Will you outlive your CD collection?

[Pianoman]

This is why I am now exclusively streaming or downloading (says he who's just bought a sackful from a mate who's going through exactly the same thing...)

[gurnemanz]

I do download when it suits me but still like the idea of having something I can hold and look at rather than a few invisible ones and noughts. I am trying (with limited success) to rein myself in generally since I probably do have enough to take me to my last breath. I shall bequeath to my children several thousand CDs and a sturdy wheelbarrow with which to dispose of them.

[jayne lee wilson]

If I lost all my downloads tomorrow, I'd be - a bit fed up... I'd sigh a big sigh and set about restoring them to some drive or other...
If all the CDs disappeared... I'd have lost a part of my identity, my history...
I look around the room and see where all the Toshibas are, or the Salzburg Orfeos, or the blue & white NMCs; that big black box of Zender's radio recordings; all the vertical-and-horizontal Martinu on top of a library unit because there was no more room within it... they carry an instant, freighted visual charge: they are emotional and intellectual landmarks with meaning beyond the musical...

They become iconic, like the Immortal Performances handsome black & gold box of Toscanini's Beethoven, which has taken up semi-permanent residence next to the Mac Music Server, just because it was such a special discovery for me; the cool blue Supraphon Valek Martinu nearby, because it's become a "pet set" - a Pet Sounds, less well known, less well reviewed, and all the more cherished...a secret garden.

Larger CD or Vinyl collections are at once reference libraries, emotional reassurances (there if you need them, even if you never do..) and part of you - your story, your memory, part of what made you, what you have become... (and an anticipation: the excitement of the next discovery, or rediscovery...what's in the post? What shall I play tonight...?)

[MickyD]

I share many of the feelings here. I am 58 and know that my collection has got too big when I come across discs that I didn't even know I had! After awhile it is obvioulsy impossible for the brain (or mine, at least) to store that much knowledge.

[Pulcinella]

My partner, a Quaker, is far less 'encumbered by possessions' than I am, a way of life I would like to emulate.

Mind you, one way for him to achieve this was, on moving to York, suggesting that 'his' (smaller) CD collection and 'mine' (significantly larger) got merged, giving even more opportunity for the combined collection to outlive us both! (It did give the opportunity to pass on a fair few duplicates to a welcoming fellow boarder, however!) He was very good with his book collection, relying now on freely available downloads if it's 'classic' that's needed, or the excellent York University Library for research purposes. (Note to self: check out their Music collection of scores and suchlike.)

[teamsaint]

My partner, a Quaker, is far less 'encumbered by possessions' than I am, a way of life I would like to emulate.

Mind you, one way for him to achieve this was, on moving to York, suggesting that 'his' (smaller) CD collection and 'mine' (significantly larger) got merged, giving even more opportunity for the combined collection to outlive us both! (It did give the opportunity to pass on a fair few duplicates to a welcoming fellow boarder, however!) He was very good with his book collection, relying now on freely available downloads if it's 'classic' that's needed, or the excellent York University Library for research purposes. (Note to self: check out their Music collection of scores and suchlike.)

Good idea about the library for scores. I wonder if public libraries ever hold them ? I never though to ask.

[Dave2002]

Good idea about the library for scores. I wonder if public libraries ever hold them ? I never thought to ask.

Many public libraries do not hold scores nowadays. Many years ago libraries in major cities, such as London, Liverpool, Manchester had large libraries, and libraries where there were scores, and some even had music for loan. In London there used to be a music library somewhere near Hyde Park corner I think. I used to use it, as well as libraries in other cities I've mentioned. I understand that largely these have now folded, though some may still remain. Users who used branch libraries could perhaps also reserve and have scores delivered locally in some cases, though probably most musicians and interested scholars went to the central libraries.

I was aware of a campaign a year or two back to try to save one of the few remaining national libraries for music scores - I don't know what happened in the end.

[teamsaint]

Many public libraries do not hold scores nowadays. Many years ago libraries in major cities, such as London, Liverpool, Manchester had large libraries, and libraries where there were scores, and some even had music for loan. In London there used to be a music library somewhere near Hyde Park corner I think. I used to use it, as well as libraries in other cities I've mentioned. I understand that largely these have now folded, though some may still remain. Users who used branch libraries could perhaps also reserve and have scores delivered locally in some cases, though probably most musicians and interested scholars went to the central libraries.

