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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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In Reply to: Which Classical Composers feature most in your collection? posted by John C. - Aussie on December 1, 2006 at 16:18:03:
John C. Aussie,The discussion by Amphissa and others concerning proportions of works relative to productivity applies to me strongly as I tend to listen disproportionately to the solo keyboard works of composers with relatively small output: Louis Couperin, Sweelinck, Rameau, Satie, McDowell, and Copland can each fit their entire solo keyboard works on 3 CDs . I think all of Hindemith’s piano music is perhaps 4 disks. All of Byrd’s is 8 CDs, I’d guess Frescobaldi thereabouts too. I have all of Froberger- along with Sweelinck and Frescobaldi one of my favourite “obscure†composers- and two copies of one of the most amazing keyboard recordings ever- Thurston Dart playing Froberger on clavichord.
John Dowland’s entire solo lute works on 5 CDs- and all the songs on another 5. A friend made me a single CD-R on which he used MP-3 to compress all 5- CDs- probably 200 works. Quite amazing, but for some stupid reason, my CD player only reads to Track 90 !
The opposite side of this is Scarlatti. Not all of the 550+ Exercizzos or Sonatas is a masterpiece, but 60 are genius, a 100 more incredible, 200 are really fun so a person has to eventually hear them all to pick the most interesting ones. As a lifelong Scarlatti fanatic, I can hum along with probably 150 of these, but I can only name perhaps 5 by their Kirpatrick number- they need more subtitles to be able to refer to them! Perhaps I should make that my life’s work- name every Scarlatti Sonata! One of those lifetime memorable concerts: 1973 Princeton, N.J.: Ralph Kirkpatrick played 20 Scarlatti Sonatas from memory.
I’m probably atypical too in my love of organ music and so I have both several versions of all the Bach organ, lots of disks of composers like Corrette, collection disks of obscure composers from AD 1000 on. The one thing that can get me to buy a CD is if I see listed an organ fugue by someone I’d never heard of- that’s a sure Bambi catcher. One thing I find interesting with organ is that it always maintained an improvisation and strong performer/composer traditions- organists are far more likely to have written for their instrument than other keyboard instruments. Whereas, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff were primarily keyboardists early on, they all wrote ! Of performing pianists today, few also compose. But, organists seem to still like to improvise- megalomaniacal as they all are- and in the 20th C, organists like Dupre, Messian, Alain, Gavilou and others wrote and I hear improvisation in performances often.
Rachmaninoff was one of the last great pianists/composers- though you could probably include Bernstein too. Glenn Gould stated an intention to become a composer, but wrote very little, and do we often see composition by the pianists of today: Schiff, Brendel, Perhia, Morivec. Did Land-Lang ever write his “Thomas Kincaide Oratorio�
Because he wrote so much solo keyboard- and I like all of it on a variety of instruments, ol' Papa Bach owns the most real estate of the shelves- I would say, 600 LPs and 100 CDs. The majority is probably solo keyboard- on organ, clavichord, harpsichord, and piano- 6 complete sets of the Well Tempered, 8 Goldbergs, but I also have mostly all the cantatas, passion, masses, and oratorios, the various concertos, and solo cello partitas etc. I have (as far as I know) all of Glenn Gould’s Bach.
Next would be Beethoven- heavy concentration on the Piano Sonatas- perhaps 100 LPs,then chamber music, and piano concertos, and. Probably 8 complete String Quartets: Italiano and Vegh are my top overall choices- and the others now rarely get attention. I hear the Syphonies so often and have such narrow favourites, I don’t have many Symphony recordings.
Mozart , of course- several sets of the the string quartets and piano concertos- and some opera. I don't have a lot of opera recordings , but "Magic Flute" is a favourite.
Mahler: Symphonies and Song Cycles- several each- though now I tend to play the same ones again and again. Walter, Bernstein, and Solti are favourites- I have three LP and one CD copies of the Solti/Chicago 5th. I might become a Micheal Tilson Thomas/LSO fan also.
Scarlatti: There are just so many great Sonatas- over 550 total, I ended up with lots of recordings. Though I'm a harpsichordist, I don't quibble over period instruments- some of the greatest Scarlatti ever was done by Dinu Lipatti on piano. Horowitz made it fun too. Kirpatrick on harpsichord.
Schubert: I have lots of Schubert piano (I like Kempff, Richter, and Brendel), quartets, and Lieder. The music is so wonderful- but oddly dark and subtle- those amazing chord prgressions so this is a case od csomeone who wrote a lot- esp for one who died at 31- but requires multiple versions. The Impromptus and last three Sonatas are worth listening too again often. -And I'm leaving instructions to play the slow movement of the Cmin Quintet at my funeral!
Haydn: He wrote piles of everything and the 62 Piano Sonoatas, 87 String Quartets, 105 Symphonies, piano trios, string trios - 50 -70 of those each- are all worth having around. Careful listeners, fans of rhythm, and general iconoclasts may eventually prefer Haydn's Piano Sonatas to Mozart's,..
Chopin: I once thought that if I had to hear something from one set of compositions every day the rest of my life- what would it be that wouldn’t drive me bonkers (well, moreso) after three weeks. My answer, after six minute’s intense deliberation are the Chopin Nocturnes. But, the Mazurkas, Scherzos, Ballades, and the rest are all just wonderful- painfully beautiful. And, playing them with the kind of phrasing they need is still my test of a pianist- if they can play Chopin they’re in my “good player†book. But, the subtelty of it is such it means a person has to have a lot of versions. Cortot and Rubenstein are my favourites. I met Rubenstein once. I was walking with a Hungarian friend on Bond St. London mid-70's and she recognized Rubenstein from the back, walking with a companion. She introduced herself, but though I was right there, I was so awed I didn’t speak or shake his hand!
Others: Rameau: harpsichord music, ensemble, and operas- inventive, humourous, and distinctively energetic. Froberger: dark, melancholic- exquisite torture- John Dowland also. Prokofiev- the amazing piano music and string quartets, Shostakovich symphonies and quartets, Satie: the magic piano works. I have a lot of early keyboard recordings by the Virginalists and obscure European composers.
And so on. By category, I certainly have more keyboard music than anything else- 1/3 of the whole thing: 300 organ records, 600 piano, 200 harpsichord, 30 clavichord. Then comes chamber music, song cycles/lieder, symphonies.
Lesser presences: I'll offend some here, but I've never liked Brahms particularily- there's some lack of focus- he needed Beethovenesque architecture. So, in Bambi's lair, perhaps only the Requiem, last three piano works (117, 118, 119) and some Variations- a very few things. I think I may have only 4 or 5 Brahms recordings- nothing for a major composer.
The future I think will be to include a lot more in the way of 20th century music. Though I’ve listened quite a bit, I still feel I've only scratched the surface of Prokofiev, Bartok, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Webern, and Britten for example. I wanna hear everything!
Cheers,
Bambi B
Do not criticise the idiots in the world- but don't elect them president of anything either :-(
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Follow Ups
- Bach, then Hieronymous Anonymous - Bambi B 15:51:20 12/02/06 (1)
- Re: Bach, then Hieronymous Anonymous - garrod 05:04:24 12/03/06 (0)
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