# Choosing what to buy (or sample)



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

(This is something I have been wondering so I searched the site and didn't find a thread addressing it directly. Apologies if I missed something.) Anyway, I wonder how you all choose what recordings to buy (or even invest significant time in)? How do you even hear about a record that you might like?

Decades ago I used to read lots of professional reviews and use them to choose which recording of a work to go for. I got to know and trust some critics over others but often searched for multiple reviews of the same record before choosing. These days this is not so easy - there are fewer professional critics and reviewing recordings seems a less central activity for those who are active. But what has replaced them?

I do look at customer reviews on the Amazon sites but, aside from a few reviewers who seem to have similar taste to me, do not find them at all useful or reliable and I generally ignore them. I do tend to trust enthusiasm more than criticism as if someone has loved something then it must surely have something going for it. And I certainly need to know that the reviewer has experienced many recordings of the work (or many similar works for newer music). But none of that is at all reliable and is only marginally helpful.

Recommendations from a site like this can be useful and I do sometimes follow up on them.

There are a few performers who I "trust" or find invariably interesting but only a few.

I try sampling recordings (whole recordings) on Spotify or You Tube but I don't find that a good way to "relax into" a performance. It puts me in the frame of mind of someone who wants to make a decision before I have lived with the recording. I don't find I choose well based on this method.

Sampling short bursts doesn't work for me at all. It gives me a perception that I nearly always find wrong. It is OK to do a rough check on sound quality of historical recordings.

Marketing and announcements of issues is sometimes hard to ignore but is obviously not reliable or even informative. 

But I do get by. How do you all find out about recordings and then choose which to go for?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Current Listening and Recent Purchases can both be helpful.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

After 30 years of collecting CDs, I do not *need* anything, especially since I do not go for multiple versions of the same work(s) - with a few exceptions. So I focus on bargains to further explore beyond my collection. Thrift stores, and special offers by amazon.de and JPC.


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> (This is something I have been wondering so I searched the site and didn't find a thread addressing it directly. Apologies if I missed something.) Anyway, I wonder how you all choose what recordings to buy (or even invest significant time in)? How do you even hear about a record that you might like?
> 
> Decades ago I used to read lots of professional reviews and use them to choose which recording of a work to go for. I got to know and trust some critics over others but often searched for multiple reviews of the same record before choosing. These days this is not so easy - there are fewer professional critics and reviewing recordings seems a less central activity for those who are active. But what has replaced them?
> 
> ...


Unfortunately, the some of the methods I use are the ones you reject. I quite often sample recordings on Spotify, usually a complete work, then either reject it, add it to my library for future listenings but not purchase or go ahead and purchase it.

I have a constant stream of marketing announcements in my mailbox and I know from experience which to ignore. Some companies such as Chandos, Hyperion, MDT and Presto I usually follow up with further investigation. Amazon emails usually contain too much chaff and I rarely bother with them.

I look at eclassical and Chandos for their daily bargains and special offers and also new releases.

I regularly listen to BBC Radio 3 Record Review (just been doing so) for recommendations and news about new recordings. Usually a complete work is played as 'record of the week'.

Then there is this forum, a source of numerous recommendations. I used to enjoy browsing in record shops but that, alas, is no longer an option for me.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I think there was another thread called something like the current TC recommended recordings where members gave their choices for standard rep.
I wouldn’t mind starting a newer thread on the same topic. After all, new recordings are constantly released, and then others deleted or moved to download status only.. I just bought the new recording of Shostakovich Fifth and the Barber Adagio, with Honeck and the Pittsburgh Orchestra. I surely didn’t need another recording of either work but it’s a superb disc with incredibly beautiful playing.
It can be a gargantuan project, but perhaps one Composer at a time?


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Are thrift shop purchases really a good way to explore beyond your collection? My local charity shop had a surprisingly large number of "reasonable looking" CDs going 4 for £1 recently. So I bought several, but it was (mostly) a bad investment as (mostly) they didn't sound very good!. 

Checking in my guides, these poor charity choices were often not mentioned, or given a very lukewarm review. At least this tells me the guides can be quite useful. 

I tend to choose using the main guidebooks (Penguin, Gramophone, Third Ear, ....) 

