To buy or not to buy?

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

A scattergun approach is the only one that works. Unfortunately.

Agreed.  I've found that problems can be mitigated somewhat by a.) being more judicious in what I buy, and b.) the fact that my tastes, as Agatha Christie might say, are catholic.  I have duds, but generally speaking I try to find something in each piece to enjoy.  It's rare that I have an entire disc to write off at once.

Having but recently been a poor student, price is my main benchmark for making a purchase.  I do most of my in-person purchasing at used book and CD stores, so I'm lucky in that I can set a low price point per disc.  No higher than, say, $8 unless there are mitigating factors.  After that it becomes harder to define; usually I'll set aside things by people I've read about, but not listened to.  Obscure instruments help a lot, as do interesting countries...the latter especially may cause me to break the price point by quite a bit.  I tend to look for composers within a certain timeframe - classical and Romantic, mostly, though I'll accept a lot of 20th-century stuff, too.  Buying used means that I can check liner notes, too; I look for turn-offs, like "reminiscent of Webern", "Stockhausen", "aleatoric", "electroacoustic" - not my bag.  Genre doesn't matter, unless it's solo stuff.  And even then, on occasion I'll throw a disc onto the pile because I know it'll meet my needs at some point.

I used to be a much less judicious purchaser.  Since I've begun being more careful, I find that the quality of the stuff I buy has gone up noticeably, though I remain as adventurous as ever.  That being said, I've bought a lot of things used that I wouldn't buy new, for the simple reason that they'd be too expensive.  (Like the time I bought Madetoja's The Ostrobothnians for $12.  I have salivated over that opera for years, and it did not dissapoint.  But the cheapest copy at Amazon was something like $50 at the time, and I couldn't justify spending that much on any single album.  Still can't, unless it has 30+ discs in it.)

[Christopher]

Given those dates, nationality would be the not infalliable determinant for me. Russian, I'd feel pretty safe with and would buy with confidence (not that I haven't been burned in my endless search for the "Kalinnikov 3rd." If it were French I'd buy it automatically, praying that the composer had some Franck connection. German, I'd hesitate, fearing a Wagner-abhorring Leipzig product. For English, Scandinavian, American, Polish, Czech, Hungarian cheapness would be the spur, or I'd make a note of the composer's name and wait for a review. Cover art becomes a  (relatively) trustworthy guide to the music after 1909.

Is there a Kalinnikov 3rd? Do tell us more...!!

[eschiss1]

at a guess, I think what M. X. Trapnel meant was, "some piece that could have been Kalinnikov's 3rd, had he written such a piece."- in quality and style - more or less, give or take, around and about and such and like.  There are, I think, some almosts from about that general time and place (in style, maybe not quite in quality, etc., and many of them unrecorded) if some quick skims of scores are reliable (big "if"!)...

(now that Catoire's symphony is available on CD, according to MDT, I wonder... well, it was available here for awhile, too, though I didn't hear it at the time. So were some others that maybe might very generally qualify, not sure.)

[X. Trapnel]

"some piece that could have been Kalinnikov's 3rd, had he written such a piece."

Quite (cf. H. von Bulow on the "Beethoven 10"). For me the Catoire is indeed the leading candidate. Others (Bortiewicz, Kopylov, Arensky) don't wear their Tchaikovskyisms lightly enough for my taste.

[Gauk]

Personally, my choices are quite strongly driven by the type of piece. A symphony or a piano concerto I was almost certainly snap up; a violin concerto is less certain, and a concerto for a wind instrument is likely to go back on the shelf. Piano music I'm much more likely to buy if it is a piano sonata than a collection of short pieces. Etc.

Given the prevalance of "major forms" in the downloads archive I wondered how much this reflected buying habits as well.

[semloh]

A cheap CD of music by a composer I've never heard of? Well, it would be a combination of all the factors mentioned. I would be less inclined to buy a CD of music composed after 1920, music featuring the human voice unless part of an orchestral work, and anything where the CD cover used inflated, non-musical adjectives to describe the music, or the work had titles like "Outscape for 21 Soloists"! 

Date would definitely be a major factor, and a Wind Quintet by Hermann Wimpelberger would be fine, if I knew  Hermann had composed it in 1872 and not 1972!

OK, all that said, I admit that (because I didn't follow these principles) I have a stack of unwanted CDs, bought in sales on the off-chance that I'd like them. Well.... one never knows, do one?!

[eschiss1]

Oh- I don't know, by 1972 the postmodern movement had well and truly started, I think and unfortunately considering its consequences in turn (but a rule that has gone without mention for too long and will now be, is Sturgeon's Law; 95% of everything is...)

[Delicious Manager]

As a hungry youngster I was always lucky to have an advanced sense of adventure. Admittedly, in the very early days, nearly everything was unfamiliar. However, as I grew older (and more experienced), my appetite for new music didn't diminish. I thank my lucky stars that the Turnabout label was around in those days, enabling me to explore untravelled avenues at a price I could (just) afford to risk. I came unstuck a few times, but was more often fortunate in discovering something wonderful.

Quite often, my principal criterion for buying a new LP was a degree of unfamiliarity. My preference was (and remains, largely) for orchestral music and so I would be far more unlikely to buy a recording of solo piano or vocal music than if it were orchestral or an interesting chamber ensemble combination. Artists' names were of no consequence as this was mostly repertoire that the big 'names' weren't touching. Price was always a consideration when taking a chance, but as I had more income, I was able to be more inquisitive.

Now in my mid-fifties and a career in music management stretching back more than 30 years, I'm still sniffing around and discovering. Now, with sites like Naxos (I pay the paltry annual subscription to have access to streaming thousands of CDs) and Spotify, I can continue my journey into the (temporarily) unknown.

[Gauk]

A cheap CD of music by a composer I've never heard of? Well, it would be a combination of all the factors mentioned. I would be less inclined to buy a CD of music composed after 1920, music featuring the human voice unless part of an orchestral work, and anything where the CD cover used inflated, non-musical adjectives to describe the music, or the work had titles like "Outscape for 21 Soloists"! 

If you don't have the composer's dates, then titles are certainly useful. "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No 3 in E minor" is a good bet. "Crystal Flux for Violin and Ensemble" is not.

[kolaboy]

Ha, exactly 

[eschiss1]

Well, statistically speaking. Which is a useful approach for high budgets or for low-priced labels.  The former look like Richard Nanes' (1911-2009) titles (apologies to his estate. Have _never_ taken to his music...)

[Gauk]

True, but you have to remember that contrary to some threads here, not every neglected symphony or concerto is an undiscovered masterpiece. Some composers are neglected today for a very good reason; they weren't actually very good, romantic or not.

[eschiss1]

some of them are fairly well discovered, too.