Do you keep a concert diary?

[Guest]

I'm very fortunate and glad to have kept a concert diary of all my concerts since I first started (seriously!) 5 years ago.

So the composer/work/artist etc.

I then copy it into an excel document to see how many times i have heard a particular work etc.

Does anyone else do this?

[Ferretfancy]

I have been keeping a computer record of concerts for about ten years, this saves keeping all those programmes, but I do hang on to the Proms prospectuses as well.
It's useful to be able to check , but frankly I usually remember the really outstanding events.
The CD and LP catalogue is quite a different thing. Sometimes I almost avoid buying discs with numerous items and composers, simply because all that data entry and cross references seems such a daunting task!

[Roehre]

I am not only keeping a concert diary, but a listening diary (the latter only composer/work/record-no.) as well. I started doing so in August 1978. For me it has the advantage as well that these entries work as a kind of personal diary, as there are concerts and listening-sessions which are for ever linked to personal events (or sometimes events in the News, like 9/11 e.g.).

[rubbernecker]

Not a diary, but like an anally retentive magpie I have kept every single concert programme from when I started my concert going, aged thirteen. That's 38 years worth

[Chris Newman]

Not a diary, but like an anally retentive magpie I have kept every single concert programme from when I started my concert going, aged thirteen. That's 38 years worth

Ditto, rubbernecker. I always keep them.

My first programme is English Chamber Orchestra, Colin Davis, 1962, Horsham.
My next is RPO, Maurice Miles, 1962, Horsham.
Then I have Bournemouth SO, Constantin Silvestri, 1963, Royal Festival Hall.

I did go to some chamber concerts (Horsham Music Circle held at my old school...Deller Consort, Allegri and Amadeus Quartets, Phillip Challis, The Pleeth Family, Julius Katchen etc) but the Gestetnered foolscap sheets given out have since crumbled.

[Vile Consort]

I keep concert programmes but by no means assiduously, and only started to do so about 25 years ago, so I have no record of the concerts I went to in the 70's as a teenager. These included David Munro and the Early Music Consort at Burnley Library. It was just after they had become famous, but the gig must have been booked when they were unknown.

When the Bridgewater Hall opened I took out a season ticket to the International Series, and found myself next to genial old boy at each concert. When the Czech Phil came, he arrived with the programme of a concert he had gone to in Prague in 1946!

[MickyD]

Not a diary, but like an anally retentive magpie I have kept every single concert programme from when I started my concert going, aged thirteen. That's 38 years worth

I was like you, Rubbernecker, up until last year, when I carried out a huge clearout of old programmes, Gramophones etc dating back 30 odd years. But I did do a good deed - I offered all my old Academy of Ancient Music programmes to the orchestra and they were delighted to have them for their archives, which pleased me no end.

[salymap]

I had hundreds of programmes, some autographed, from 1947,when I was 17. I also kept a concert diary. My programmes filled my [then] small bedroom. My mum suggested I put them in the garden shed; they went mouldy and had to be thrown away. I shall always regret it. Furtwanger, Kodaly, Tortelier, Schnabel, Richard Strauss, etc. etc. Very very sad.

[teamsaint]

No.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I have kept such a diary, filled with scintillating commentary on music and performances, since I was a a student some 37 years ago. Haven't used the computer to X-ref; my 'system' is to keep ring binders filled with sheets for composers filed alphabetically. It can be a bit of a nightmare listing, and finding, individual Schubert songs and the like!

The scintillating criticisms are my practice pieces for when I eventually take over as The Times's chief music critic:cool2:

[Petrushka]

I always regret not keeping a concert and listening diary but like others I have every single programme of every concert I've been to (since 1972), many of them signed. There are only two missing: there was a strike at the printers just before a Philharmonia/Svetlanov concert so no programmes were published, and a Prom programme of Tippett's Mask of Time was accidentally left in the RAH .