On bargain purchases what has worked well, recently, is buying CDs for about £1 at large scale sellers online, paying close attention to my guides, and what I like already. Example, I bought a CD of the Aurora quartet playing Mendelssohn string quartets for £1, because (a) I love Mendelssohn's symphonies (b) Penguin give them a key and **** (c) I like string quartets. This, and similar purchases, have worked out well.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Timely! I’m on my way now to Goodwill to donate some stuff and thought I would browse their offerings....will report back.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

TalkClassical has been an invaluable resource for me. There are numerous threads on almost every major work by most composers where some very knowledgeable listeners have given some excellent recommendations of various performances over the years. I also want to give a huge shout out to the TC user Trout for his Recommended recordings list, which he has put together from reading these threads and coming up with a more systematic approach. As a starting point I find it's hard to go wrong with his lists!

Trout's Recommended Recordings Intro and Entry Links

If it's a work I'm totally unfamiliar with or have no recordings of, and it doesn't make Trout's list I'll often do a google search for "best recording of...", and this will often lead me to lists of critical favorites, or discussions in Google groups, or again to threads on this message board or similar forums. Once I have kind of narrowed it down to a few prime contenders I will usually start reading professional reviews to get some more in-depth thoughts, and where possible sampling and comparing them on Spotify or Youtube.

BBC's Building a Library is also a useful tool, although I find I often disagree with their overall selection it does offer a good overview and discussion of various recordings.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Taggart said:


> Current Listening and Recent Purchases can both be helpful.


Yes they can. But I would like it if more posters gave us a sentence or two on what they thought of the record.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I used to rely on guides like Penguin, Gramophone, Good CD Guide, and NPR, since stores didn’t allow sampling before, and ended up buying more versions than I would have liked to get the one or two I most liked. I ended up with 11 versions of a few works, most of which I don’t listen to anymore. There are some versions that no guide offers as prime recommendation that I find are the best interpretatively (you are trusting someone else’s ears other than your own). 

People have different ways of listening, and look for different things. Bernstein is a conductor who is able to communicate to me when I’m unfamilar with the work, but once I get familar, I never listen to his versions anymore.

By sampling, or better yet, listening to the whole works on Spotify or youtube yourself, I can bypass those buying mistakes.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Biffo said:


> I have a constant stream of marketing announcements in my mailbox and I know from experience which to ignore. Some companies such as Chandos, Hyperion, MDT and Presto I usually follow up with further investigation. Amazon emails usually contain too much chaff and I rarely bother with them.


Presto put some effort into reviewing and I am sometimes tempted by their recommendations of new records. But I shouldn't be because they are only trying to sell me something! The problem is that they don't put things into context. I can believe that x and y have made a good record of z but what I really want to know is how it compares with all the older versions of z that are already out there. I want to know if the new offering will tell me something new about z or sounds better than it ever has. They usually don't even compare different versions of the piece by the same performer. An example was Lisa Batiashvili's second (although she is still young) recording of the Sibelius violin concerto. It wouldn't have been that hard to point to the very considerable differences between the two accounts.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Mal said:


> Are thrift shop purchases really a good way to explore beyond your collection?


I mainly pick up organ CDs, usually on small (local) labels, played on organs from the neighbourhood. Kampen is in the Dutch bible belt and CDs like that are popular with the older generations, and hence often end up eventually in thrift stores.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> By sampling, or better yet, listening to the whole works on Spotify or youtube yourself, I can bypass those buying mistakes.


But the OP says, "I try sampling recordings (whole recordings) on Spotify or You Tube but I don't find that a good way to "relax into" a performance. It puts me in the frame of mind of someone who wants to make a decision before I have lived with the recording. I don't find I choose well based on this method."

But, as you say, the guides often aren't helpful. I find them a good starting place, but their first (or fifth...) recommendation isn't always "the one".

Maybe one approach would be make Spotify your main way of listening, so you are not in a "sampling" frame of mind, but are "listening properly". Then use the guides to make a preliminary choice. I did this with Penguin who recommended Rattle/CBSO for Mahler Symphony 3, but I didn't get on with it all. Fortunately, rough guide recommended Horenstein/LSO, and that was the one!

But in listening to these I wasn't sampling, I was on Spotify Premium using a good streamer, and I was listening as I do with CDs. (Nice cup of tea, evening cleared for full on Mahler, wanting to make this "my recording", not just sampling...) I do like my CD collection so I just signed up for 3 months of Spotify at a time, and then bought CDs the rest of the year - including Horenstein/LS0, which sounded even better on CD.

So if you get into the right frame of mind maybe Spotify/utube can work.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Presto put some effort into reviewing and I am sometimes tempted by their recommendations of new records. But I shouldn't be because they are only trying to sell me something!


