# Shortest 'full-length' CD?



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Excluding promotional discs, what is your shortest CD?

Mine must be Disc 2 in this pairing - Christopher Tye - 3 Masses on ASV









At only 26 minutes 5 seconds, I guess it will be hard to find a shorter one. Disc 1 is only 56.32, so the two together would only be 82 minutes long - is that still too long for one CD?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"Officially", 82 minutes is too long. Some players can't handle it.

Multi-CD sets often have one skimpy CD; sometimes it's unavoidable. 

Several releases of performances by the younger Pogorelich were only about 40 minutes or a bit longer.

The "original jacket" releases, duplicating LP record jackets and contents, are necessarily skimpy.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I remember when CDs first came out, you often got charged full price for 40-odd minutes, especially (I seem to remember) by the big labels like DG. Then labels like Naxos demonstrated that they could give you almost twice as much music for a third of the price AND often provide top-quality performances and recordings .... and I lost sympathy for the bandits!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Excluding promotional discs, what is your shortest CD?
> 
> Mine must be Disc 2 in this pairing - Christopher Tye - 3 Masses on ASV
> 
> ...


The official length a CD can carry is 80 minutes. Means sometimes the work has to be split. My set of Graffman reproduces the original LPs which means some very short playing times. However, nowadays the price tends to reflect the time not the number of CDs. Hence in a set like yours the company gives two CDs for the price of one.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

It's listed as a "CD SINGLE" on the front cover and on the disc inside, but the Cello Concerto by Andrzej Panufnik, with Rostropovich and the London Symphony under Hugh Wolff on NMC D010S is presently the shortest disc in my collection, at about 19 minutes.

It's not considered a full length disc, to be sure (though in size it's the same as any other regular CD disc), but I'm not sure what the rationale was when NMC issued the disc. Apparently there were more of these single work, short time discs from NMC, but I have only the one "Single CD" though I have several discs from NMC. Anyhow, it's priced between 5 and 10 clams at Amazon, so you don't get ripped off when you do buy it.

It's great for a quick (under 20 minute) listen. The music aint bad.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

I don't have this cd but I remember the Fanfare mentioning how short (about 25 minutes) it was although they also said that it was priced appropriately.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I know I have one or two in the twenty something minute range. Not sure what or where.
If it doesn't have at least 70 minutes these days, it had better be really special.
I have Carlos Kleiber conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Comes in around 32 minutes, I think. But it's Carlos Kleiber!!!


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

"Adagietto, From Mahler with Love" (GKS-1001) consists only of the Adagietto from the Mahler Symphony No. 5, LSO/Kaplan. CD TT: 7 min. 57 sec.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

There are many short classical CDs, but one of the most notorious was by Phillips back in 1982, Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cond. Seiji Ozawa. At the time of this production, the CD format was very new, and the producers and marketers were still trying to come to grips with it. The CD is 33:43, and it was marketed as a full length CD. I bought it at the time, because I had heard good things about Joseph Silverstein on the violin, and was anxious to hear his performance. In any case, the magazines and reader responses were very critical of the shortness of the CD (this was long before the internet, if you can conceive of such a thing).


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

Not sure what the shortest I own in the classical realm is, but Spiritual Unity by Albert Ayler is a little under 30 min on CD.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I haven't got any of what can be called CD singles (I think Nonsuch and ECM have issued quite a few). I'm also disregarding any discs with short running times which are conclusions to a longer work. The three stand-alones that spring to mind are a disc of Korngold's lieder on Acanta, a disc of Hindemith's two string trios on the cpo label - both of which last for about 45 minutes each - and a recording on EMI by Jochum/LSO of Beethoven's symphony no. 6 which is about 42 minutes long.

In the rock world it probably would have been early albums by the Ramones and the Byrds which originally ran for less than 30 minutes each but the CDs I have of these are padded out with bonus material.


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

This one last 12 minutes 56 seconds.









I guess you won't find anything shorter.


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## Botec (Jan 14, 2011)

I think the shortest I have is Nicolas Bacri's Une Prière, on RCA, at 22.5 minutes. I paid less than £5 for it, but I didn't realise it was so brief when I placed the order.

DG finally re-released the Kleiber Beethoven 5th coupled with his 7th about 15 minutes after I bit the bullet and purchased the short disc at full price (back in 1995, I believe), so you can all thank me.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Alfacharger said:


> I don't have this cd but I remember the Fanfare mentioning how short (about 25 minutes) it was although they also said that it was priced appropriately.


I have it and it's 25min 04sec, possibly my shorter CD
I don't remember how much I paid for it.


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2014)

Those timings are three inch CD timings.

I have a lot of those, but they do require special treatment--a player with a center pin is best. (A player with a center pin is probably just best period. More stable.) Or a player with a three inch tray, too. Or a five inch adapter ring, which is the worst option. Some players, especially slot loading machines, complain bitterly about having to spin those adapter rings in their close tolerance innards.

I have a lot of those "singles," too. The Panufnik gets a lot of play time, so its timing is really not an issue. (If you pay 20 dollars for a CD and play it twice, each play has cost you ten dollars. Four times? Five dollars a play. Play it enough, and any CD, no matter how long or how short, will eventually be close to free.)

I think my shortest "full length" CD is _Parallel Lives Conducts Beethoven's Hammerklavier,_ which is around 34 minutes. But it's some of my favorite 34 minutes, so it gets a lot of play time, too. I think mine has cost me so far about a quarter a listen. I paid 16.99 USD for my copy of it and never regretted it.


