How many recordings of the same piece of music?

Hi guys - I'm new to the Forum.

For some of my favourite pieces of music, I have a few recordings eg Sibelius 5 I started off with Karayan, dabbled with a very solid Naxos recording, but listening nowadays mainly to Ashkenazy on Decca.

On the other hand, I only have one Wagner Ring cycle (Solti of course) - money might play a factor here - and only one Mahler 9 (Abbado on DG).

Generally I take the view that I'd rather buy a new piece of music than get multiple versions of the same one, but then again, if you know you like it then why not?

One of the reasons I am asking this is that I'm a big fan of Britten's operas and noticed last time I was in HMV that there are quite a few versions of Billy Budd out there. It wasn't long ago that the only one was Britten's own recording (which I've got and is fantastic), but I would like to try some of the others.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Cheers.

 

Kent Nagano's recording of Billy Budd is supposed to very good, and uses a different edition to Britten's own.

Recently got Daniel Hardings Turn of the Screw- its good, don't have anything to copmpare it with though.

I am still hoping for Billy Budd on DVD as a late birthday present from my wife who's more into Opera than me.... I've kind of given up on most Operas on disc unless they really are better left unstaged - e.g Tristan or Duke Bluebeard's Castle.

I have now got 5 recordings of Mahler's 3rd, and 6 of his 9th, as well as 6 Das lied von der Erde.
Also got 6 Bruckner 9ths, 5 8ths & 5 5ths.
6 recordings of Schubert's last Piano Sonato D960. 4 brahms Violin concertos
3 Tristan & Isoldes, 2 Parsifals, 2 Pelleas & Melisande

Actually, a cursory glance at my collection shows I've got more than one recording of just about anything that's core repertory. I've even got 2 recordings of both Szymanowski violin Concerti, and 3 of Lutoslawski's 3rd Symphony.

There's always a better or different interpretation of every great piece of music. However, when I decide to listen to anything there is usually one recording of whatever it is that gets chosen most often.

 

I have about 4 different versions of the Beethovens symphonies, and lots of the core repertory I have multiple copies of. I try to collect ones that are interesting though. I'm making sure I don't buy just for the sake any more

 

Thanks Alan - I may give the Nagano recording a try. Interesting what you say about not enjoying opera on CD. I probably listen more to opera than anything else and haven't really been put off not being able to watch it. Do you often go to the opera? I can imagine that would change my mind - I don't often get around to it. Oh, and since you mentioned Bluebeard's Castle, I've actually got two recordings of that - one fairly old one on Decca, and another which came with the BBC music mag years ago.

I really have to stop buying recordings and focus more on listening to the ones I've got. That's the trouble with reading Gramophone magazine and the like - you just get talked into splashing out again....

 

That's generally my approach too - I've always tried pretty hard to get a good one first time around and avoid duplications. I'm still finding new repertoire I'm interested in, so don't really have time to keep on going back over too many different versions of the same stuff. I have about 700+ discs of mostly different repertoire - OK not huge by some standards but enough to keep me busy.

Recently though I have been getting a few more duplicates - mostly of stuff I really like, or occasionally because I can't find a recording that really satisfies. I think the greatest number of duplicates I have is about
4x : Strauss 4 last songs (Norman, Isokoski, Fleming, Janowitz on LP)
4x : Mahler 2 (Solti, Abbado, Klemperer, Rattle)
3x : Most Sibelius symphonies
3x : Valkyrie (Bohm, Solti, Neuhold)
3x : Beethoven 7 (Kleiber, Zinman, Karajan)
etc

My favourite Sib 5 is Oramo/CBSO on Erato (others are Davis/Boston and Gibson/LSO).

And I've even managed to keep Vivaldi's 4 seasons down to 2. I do seem to have ended up though with two identical discs of ENO's Rosenkavalier highlights, and two copies of Ashkenazy's recording of the Rachmaninov "Isle of the Dead" (although those Ashkenasy and Previn Rach recordings have been issued in so many different couplings it's tough to avoid duplication).

