Spring Cleaning The Collection

[Guest]

à la Mole in The Wind in the Willows, I've been dusting down the shelves of my burgeoning CD collection and have decided to part with some of the bloatage in my collection: multiple copies that I don't return to, other unplayed discs, etc. It's been a rather cathartic experience.

Rather than just putting them to one side, I decided to remind myself what it is about this or that disc that stops me returning to it.

Thus, four Mahler 2s became two 2s. Rattle's Mahler 2 with the CBSO was the first to be replayed. That first movement, everything about it has me shouting at the speakers...It's a funeral march that doesn't so much march as dilly-dally...it's just so irksomely slow! Then each of the key moments are over-egged, reduced to pantomime theatrics, drawn out and losing any sense of drama in the drawing out. It's like every ritardando receives its own meta-ritardando! I know Baker is superb in it, but it's not enough...in the re-sell box it went.

Next up, the Tennstedt/LPO Live disc (sorry Laurie!). The conductor's interventions bothered me. I felt like saying, just leave the score alone and let the music speak! The quietness of the choir in the final movement also bothered me. Out it goes.

That leaves me with Klemperer and Mehta. I do foresee procuring the Jurowski/LPO Live (all's not lost, Laurie!) and maybe the Nott version.

Similarly, my five copies of Mahler 9. Boulez: the fourth movement is just too fast. Ancerl (more for the sonics )and Nott (noise distractions in the last movement) have been similarly culled, leaving just two: Klemperer and Barbirolli.

On the other hand, there are discs that I return to infrequently but which, put on, remind me immediately why I've kept them.

Of course, now all that shelf space begs to filled anew.

Does anyone else here feel the need to cull CDs on an ad hoc basis?

--

Incidentally, I will be re-selling these individually for a reasonable price (tho' no doubt Zoverstocks will undersell me ) later in the year, when I'll be back in the UK. Naturally, forum users can have first dibs. Only the serial music fans will be disappointed.

[Veronika]

I've been going through my CD collection and my book collection recently and getting rid of stuff. I agree it is cathartic (and, given the typical size of a UK home, necessary...) I can't be bothered to sell them, though, so I just chuck them in the Oxfam collection box.

I also collected all magazines I've bought in the last three or so years into several big heaps before I put them in the recycling bin - it was enough to make me realise that by not buying something that I don't remember reading a few days later (let alone a few years later) I'll save quite a lot of money. (To be spent on new CDs and books?)

[Roehre]

...Does anyone else here feel the need to cull CDs on an ad hoc basis?...

No. Never. I still have got my LP collection as well as cassette tapes, and all are still in use.

[Ferretfancy]

I do have a minor blitz now and again, but I find it very difficult to dispose of shorter works. As an example, I have a dozen different recordings of the Russian Easter Festival Overture, but when I look at them, many are coupled with other works that I wish to keep.

There are some pieces that I might not want to hear very often, and there are composers whose works might repay a visit in future. To reduce shelf space with these, I have a reserve collection in Arrowfile albums, stored with the notes, but no jewel cases. These are easy to access. I'm afraid it tends to be composers like Holmboe or Kekkonen that end up in the reserves, I bought quite a lot of their music when it was briefly exposed a few years back.

This year was meant to be a year for reading more and listening a little less, but I've weakened already!

[Dave2002]

No. Never. I still have got my LP collection as well as cassette tapes, and all are still in use.

So have I. The only thing I can recall getting rid of was a 2LP set of Mahler's 7th - I think by Hans Rosbaud - which I sold to an LP exchange shop in Norwich.

There is a saying though "If you're in a hole, stop digging." Unfortunately I haven't adopted this maxim yet, and the big Verdi box (Decca) is wending its way to me now.

[gurnemanz]

I have finally got rid of Gramophone 1972 -2006, but have kept a couple as souvenirs.

I rarely discard CDs, unless duplicates. I have quite a few audio cassettes of Radio 3 broadcasts from 80s and 90s including some quite interesting stuff. I do intend to keep them but only occasionally play them. When my father died a couple of years ago (aged 95) his music collection consisted mainly of some very ancient LPs and about 100 cassettes of classical music recorded off the radio and carefully indexed, I'm afraid they all went with the house clearers, probably ditched. Digital media had not impinged greatly on his life and most of his CDs had been presents from me - which I duly reclaimed.

[umslopogaas]

I kept my back numbers of 'Gramophone' for about forty years, until I realised that a. I never EVER looked back at them and b. they took up a lot of space in my garage. So I advertised them in the small ads at the back for seventeen quid, which was basically saying you can have them for free, the seventeen quid was the cost of advert. I got precisely zero offers, so they all went into the recycle skip. Now I read the current issue, then use it to light the stove when the next one arrives.

But old LPs? Oh yes, I collect them and will never willing let any of mine go. Gurnemanz, I hope you havent kept a record of the "very ancient LPs" that you dumped, they just might have been worth a lot of money and a reminder of what you threw out would cause serious heartburn. Any first label Columbias or Deccas? Judging by ebay bids, if they were in good nick you could get four figures for some of them, and I dont mean pence.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Does anyone else here feel the need to cull CDs on an ad hoc basis?

Never again! Twenty-one years ago, when I went part-time, I sold off all but one of each of the works in my CD collection, raising £600. Of course, the only ones I wanted to play ever after were the ones I'd sold! I even ended up buying some back!

Only the serial music fans will be disappointed.

No change there, then - every week we check Radio Times for anything broadcast: ever optimistic, ever disappointed.

[pastoralguy]

Never again! Twenty-one years ago, when I went part-time, I sold off all but one of each of the works in my CD collection, raising £600. Of course, the only ones I wanted to play ever after were the ones I'd sold! I even ended up buying some back!


No change there, then - every week we check Radio Times for anything broadcast: ever optimistic, ever disappointed.

Mrs. PG and I had a cull of books and DVDs recently (Oxfam shop) but CDs are sacrosanct. I know there are many I won't listen to again but all the same...!

[teamsaint]

never ever knowingly got rid of a single piece of music.
I have room for lot more.
Somewhere.
I am sure.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well of course you could rip 'em to a drive before offloading...

With a few exceptions for special presentation sets I find I'm tending to buy downloads rather than CDs, so problem solved really. But I'd find it hard to part with most of the CDs, occasionally I'll give them away (no, teamsaint, NOT lend...) to good homes.

The dear little bedside Tivoli means many discs not often (or ever...) played find their way to my ears, albeit 20 or so minutes at a time...
This usually follows a shelf tour.

[teamsaint]

I don't like "Not lending"...i want to be generous....but it ends in tears !!
giving away is very good , Jayne.

[Veronika]

I don't lend books or CDs, except to very special friends - I've learned the hard way. (That was a signed copy of Terry Pratchett's Mort that you [she knows who she is] claimed you had "lost"!)

[Roehre]

....- every week we check Radio Times for anything broadcast: ever optimistic, ever disappointed.

Even more this week, with a lot, almost exclusively, baroque music....
(I know, I know, slightly oof-topic here...)

[richardfinegold]

I've been pruning my collection by recording discs on a hard drive. The bulk of these wind up being redundant performances of standard repertoire. I am out of town at present and listening to one of these as I write this--Boulez and the Cleveland SO in the Nocturnes of Debussy. Well played, but very cold and analytical, and not competing in my affections with the likes of Deneve, Martinon, Haitink and probably a few others.
The hard drive takes up little space--as witnessed by my traveling with it--and I haven't actually permanently eliminated the
music from my collection. I've been donating the discs to my local library and getting a tax credit for them. If I need to rerecord one of them, I will borrow it from the library.