I was aware of a campaign a year or two back to try to save one of the few remaining national libraries for music scores - I don't know what happened in the end.

Interesting.I just searched Wiltshire Library, and it seems to have some scores available, EG various Mozart masses, LvB symphonies.
They also offer a set lending service for registered performing groups.

With Wilts there seems to be a 90 p reservation charge.

[Pulcinella]

Oxford Westgate Library had a decent collection of miniature scores that could be borrowed, but the site is currently being redeveloped and I think that the music collection is now housed (perhaps only temporarily) elsewhere, with much less access. The County Library Service was good at providing (and sourcing) vocal scores of works the Music Society I sang with borrowed, for a nominal charge of something like £1 per copy.

In mentioning the University Library here I was wondering what sort of lending facility they operated, what scores they had, and indeed if they might like mine when I shuffle off. Possibly (probably?) more interest in those than in the CD collection. Off the main CD topic of this thread, I know, but at least music related, and all part of the feeling of being less encumbered if I thought there was somewhere to give them to, and my godson (executor) didn't have to worry about disposing of them.

[BBMmk2]

MrsBBM will keep my collection but after that, seell them on Ebay, I will say.

[aeolium]

I feel that I have to a large extent already outlived my CD collection, including many recordings that I used to treasure but which I now feel I know so well that I do not feel the need or the desire to hear them again. I never was particularly interested in hearing the zillionth recording of a well-known symphony, but now even the idea of recordings unless they are of repertoire which is unlikely to be heard in any other way increasingly fails to appeal to me. For what is a recording really? As a general rule it is a composite performance made up of multiple takes and which the listener is invited to hear again and again; in place of the unrepeatable single event which surely for most composers has been how they envisaged a concert performance (even if the work is replayed it will inevitably not be the same), we have the endlessly repeatable event, identical on every rehearing. So even if we have a historically informed recorded 'performance', we never recreate the historically informed listening experience - i.e. listening afresh without the expectation of being able to hear the performance again.

Obviously this is not how most people here view recordings - they may find the minutiae of differences between interpretations fascinating and are happy to pore over them. And of course I do not wish to devalue recordings which after all have enabled me and probably the vast majority of people to discover a whole world of music in different interpretations. And they allow us to recover inimitable performances by great musicians of the past. But now, for me, I am much less interested in hearing performances that I have already heard, and much more interested in hearing live concerts or operas either in person or via broadcasts. Isn't this really how the great majority of music was intended to be heard, and how else can we come to respond freshly to music which can otherwise become all too familiar?

[Sir Velo]

I never was particularly interested in hearing the zillionth recording of a well-known symphony, but now even the idea of recordings unless they are of repertoire which is unlikely to be heard in any other way increasingly fails to appeal to me. For what is a recording really? As a general rule it is a composite performance made up of multiple takes and which the listener is invited to hear again and again; in place of the unrepeatable single event which surely for most composers has been how they envisaged a concert performance (even if the work is replayed it will inevitably not be the same), we have the endlessly repeatable event, identical on every rehearing.

I think you may have hinted at the reason why so many collectors own multiple copies of the same piece of music; i.e. it is essentially to recreate that sense of anticipation of the unexpected listening experience. By playing the same recording, over and over again, however marvellous the performance, there will never be that sense of wonder of hearing the music afresh, while a new recording promises,, at least on first hearing, that it will deliver a new way of hearing the familiar. Having said that, like you, I no longer want to hear the "core" repertoire again and again. Those works are hardwired in my memory and can be recalled pretty much at will.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There is Westminster Music Library, 160 Buckingham Palace Road, near Victoria Station for Londoners.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The idea that Live Performances give more of a sense of "freshness" than playing a recording for the umpteenth time - so often exactly the opposite in my experience.

[Serial_Apologist]

The idea that Live Performances give more of a sense of "freshness" than playing a recording for the umpteenth time - so often exactly the opposite in my experience.

I'm with you there, ferney. Were it not for recordings, I doubt very much if I would get to know works in as inside-out fashion as I am able. Something tells me that composers in pre-recording ages would have loved to have that kind of accessibility to their music, and the capacity of the listener to discover ever more hidden details and meanings therein, even from a single performance.