3440. Johann Sebastian Bach: Das Musikalische Opfer
3441. Johann Sebastian Bach: Concertos Brandebourgeois
3442. Johann Sebastian Bach: Violinkonzerte in a-Moll und E-dur
3443. Johann Sebastian Bach: Harpsichord Concertos 1 & 2
3444. Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonate a-moll & Partita d-moll für Violine solo
3445. Johann Sebastian Bach: The Goldberg Variations
3446. Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto in F Major
3447. Johann Sebastian Bach: 3 Harpsichord Concertos
3448. Johann Sebastian Bach: Six Concertos After Vivaldi
3449. Johann Sebastian Bach: Bach-Trompete
3450. Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Boogie
3451. Johann Sebastian Bach: Back to Bach
3452. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Sinfonias e-moll C-dur B-dur h-moll
3453. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Sinfonias D-dur Es-dur F-dur G-dur
3454. Die Familie Bach
3455. Béla Bartok: String Quartet No. 4
3456. A Bartok Recital
3457. Béla Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin-Concert Suite
Mixworthy: It's all good!
If you care anything at all about classical music, please run and hide immediately.
After fussing over every last hyphen and ampersand for the 3,439 pop-related records
already listed, I can guarantee that the next few entries will contain some appalling
errors of nomenclature. I don't know concertos from symphonies, preludes from opuses
(opi?), Schumann from Schubert, or a-molls from F-durs. I didn't even realize there
were five or six different Bachs until just now; Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm
Friedemann and Johann Ludwig must have been the Tommie Aarons of their day. These
will be my rules for listing classical LPs: 1) Most albums will be listed by compos-
er only, with no mention of performer--even those involving famous ones like the two
Glenn Goulds above (#3445/46); 2) If an LP is split between two composers, it will
be listed under whichever one appears first on the cover; 3) If there are three or
more composers involved, the album goes into a separate section that will come after
the main section; this will also include some Russian classical LPs that have titles
I can't read, multi-composer records where the performer is clearly the focus, and
some odds and ends that stump me; 4) There'll be a third section after that one,
consisting of records that aren't classical at all--they just happened to be part
of a big classical haul I made ten years ago at a garage sale (briefly mentioned in
an earlier entry), some of which are still sitting there unplayed, and which I've
just now discovered belong in with the pop records; and 5) Because half the time I
can't tell where a classical album title begins or ends, titles will be only as long
as I feel they need to be. In other words, what follows will be exactly the kind of
organizational mess that I'd be the first person to ridicule if it were pop records
being catalogued rather than classical. My insights and analysis will be breathtak-
ing, though. For starters, I like Bach (J.S.); after Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The
Lark Ascending" and Satie's "Trois Gymnopdies," I'd be more inclined to listen to
some Bach than any classical music I know. So big, big ups to Bach.
________________________________________________________________________________
3458. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sinfonie Nr. 2
3459. Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"
3460. Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"
3461. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sinfonie Nr. 4
3462. Ludwig van Beethoven/Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Opus 67/
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor
3463. Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major Opus 68
3464. Ludwig van Beethoven: 7. Sinfonie
3465. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sinfonie Nr. 9
3466. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonaten für Klavier und Violine
3467. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas for Piano and Violin
3468. Ludwig van Beethoven: Klaviersonaten
3469. Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas
3470. Ludwig van Beethoven: The 3 Last Sonatas
3471. Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Op. 101 & Op. 109
3472. Ludwig van Beethoven: Klaviertrios
3473. Ludwig van Beethoven: 5. Klavierkonzert
3474. Ludwig van Beethoven/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Märsche & Tänze
3475. Alban Berg/Joseph Haydn: String Quartet Opus 3/String Quartet in D Minor,
Opus 76, No. 2
3476. Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
3477. Hector Berlioz: Le Carnaval romain, op. 9
I've been keeping tabs, and the rest of the world seems to be adjusting well to my
slowdown in updating this page. Still, I must press ahead; like the Cornelius Broth-
ers and Sister Rose, it's too late to turn back now...Beethoven is obviously the
Babe Ruth of classical music. Twelve-year-olds who aren't baseball fans and have
never heard of Joe DiMaggio or Hank Aaron, they recognize the name Babe Ruth; I've
noticed that Beethoven seems to have roughly the same relationship to Mozart or Bach
within that age group. For some reason--A Clockwork Orange, Schroeder from "Peanuts,"
Walter Murphy, that severe looking bust that's become so iconic--I've always asso-
ciated Beethoven with the kind of crashing, blustery, symphonic music I don't much
care for. I threw on some of the piano and violin LPs listed above this past week,
and, big surprise, I've been holding to a rather simplistic view all this time. I
notice I don't have "Für Elise," used very prominently in what I always name as my
favourite film, Rosemary's Baby...If stuck for something to say, find the relevant
Seinfeld reference: "You've got a great John Houseman name, Alban Berg. 'Mr. Berg...
