Keep-at-Hand Recordings

Picking a book from shelves of books is relatively easy. Picking a CD from shelves of CDs is not easy, particularly with slim-line CDRs like many of my recordings. I can (almost) always find a given recording, since my CD collection is organised. But serendipity is a tall order and very many recordings that I shelve are never thought of again, through no fault of theirs. Which is one reason why I keep a small toast-type rack near my CD player with 15 CDs that I can turn to when I want to listen to something congenial. For anyone interested, as 2017 nears its end, here are the current contents of the rack, in random order:

Emile Sauret — Caprices Op 64 Nos.1-7. Nazrin Rashidova.

J.S. Bach — Goldberg Variations. Beatrice Rana.

Chopin — Complete Etudes. Zlata Chochieva.

Rachmaninov — Etudes-tableaux Op 39, plus second piano concerto. Boris Giltburg.

A Verlaine Songbook — Carolyn Sampson.

Saint-Saëns — Works for violin & orchestra. Tianwa Yang.

Shostakovich — Piano Quintet, plus String Quartet No.8. Talich Quartet.

Mozart & Beethoven — violin & piano sonatas. Ji Young Lim.

J.S. Bach — Cantatas for soprano. Carolyn Sampson.

Julius Röntgen — Music for violin & piano. Atsuko Sahara.

Beethoven & Mozart — Grumiaux Trio.

Beethoven — String Trios Op 9. Grumiaux Trio.

Heinrich Ernst — The Virtuoso Violin. Thomas Christian.

Prokofiev — Violin & piano works. Lisa Oshima.

Paganini — 24 Capricci. Sueye Park.

And that is my line-up of the 15 keep-at-hand recordings for 2017. Interestingly, no orchestral music (apart from the orchestra in the second Rachmaninov concerto, and in the Saint-Saëns pieces). Why not this, and why not that? My rack only holds 15 discs.