Compiling my own Beethoven collection

[makir35]

In the last 2 years I've been working on making a list of every known Beethoven piece. Opus, WoO, Hess, Biamonti, Gardi you name it. I have listed about 930 different pieces, and, as Biamonti lists 849, there are a few mistakes which I must correct. For example, a few pieces might be inadvertantly listed by more than once. I'm trying to put them in chronological order as best as possible, of course it will never be absolutely correct. Once this is done, I will make my own CD collection.
What are the best sources to put these works in chronological order? I've used Cooper's book, ringnebula, and unheardbeethoven.org to get alot of information, besides the year of composition listed on the CD booklets. Is there a more scientific way to go about this? To be consistent I am trying to
put them in order of completion of composition, as opposed to the publish date or date first performed. And of course sometimes I would have to use this information to trap a composition's date below another one. It's actually kinda of fun!!!
E-mail me at dltorres3 at comcast dot net to discuss further, and I'll even send whoever wants one my Word file which contains my project, with my personal notes and all about the order of some works.

David

[Rutradelusasa]

I'd recommend you edit your email to something like dltorres3 at comcast dot net to prevent spambots to sending you tons and tons of email. It does happen a lot.

[Peter]

You could start with the Beethoven Reference Site! I have a page which (though not as comprehensive as you would like) lists works chronologically. You will still have to play around with them though to get them to fit your method!

www.kingsbarn.freeserve.co.uk/comp.html

[Hofrat]

Try James Green's "New Hess Catalog."

[Michael]

It all depends on what you consider a "work" to be. Hess rescued a lot of valuable pieces from obscurity, but he also went slightly mad, i.e. taking fragments out of letters and giving them a number. Even the Kinsky catalogue contains some ridiculous items: one of the "works" from WoO 205 is all of two seconds long!
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a bit of a Beethoven completist myself and have filled several CDs from the "Unheard Beethoven" site but it is an endless quest and there is a danger of being obsessively involved with Biamonti numbers or Gardis what-have-you. Over eight thousand pages of Beethoven's sketchbooks survive and a great many have not been studied in detail and I bet you that when they do they will be given more catalogue numbers.
It's a very good idea to try to form your own collection but I would suggest, as Peter says, that you stick to the Opus numbers, the WoO's and a small selection of the Hess's as outlined on this website or in the "Beethoven Compendium". That's if you are collecting and listening for your own pleasure; if you are studying the uncompleted works, it's a completely different story.
If you look down this forum, you will see a "complete" Beethoven edition on 87CDs for the ridiculous price of roughly £36 sterling. I would not recommend it as the centre piece of a collection but it does contain over 700 "works" - and the performances range from excellent to mediocre - and it's a quick way of obtaining recordings of the basic catalogue. However, a younger person is better off buying a couple of works at a time and getting to know the music gradually. It took me ten years to collect all the sonatas on vinyl and I think it was better than buying a huge indigestible lump of recordings, but everybody is different.
However, the choice of recordings nowadays is fantastic compared to the late sixties when I first bought the Pastoral Symphony in glorious mono for about 60 cent.

[makir35]

I've done pretty much the same thing. Ordering a new Complete Beethoven Edition box set every month or so. The last one I bought were the Folksong Settings. I love my ol' Karajan symphonies! BTW, does anybody know when they plan on updating unheardbeethoven.org with new works? It's last been updated 11/04 and it was stated 'expect another update this winter' with even more works, many from Beethoven's 'middle' period. That was almost 3 years ago...

[Michael]

Maybe they are taking time out to listen to some completed Beethoven works for a change?

[PDG]

I've done pretty much the same thing. Ordering a new Complete Beethoven Edition box set every month or so. The last one I bought were the Folksong Settings.

I still find it nigh-on impossible to listen to the folksongs while at the same time disciplining myself to the fact that Beethoven did not actually write the music! Usually he was in ignorance of the words, anyway, so what is their real value? I would still be interested in hearing the instrumental arrangements alone without the silly singing.

[Michael]

I still find it nigh-on impossible to listen to the folksongs while at the same time disciplining myself to the fact that Beethoven did not actually write the music! Usually he was in ignorance of the words, anyway, so what is their real value? I would still be interested in hearing the instrumental arrangements alone without the silly singing.

I know what you mean, PDG, but when you get to know the songs, you can concentrate more on the arrangement. I've bought a new set of all the folksongs and these recordings might be less refined than the DGG set, but the accompaniment - piano trio- is more pronounced. Beethoven's "backing track" comes out clearer and he really does amazing things while the "group" sings up front! His intros and endings are really little variations on phrases of each song, and in the middle he is always developing, always latching onto a little melodic turn and doing the unexpected.
He started out doing these arrangements to earn some money but he ended up with a healthy respect for those songs that were preserved down the years because the tunes were so good.
Just listen to the weird lurching arrangement to a tune like "The Miller of Dee". The tune is straightforward but B takes it into a new dimension. - it's almost sinister. I had it on full blast a few days ago and my daughter said: "What the hell is that?" I told her: "It ain't McCartney."

[Hofrat]

Michael;

Do you feel the same way about Brahms' Hungarian dances? Brahms merely made 4-handed piano arrangements of traditional Hungarian folk tunes and orchestrated three of them.

[Michael]

Michael;

Do you feel the same way about Brahms' Hungarian dances? Brahms merely made 4-handed piano arrangements of traditional Hungarian folk tunes and orchestrated three of them.

Yes - I still feel he had a major input as a composer. The only problem I have is that my wife has one of them as a ring-tone on her mobile!