# The problem of multiple releases



## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Trying to buy a decent recording of The Carnival of the Animals, I'm struck (again) by the difficulty of finding the date of recording. Amazon puts the date of release, but that so often misleads where multiple re-releases of the same recording have occurred.

Any tips on where to go to find these things out? Or is this something that everyone has experienced and resigned to put up with?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Discogs does not list recording years either, but I find their info on release date far more reliable than Amazon.

Example.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Discogs can be a good source; otherwise one just has to search. There are some pretty good online discographies but of course they cover only some repertoire and not everything.
Unless there is the danger of confusion among similar recordings (e.g. Karajan + Berliner Philharmoniker), I am usually not that concerned about the exact recording date.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Arkivmusic sometimes has the information.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> Discogs can be a good source; otherwise one just has to search. There are some pretty good online discographies but of course they cover only some repertoire and not everything.
> Unless there is the danger of confusion among similar recordings (e.g. Karajan + Berliner Philharmoniker), I am usually not that concerned about the exact recording date.


Check the discographies of specific conductors and performers. unfortunately, this can be a bit of hit-and-miss.

The recording date is extremely important to me - I like to know who is playing on the recordings....for years, I wished that record companies would supply a personnel list for their recordings...fortunately some orchestras began to do this starting in the 90s or so....Chicago began including personnel rosters with their recordings...I think some other ensembles may follow suit...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Wiki has a list of recordings by year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carnival_of_the_Animals But I doubt this is anywhere near complete. Maybe you can try matching them up with releases at Discogs? I have a cheap Sony CD with a generous amount of music at 75 minutes. Includes the organ symphony, Carnival, and Dance Macabre. Sound is listenable but not great. I'm pretty sure it's Ormandy / Philadelphia.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Discogs is my suggestion, too.

I've added over a thousand classical discs to the Discogs database. Discogs is pretty good with pop/rock and even jazz, but the classical listings just a few years back were spotty at best. There are some posters who concentrate on adding to the classical listings, and in the past couple of years things have improved for classical listings.

The date issue is a problem at Discogs. Though there is an entry for "Date", it is supposed to be the release date of the record or disc. This often gets confused with both recording dates and copyright dates. And often it is simply let blank.

I and others try, when possible, to add recording data in the "Notes" section of the Discogs release. Don't trust the "Date" entry at Discogs to be valid for recording date. It likely isn't. Rather, check the "Notes" section to see if the submitting poster entered that information, which is often found on the disc documentation.

I have recently been adding the Karel Ancerl Gold Edition discs that were missing at Discogs. And also adding to those that needed additional information. One of the items I added to each of the some two dozen or so I've worked on has been the date of recording. Compilations such as these discs are often have more than a single recording date, one for each of the selected works. One might look at the Discogs "Date" and see a date that does not fit any of five works on the disc, as far as recording date goes. So let that be a caveat. Remember to check the "Notes" information at Discogs for possible recording dates.

If you are ambitious and find a lot of your discs are not yet listed at Discogs, perhaps you'll sign on and help to add the information for the discs to the database. It's a great place to catalog one's own collection, and it can make it quite easy, with Discog's cross indexing feature, to find exactly what one has in a collection -- title-wise, artist, performer, etc. I use the feature all the time. And included cover art and scans of back sleeves and booklet pages, etc. is a real plus.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Tangential to the original post, but a really good modern The Carnival of the Animals recorded just a few years ago (I think 2019) is part of a three CD cycle of Saint-Saens major orchestral works by the the Utah Symphony/Fischer.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Heck148 said:


> The recording date is extremely important to me - I like to know who is playing on the recordings....for years, I wished that record companies would supply a personnel list for their recordings...fortunately some orchestras began to do this starting in the 90s or so....Chicago began including personnel rosters with their recordings...I think some other ensembles may follow suit...


Once one has a recording as a physical disc, the recording date is usually noted somewhere. Not always, it was more rare with LPs that sometimes would have no recording date, some cheapo CDs and it could also sometimes be wrong. This is admittedly annoying but overall I don't think it is a big deal.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> Once one has a recording as a physical disc, the recording date is usually noted somewhere. Not always, it was more rare with LPs that sometimes would have no recording date, some cheapo CDs and it could also sometimes be wrong. This is admittedly annoying but overall I don't think it is a big deal.


Yes, the recording date is indeed helpful and most CDs include that information....sometimes, tho you only get the original release date, which may occur well after the actual recording was made...that is not esp helpful....


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Forster said:


> Trying to buy a decent recording of The Carnival of the Animals, I'm struck (again) by the difficulty of finding the date of recording. Amazon puts the date of release, but that so often misleads where multiple re-releases of the same recording have occurred.
> 
> Any tips on where to go to find these things out? Or is this something that everyone has experienced and resigned to put up with?


I find discogs is the best source overall, but its dates are sometimes wrong. Or missing. For anything American, the Library of Congress will have accurate information.


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