It's worse than that, they want to sell you the same thing twice, or eleven times. The magazine/book critics can't be fully trusted either, maybe a relative is playing in the orchestra, or they want to get invited to the best parties, or they want to get in with other critics, so they all praise something dire. It's the only explanation I have for several recommendations I've found in my guidebooks. If i complain they will only mutter "subjectivity", and that's difficult to argue against.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

Like Art Rock, I don't need to acquire any more material because I already have more than enough to meet my listening needs. That's thanks to my parents who have done all the work for me, and handed me their entire classical selection (well over 2000 CDs) "on a plate" in the form of a hard disk copy.

But I still like to buy an occasional CD or download when I spot something that interests me. It's usually a HIP version of something I already have. For inspiration I use several main sources that are inter-related.

I like to listen to the BBC's weekly Radio 3 programme "Record Review". They come up with lots of useful information on new recordings, but sometimes they review the best available which often involves recommending some older versions.

Another main source is Arkiv Music. It's a gold mine of useful information on composers' main works (most number of versions being a good proxy) plus all the rest if you're interested. I thought everybody knew about this, as it is often referred to.

For recommended versions of particular works I invariably rely upon the reviews given in Presto Classical.

Before buying anything I usually try to sample it using Spotify. If I want to buy something I go back to Presto, and normally acquire a download.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I learn about new music and recordings from the following:

KBAQ radio (available online, or choose your own favorite classical music station)
Arkiv Music emails - about six spotlighted recordings each Friday
Current Listening and New Releases threads here on TC, plus various other threads in Classical Music Discussion and Composer Guestbooks
Symphony schedules - if it's good enough to play live and charge money for, there may be something good in the music
YouTube - channels like ClassicalVault and SuperTheseus have a variety of great performances, and some of the current orchestras also have channels. When I was first starting out, I would search for a piece and then pick a recording with a view count in the Top 5. This way, I learned which popular conductors, orchestras, and soloists I connected to the most and which I didn't.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I usually go with reckless impulse....point and click "Buy now" 
:lol:


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_How do you all find out about recordings and then choose which to go for? _

I subscribe to Fanfare and American Record Guide. Both can be read online by subscribers for people that choose to do it that way. Fanfare also has a searchable e-library of all their reviews going back to 1989.

BBC Music Magazine had such a library for a time but I think it's gone now. You can sometimes find reviews of old recordings by searching Gramophone's website. I would not recommend either of the latter two magazines though BBC Music gives subscribers a CD of complete performances with every issue. That would probably be helpful for greenhorns.

About seeking ... once you know what you like and want it isn't hard. After a half-century I don't need to experiment; I can usually tell if something is interesting enough to add to my collection by reading about it. If there are any questions I find a sound byte online somewhere or, if it's been around long enough, listen on YouTube.

I should add this works best for relatively unusual or rarely recorded repertoire. For anything with dozens of recordings, making that effort seems like hair-splitting to me.

Even though I still subscribe to two magazines I've found that reading reviews is fun but fairly useless as a prospective buying tool. People's opinions are just like yours regardless of how many recordings they've heard or how long they've been at it. You might find someone whose taste you match up with occasionally if you're lucky but it won't work all the time.

A better rule about reviews is, if everyone likes it, there's probably something in it you might like. But if you read two reviews and they are split, that should be a red flag unless there's something about it you know appeals to your sensibility.

You have to rely on your own instinct and knowledge of your listening desires. I make it a point to never buy anything if there's any question I will like it and want to retain it.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Sonata said:


> I usually go with reckless impulse....point and click "Buy now"
> :lol:


That's the spirit, one only live once. :angel:


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## Vahe Sahakian (Mar 9, 2018)

After 60 years of collecting which started at the end of 78rpm's then mono LP's followed by stereo LP's and more recently CD's and now the hi-rez SACD's I have been switching and updating formats trying to keep up with the latest, today I am primarily digging into less performed works but I am also buying multiple versions of same works that I admire, I have tons of Mahler/Bruckner symphonies, one thing that I have not changed over years is staying with physical discs, downloading/streaming is not for me.
I subscribe to Fanfare which is a good resource but like everything else one needs to become familiar with the personal tastes of each reviewer and their preferences before taking their recommendations seriously.
I have given up vinyl completely, every time that I upgrade my playback system the more resolving system usually gives me more surface noise along with clicks and pops, I want to hear music not noise. If I could only figure out how to get rid of my massive vinyl collection, it is very hard to find folks interested in classical these dayts.
Today I am buying more solo piano and organ recordings, a major shift from violin performances that attracted me years ago.


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