David Rothstein:

>In general I think it is best to obtain a complete set of important works
>maybe for the simple reason of the shame to be without these works in your
>home.

What shame? Shame to whom? Moreover, if I had to be with a complete set
of everything on which there is a fairly common consensus in musical
circles that they're important, why not go for the complete Webern, Varese,
Messiaen to name just three examples. These alle exist in budgetted
editions. My point is that in many cases the availability of "complete"
sets may lead to the demand for them instead of the reverse thing.

>I for one couldn't imagine being without a complete set of Beethoven,
>Bruckner or Mahler symphonies, so I bought the Klemperer, Jochum, Kubelik
>sets (respectively) taking into account budget prices.
>
>I then of course "beefed" up the collection with many other performances
>and interpretations.

Good choices in any case IMHO. But please explain what MUSICAL purpose you
served by buying first complete sets and then deciding to "beef up".

>Peter Golstein wrote:

>Yes, but those are some of the best impulses! At various times in my life,
>I have listened to the integral Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn (at least those
>available on record), Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Verdi, and Bartok. The
>insight you get into the development of individual composers, and their
>relationship to those that preceded them, is priceless. As a hopeless
>reader/studier/analyzer (see the .edu at the end of my email address), I
>get as much pleasure from that knowledge as from the music itself.

Guess you must be quite an expert on the above mentioned names. A quick
calculation reveals that to listen to only a part of Haydn's oeuvre, say
the 104 symphonies (each lasting a minimum of 25 minutes on average), that
would mean at least 25 * 104 = 2600 minutes or some 44 hours. Since it is
physically necessary to spread this out (one cannot absorb such a lot of
impressions without considerable breaks and most of us do other things
besides listening to Haydn symphonies) you would have to limit yourself to,
say, 3 hours a day. One thus would spend some 3 weeks devoted only and only
to Haydn symphonies. For me, a big Haydn freak, something that would put me
off for life. It's just too much if you eat a whole box of candy in one
shot.  Also, listening to one or two composers exclusively will not give a
big insight into the realtion with other composers that you do not listen
to.

And finally Satoshi Akima, as pinpoint as always:

>Box sets are sometimes like packaged tours - they don't really allow you
>to 'live' with the music.

Truly spoken. IMHO getting to know and love classical music is in many
cases a ripening process.  The truly great music will reveal itself only in
full after frequent re-listening, although falling in love at first sight
has been known to happen. It is a mark of our hastened time that we do not
have the patience for that process. Don't go for boxed sets unless for a
special reason (like being a scholar like Peter). The great masterworks by
Mozart will always be available, and discount opportunities will always
come up, so what's the rush? I maintain my position that buying complete
editions is in most cases a symptome of non-musical motives and therefore
irrelevant for the appreciation of pure musical phenomena.

regards, Jos