As for opera - I go to ROH and ENO fairly frequently, and seeing the staging obviously adds quite a bit to the experience (although not always!). A couple of TV broadcasts have disturbed me far more because the camera shots didn't match the soundstage, so there I'd actually prefer it without the pictures. It probably does make a big difference if you can imagine the staging in your head though from having seen a production - e.g. I've not seen Janacek's "From the House of the Dead" yet, and that's one I've not really got to grips with the CD yet, whereas Adam's "El Nino" just captivates me from beginning to end. I probably don't listen to a huge amount at home though, more because of the time involved rather than the lack of visuals - although I did do 1.5xRheingold + Die Walkure on one day a month or two back. And I'm afraid most Britten leaves me completely cold.

Wait until Titian sees this thread - he's got well into tens of duplicates of most standard repertoire.

 

I'd entirely agree with Ted's sensible statement quoted by GrahamN above too - certainly for my first few hundred CDs or so I made a point of not duplicating anything but I've since got a few duplicates of favourite things (3 Rachmaninov symphony sets and 2 of the concerti, 3 Brahms symphony sets, about five or six recordings of the violin concerto, etc.). I often find discovering new music is the most fun, but sometimes shedding new light on one of your old favourites is fascinating too.

 

No - don't often go to Opera, got a baby daughter who keeps us at home at night! Up here we get occasional productions by Scottish Opera who are constantly going bust. In the last few years have enjoyed productions of Kata Kabanova, most of the Ring (though missed Gotterdammerung as my wife had just given birth), Inez de Castro by James McMillan and the sublime experience of a fully staged Parsifal conducted by Claudio Abbado with a superb youth orchestra.

But the problem I find with Opera on disc is the 'suspension of disbelief'. I can enjoy on disc those operas which take place mostly in the mind - like Tristan, Pelleas or Bluebeard. One of the best live performances I've been to was Boulez conducting the BBC SO in this work with Laszlo Polgar and Michelle De Jong in a concert at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago.

However any Opera which depends on its visual impact and stage action - many of Britten's for example - I can't really 'get' through hearing alone. However, I have greatly enjoyed TV and DVD productions of Peter Grimes and Turn of the Screw.

And then there are a lot of Operas I just don't like anyway - most of Verdi, Mozart etc. All those arias and barcarolles as someone once said.... a lot of prettiness and nonsense just to show off pretty singing. And the stage productions just make it worse with silly sets, bad acting and ridiculous disparity between what the singer looks like and what the character should look like!

All in all, I'm very selective about Opera, probably missing a lot of good stuff but there plenty of Symphonies to keep me happy!

 

Ah...a big fan of Donizetti and Bellini I see then (just like me). I do like Marriage of Figaro and Aida though, and have recently come to enjoy Rigoletto too having recently seen the ROH (on TV) and ENO (in the flesh) productions.

The first production of Tristan I saw had John Mitchinson as the eponymous hero. Really was tough seeing how the heroine would have got so wound up about this guy who looked just like a bag of spuds (and the spuds would probably have acted better too - did have a great voice though, for a Brit). The level of the acting I saw at ROH in the late seventies/early eighties put me off going there for the next 20 years.

 

Yes just wait... (quite a long time)
I have a very large collection of LPs and also lately my CD collection is growing slightly. If I had to pay for every record the full price (over £10) I would go for one, max two interpretations of the same piece. I prefer getting very cheap LPs from ebay (max €1.5 / LP) if in very good condition and therefore I finish to have more interpretations of the same composition. I always was attracted in comparing different interpretations and now I find it great to have them here instead of having every classical composition once. Meanwhile I appreciate the different interpretations instead of criticizing everything you hear played in the way you are not used to or you believe is wrong (for one or the other reason).
There are interpretations which you could start liking after 10 years so why ignore them?
Just to give an extreme example: the recordings of all Beethoven's symphonies I have 18 times, without counting the interpretations of a single symphony)