Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Grave goods

Of the 7,000 CDs on his shelves, Damian Thompson is trying to work out what really matters to him – it’s certainly not the symphonies of Niels Gade

issue 15 October 2016

There’s a folder in my computer’s external hard drive in which you’ll find 24 complete recordings of the Bach Cello Suites, 100 recordings of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, 97 of his Sixth, 107 of his Seventh, 65 of Bruckner’s Seventh, 26 of Debussy’s La Mer, 44 Fauré Requiems, 25 Mozart Requiems, 79 Mahler Sixths and 45 Rachmaninov Second Piano Concertos.

That sounds as if I’ve moved beyond anorak collecting to compulsive hoarding; or maybe I have delusions of presenting Building a Library on Radio 3 (‘… but only Tennstedt, with his impulsive diminuendo, grasps that the second subject is tragically compromised by the shift to C sharp minor’).

Actually, I didn’t really collect them. Someone else did. All I had to do was wait for them to download; Bruckner, bless him, took a fortnight. Please don’t ask me where to find the files — if you want them badly enough, start searching online.

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