# Favourite composers list with a completely objective and accurate method!



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Check your CD/LP/DVD shelf (MP3's and such do not apply). Count the number of discs that you have on each composer. If the number is shared, order the composers by the number of "items" that the discs are on. So, for example, a symphony cycle might have 5 discs but it's a single item. If, for another composer, you have bought 5 single discs separately, it means that you might be more interested in that composer, since you've done the actual purchase more times. All clear?

I'll present my own top ten list, with the number of discs and items, for the sake of clarity, but you don't have to do that, just post the top ten.

1. Wagner and Bruckner (both have 12 discs and 3 items)
2. Mahler (12 discs, 1 item)
3. Beethoven (10 discs, 4 items)
4. Brahms (9 discs, 5 items)
5. Schubert (8 discs, 6 items)
6. Sibelius (6 discs, 3 items)
7. R. Strauss (4 discs, 4 items)
8. Rachmaninov (4 discs, 3 items)
9. Liszt (4 discs, 2 items)


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I sort my record collection in acquisition order, so counting the real things is a task that would take forever!
But according to mu Record Database (which is long from up to date) these are the top ten:

The vast majority are discs with more than two composers, but here are the result of today's counting:

Gustav Mahler
Dmitri Shostakovich
Johann Sebastian Bach
Olivier Messiaen
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Sergei Rachmaninov
Sergei Prokofiev
Cesar Franck
Igor Stravinsky
Joseph Haydn

I'm a bit embarrassed to give the exact numbers, but none of the top ten equals less than 100 discs and items and the top two more than triple that... Collecting recorded music is an important pastime for me, the gentleman of pastimes would have a decent library of books, I fell the same about music!

/ptr


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Doesn't work, because I've spent time exploring music and composers I've decided aren't my favorites and seldom gone back. For instance, I have 1 1/2 Ring cycles, Die Meistersingers, Tristan, and a bunch of records of overtures, orchestral excerpts, Siegfried Idyll, etc. . . and frankly, I haven't listened to any of them in at least 25 years. Whereas you can fit the complete Mussorgsky on about 6 1/2 discs -- and I like him a lot better than Wagner.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

ptr said:


> The vast majority are discs with more than two composers, but here are the result of today's counting:


I counted so that if a single disc includes more than one composer, then each composer earns that disc (and that item). Should have mentioned that.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

GGluek said:


> Doesn't work, because I've spent time exploring music and composers I've decided aren't my favorites and seldom gone back. For instance, I have 1 1/2 Ring cycles, Die Meistersingers, Tristan, and a bunch of records of overtures, orchestral excerpts, Siegfried Idyll, etc. . . and frankly, I haven't listened to any of them in at least 25 years. Whereas you can fit the complete Mussorgsky on about 6 1/2 discs -- and I like him a lot better than Wagner.


Oh yeah, didn't think of that! But really, I'm the same as you, I keep my record collection more as a historical diary of my changing tastes than a sample of what I'm really into right now.


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