Did you hand in your assignment, Mr. Berg?'" There's hardly any facet of the human
experience where you can't uncover a Seinfeld reference.
________________________________________________________________________________
3478. Georges Bizet: Carmen
3479. Georges Bizet: Carmen-Suite 1
3480. Francois Adrien Boieldieu/Joaquin Rodrigo: Harp Concerto in C major/Concert-Sere-
nade for Harp and Orchestra
3481. Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1
3482. Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D
3483. Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1
3484. Johannes Brahms: Klavier Konzert Nr. 2
3485. Johannes Brahms: The Hungarian Dances
3486. Johannes Brahms: Handel-Variationen
3487. Johannes Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem
3488. Anton Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 9 d-moll
3489. Frédéric Chopin: Piano Music of Chopin, Volume 3
3490. Frédéric Chopin: Preludes, Op. 28
3491. Frédéric Chopin: 24 Préludes Op. 28
3492. Frédéric Chopin: Polonaises
3493. Frédéric Chopin: Polonaises
3494. Frédéric Chopin/Manuel de Falla: Klavierkonzert Nr. 2 f-moll op. 21/Nächte in
spanischen Gärten
3495. Arcangelo Corelli: 4 Concerti Grossi
3496. Claude Debussy: La Mer/Nocturnes
3497. Claude Debussy: Piano Music
3498. Claude Debussy/Maurice Ravel: La Mer/Daphnis et Chloé
Is this thing staggering towards the finish line, or what? I now realize I should
have arranged everything in such a way that I'd finish with Neil Young; sitting at
the end of the alphabetical section, he would have been the perfect Rosebud to close
out the story of my 30 years as a record collector. I wasn't sure how long I'd keep
at this when I first got started, though, and I decided the only chance I had of sus-
taining my own interest was to get right into the core of the collection. Now, six
months later, I'm sitting here thinking, "Chopin...Chopin...Chopin..." (I also had
to finish writing report cards this past week, but it's not like I was otherwise
eager to resume)...There's a piece of Debussy music I love, not on any of the three
albums above (I don't think): "Preludes for Solo Piano," performed by Jeni Zaharieva.
It lasts about two minutes--it must be one prelude, unless it's a prelude to one of
the other preludes, or maybe it's an epilogue to the prelude that preceded the after-
word. I have it on Smithbooks Classical Classics, Volume 1, a Christmas giveaway you
once got at W.H. Smith and Cole's if you spent a certain amount. They came out with
a new one every Christmas for a few years in the '90s; I have four of them, which,
a few years after I first bought a CD player, still accounted for probably a quarter
of my CD collection...Joaquin Rodrigo makes me think of Joaquin Andujar, famous for
melting down in the 1985 World Series, and Anton Bruckner makes me think of Bill
Buckner, famous for melting down in the 1986 World Series. Isn't that the eeriest
thing you've ever heard?
________________________________________________________________________________
3499. Léo Delibes: Ballet Music from Sylvia and Coppélia
3500. Antonín Dvorák: Symphnony No. 9 in E Minor (Op. 95)
3501. Antonín Dvorák/Giuseppe Verdi: Streichquartett Nr. 10 Es-dur, op. 51/
Streichquartett e-moll
3502. Antonín Dvorák: Dumky, op. 90
3503. César Franck: Symfonie in d
3504. George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue/An American in Paris
3505. Edvard Grieg/Jean Sibelius: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Opus 16/Karelia Suite,
Opus 11
3506. Georg Friedrich Händel: Ouvertüren
3507. Franz Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerti
3508. Franz Joseph Haydn: Mass in Time of War
3509. Franz Joseph Haydn/Luigi Boccherini: Cello Concert in d, Op. 101/Cello Concert
in B
3510. Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etudes
3511. Franz Liszt: Klavierkonzerte
3512. Gustav Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 4
3513. Gustav Mahler: 4. Symphonie
3514. Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
3515. Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor
3516. Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor
3517. Felix Mendelssohn/Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in A/Symphony No. 4 in
D minor
3518. Felix Mendelssohn/Peter Tschaikowsky: Violin Concertos
My original estimate was 3500 LPs, and then partway through I revised that to 3,700;
the revised estimate is going to come in almost dead-on...This is the Woody Allen
subsection of classical: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" from Manhattan (I'm not sure
if Gershwin belongs here or not, but Leonard Bernstein conducts, so that's where
I've got him), and, in the same film, I think Mahler is one of the people consigned
to Michael Murphy and Diane Keaton's "Academy of the Overrated." I like Mahler, and
I like Dvorák's "New World Symphony." Onward.