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

The first one that came to my mind was Weezer's Green Album. It's about 28 minutes long.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Two springs to mind :
Stravinsky : The rite of spring/ Muti ( 33 minutes)
Beethoven: Piano concerto 5, Radu Lupu (less than 40 minutes)


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

This CD is 12:56 long. Yes, you read correctly : 12 minutes and 56 seconds.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

38:14, but it's worth every second of it! Best interpretation + best recording of Chandos


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

worov said:


> This CD is 12:56 long. Yes, you read correctly : 12 minutes and 56 seconds.


in fairness - it says clearly 'CD Single' in the top right-hand corner .... so it isn't pretending to be a 'full-length CD'


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The shortest classical CD I can recall is Kleiber's Beethoven Symphony #5, originally issued alone by DG. About 33 minutes. DG later found a conscience and now includes the 7th on the same CD!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Some of the CDs in the Sony boxes are short as they are reproductions of the LP material.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I remember when CDs first came in like it was yesterday. I had become so sick and tired of dealing with LPs- making sure the needle wasn't worn, using an electronic tick-and-pop remover, dealing with 'wow and flutter', never being able to be sure whether the problem was with the LPs (ie. bad vinyl, warped disks due to being stored incorrectly) or the electronic equipment and so on.

Now here were these CDs that had pristine sound EXCEPT there was a problem: they cost twice as much as LPs and even though they had the capacity for 74-76 minutes or so (80 minutes came later), only 1/2 to 2/3 of it was being used. Initially, the CDs were straight transfers from previous master tapes (ie. AAD where there was no re-mastering) using the same timing as the original LPs or they were new digital recordings (DDD) that often had shrill high-ends because the same microphones were being used for digital recordings as had been used for analog. These microphones had been manufactured with the purpose of accentuating the high end to make up for vinyl's limitations. CDs didn't have those limitations so the sound coming from those microphones was far too bright with a soaring high-end.

The thing is that even the new DDD CDs had much the same timings as if they were vinyl records, but, again, at twice the price of vinyl. Of course, that worked for the record companies who have to pay for orchestra time. The only CD that I can remember in those first 2-3 years that used the full capacity of the CD was Beethoven's Ninth and that wasn't unexpected because that symphony had possibly had something to do with the decision about what the capacity of CDs would be in the first place.

Then came the wave of remastered reissues (ADD). The re-mastering was hyped as a big selling point and there's no doubt that it benefited a number of classic recordings from the stereo recordings of the late 1950s and all 1960s where tape hiss, tape wear and bad splces were sometimes an issue. But the fact was that most remastering was not that expensive to do and the record companies were quite happy to put these out as CDs with the same timing as the vinyl records. As I remember, it wasn't until around after 1990 that the companies started filling up the CDs and the prices started coming down with some bargain brands.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

^^^ yes, I remember the same frustrations about timings

I think your chronology is correct. I speculate that in the early days, the timings were the same because the record companies tended to issue the same release in three different formats - LP, tape and CD. Tape and CD had the capacity to accommodate longer recordings, but this capacity was rarely utilised to the full because of the restrictions of LPs. Once the market for LPs started to decline and newer record companies started releasing fuller CDs (and often only on CD), then others quickly followed suit. At first, the fuller CDs were compilations of earlier recordings that were released on CD from the back catalogue and then newer releases started to fill up too.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Some of the CDs in the Sony boxes are short as they are reproductions of the LP material.


That's because they want to stay as much as possible to the authentic L.P.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

In my classical collection I now realise that, at 38 minutes and 32 seconds, it could well be this:


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, 90th birthday collection disk 11 Bruckner symphony 8 last movement 22.19. Has only the last movement.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> As I remember, it wasn't until around after 1990 that the companies started filling up the CDs and the prices started coming down with some bargain brands.


I do have a number of late 1980s CDs from both major labels and ultra budget labels that have ~60-70 minutes on there so they must have heard the call to fill up those discs more. But, yes, many CDs from the formats earliest years are pretty short. I can't say off the top of my head which is my shortest filled CD. I have some ultra budget Pilz Baroque CDs with various composers on them that are probably in the 40 minute range. I also have an 1984 RCA Prokofiev Symphony #5 CD that, like the Chandos Jansons one mentioned earlier, is quite short.

On the other end of the spectrum, I do have one or two CDs that go over the 80 minute mark. The one that jumps to mind immediately is a Respighi CD from Chandos. Perhaps the record is this CD Bruckner Symphony #3 CD from the Gramola label conducted by Remy Ballot. At 89:06, it's sure to not work with some early CD players!


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Adams, "On the Transmigration of Souls" clocks in at about 25 minutes.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

A bit off topic; but as suggested by DaveM the time capacity of the CD was designed to be able to include the entire Beethoven Ninth Symphony, about 74 minutes. (I believe it was at the insistence of Sony's Akio Morita.) What is forgotten is that when Columbia Records introduced the LP in 1948, the LP was specifically designed to be able to include the entire Beethoven Eroica Symphony, 25 minutes a side. I always thought this was a bit strange because it was a rare LP that didn't split the funeral march between sides.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

geralmar said:


> A bit off topic; but as suggested by DaveM the time capacity of the CD was designed to be able to include the entire Beethoven Ninth Symphony, about 74 minutes.


It should be noted that the validity of the Furtwangler Beethoven 9th story has been disputed by employees of the CD's other co-founder, Philips. Basically the argument is that Philips already had the capability to make smaller sized CDs based on the expectations of what the CD specs would be. Sony did not and did not want to lose CD manufacturing marketshare to Philips and their PolyGram subsidiary. Thus, some sort of excuse was concocted by Sony that the CD needed to hold Furtwangler's Beethoven 9th in order to cause the CD to grow to it's current size and thus nullify Philips' business advantage. 
Here's a couple of links on the matter:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141104160224/http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/beethoven.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20071012121905/http://ferguscassidy.ie/ethos-23-Oct-2005.html


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