# The Worst CD Compilation of Incompatible Works Award



## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

We all have some cd's in our collection that make one think "what were they thinking/smoking when they put this together?"

An old favorite of mine is the RCA Living Stereo release which for some inexplicable reason combined Monteux' Chicago Sacre du Printemps with Franck's Symphony in D minor. It's a nicely filled cd and of course the performances are legendary... but why? It's like putting chocolate sauce on asparagus, like Strauss famously said. Or putting a thatched roof on a Greek temple. Why not combining Monteux' Franck with some other French stuff, or Stravinsky with another modernist work? This way it looks like they started the Living Stereo re-issues, and at the end of the road they had these two "shop daughters" left which left them no choice but combining them on one cd.

But we can go worse, way worse. Take a look at this.









Granted, using Membran boxes as examples is cheating, those are just piles of royalty-free junk (often very nice junk but still) more or less randomly tossed onto cd's, and if you're lucky there's some faint logic behind the distribution.
But just imagine listening to Alan Berg's Violin Concerto, reaching the emotionally shattering end, forgetting to press the pause button, and then being treated to what got to be the most inappropriate jollity ever, the opening of Darius Milhaud's "le Boeuf sur le Toit", blasting through your speakers or headphones.

So what do you consider the most incompatible masterpieces that ever tried to elbow each other out of their shared disk space?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

What one person considers incompatible another person might consider a fine pairing.

Using the example above, I have no problem with Stravinsky paired with Franck - both are wonderful compositions. 

What does bother me is a recording having a work I love along with a work I have no interest in hearing again - could well be half a recording shot to hell.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Seattle Symphony had a "I get what they were going for but this doesn't work at all" disc of Gershwin, Ives and Carter. It's a fine idea to demonstrate the range of American composers, but who is in the mood to listen to Gershwin, Ives and Carter in order?

That sort of thing can be done well but I think there needs to be a musical reason, not just a "three really different Americans" one- the Levit set of Goldbergs/Diabelli/The People United Will Never Be Defeated! was a great set for comparing works similar in form but in completely different styles, and was Record of the Year from a few publications.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Bulldog said:


> Using the example above, I have no problem with Stravinsky paired with Franck - both are wonderful compositions.


My bad, I forgot mentioning the main reason why this coupling doesn't work in this particular case, at least for me.
Monteux' Franck is one of the most exciting versions on record - while his Chicago Sacre is surprisingly mellow, impressionist, soft-edged. So you've got the surreal experience of Franck out-muscling Stravinsky on this record. I guess coupling both works could be a success if there was a big enough contrast between the warm romantic sounds of Franck and the hard-hitting modernist of Stravinsky, but here, it's just... weird.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

RobertJTh said:


> But just imagine listening to Alan Berg's Violin Concerto, reaching the emotionally shattering end, forgetting to press the pause button, and then being treated to what got to be the most inappropriate jollity ever, the opening of Darius Milhaud's "le Boeuf sur le Toit", blasting through your speakers or headphones.


Pfffft. What you don't know is that they _were_ going to follow Berg with Jaques Offenbach's Can-Can. The Milhaud was a compromise.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I don't mind odd compilations of pieces, provided that they're at least complete works ... the problem is first of all CDs with excerpts of works, sometimes by the same soloist, sometimes with varying soloists. Sometimes you see it in debut CDs. I don't understand how people are supposed to pay a good deal of money for such stuff, and I never buy it.

Here's just one, bizarre example: (the Shostakovich quartet is also incomplete, but there's about 20 minutes from that work's ~34 minutes)


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

To be fair, the Milhaud piece wasn't really compatible with any of other works on there particularly, and I guess it had to go somewhere. At least they got the century correct.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

RobertJTh said:


> My bad, I forgot mentioning the main reason why this coupling doesn't work in this particular case, at least for me.
> Monteux' Franck is one of the most exciting versions on record - while his Chicago Sacre is surprisingly mellow, impressionist, soft-edged. So you've got the surreal experience of Franck out-muscling Stravinsky on this record. I guess coupling both works could be a success if there was a big enough contrast between the warm romantic sounds of Franck and the hard-hitting modernist of Stravinsky, but here, it's just... weird.


I agree with this and with the general premise of the the thread. However, as a Monteux fan this coupling is of interest. They both feature him with the CSO, in stereo. The Franck is considered possibly the greatest recording of that work and while personally I agree with your opinion of this La Sacre, any Monteux led La Sacre is of interest due to his status as the first conductor. I would absolutely be interested in the disc for these reasons . Also I tend now to burn CDs to a server and generally not be listening to the two works consecutively; people listening to CDs have the option of hitting stop or pause on the remote. I do think that it is wise to place a long, perhaps 10 second pause on CDs between works (BIS is good about this) to prevent the glaring juxtaposition between emotionally incompatible works.
On the general subject, I can remember several CDs or lps that would follow Tchaikovsky Pathetique with Rimsky Korsakoff Capriccio Italian. Nothing like a good depressive Slavic wallow being erased by a rousing cheerful blast


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_"Bruckner's superb choral works unfortunately tend to be eclipsed by his own symphonies; ditto Michael Haydn by his famous brother. In this fine coupling, both enjoy their deserved moment in the spotlight in polished, passionate performances."_
- BBC Music Magazine, July 2021, ★★★★☆


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