but one unplayed LP - Tippett's 4th Symphony - Decca/Solti, and and an unplayed Beatles 45 rpm single.

Tippett's 4th / Solti ? Magnificent! ( Even if you are not normally a fan of either )