Thought this might be of interest...knowing Dave, he probably already has
a pointer for it at classical.net
As many of you know, Henry Fogel has an addiction - collecting
recordings. Over a period of years, Henry and his son Karl have
catalogued that collection in a database and created a website
to make this catalogue available to all. Henry has generously
offered to let the League share this information with you. The
site is www.henrysrecords.org and it comes complete with easy
to follow instructions.
This database is an extraordinary resource of timings of the
orchestral literature (as well as databases for chamber and
instrumental music, operas, and songs). You can search for,
say, Brahms Symphony No. 2 and it will show all of Henry's
recordings of that work - and they come up in order of timings
from the quickest to slowest. To give you an idea of the scope
of this database, it is the only place, for instance, that you
will find timings for all 27 of Nikolai Miaskovsky's symphonies!
There are additional ways to use it as a programming tool - for
example, if you need a work between 12 and 15 minutes long, you
can enter that and it will give you an alphabetical listing of
all pieces of that length. Or, you can search by nationality
(American, Scandinavian, French, etc.) and you can combine fields
- all American works between 10 and 15 minutes, for instance.
Henry hopes that you will find this site to be of value in your
program planning, and hopes you will share it with your staff
and your conductor(s). If you find errors, please feel free to
e-mail corrections to him or to his son Karl (who has a e-mail
link on the site), and they will make corrections annually. As
Henry's collection continues to grow, the database will be updated
accordingly.
If you were aware of the earlier version of the database, you
will find the current incarnation faster and easier to use because
of enhancements that Karl has made. If you have further suggestions
for improvements, please feel free to let Henry know.
Jack McAuliffe
Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
American Symphony Orchestra League
212-262-5161 x234
Karl
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