Music Chat: Cataloguing the Classics
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 เม.ย. 2021
- The numerous cataloguing systems in place to keep track of the works of our most prolific (and less prolific) composers can be awfully confusing. Here's a "no BS" guide to all of those Op, BWV, K, D, Hob, Wq and RV numbers, with a WAB tossed in for good measure.
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It took a bit longer to thump the Bruckner nuts than I was expecting but yes we got there. Good sensible advice for newbies.
Love 'thumping Bruckner nuts'! although it does sound painful...
Now I know how to respond if I’m ever asked about how they catalog classical music: “It’s complicated.”
Great video, Dave. Answered a few questions I've had for years. Thank you.
(Phillip Brookes)
What a delight! I've always avoided opus numbers and the like if I can. Trouble is, sometimes it's not possible.
Before I had a stroke in 2008 I conducted a few amateur orchestras and always tried to avoid using these things - but it caused many real arguments with committees, who often wanted to show their superiority in programmes.
I like to imagine a bunch of the catalogue-number snobs ending up in the same prison where all the inmates have exchanged the same jokes so many times they know them all by number, and chortle or nod knowingly whenever one of them throws out "K467" or WAB13...".
On this cataloguing topic: My personal "favorite" are 2 composers, who later in their life revised their own Opus numbers. Sigfrid Karg-Elert & Hugo Kaun (thankfully not so important for most listeners) had an initial system where every sketch had already an Opus number, and then later they eliminated all the unfinished works (never mind that some of the completed ones had already been published). In the case of Richard Kaun the publisher was even his own brother! For a lot of his card catalog entries at Stabi Berlin (sorted by opus number), there are now duplicates and/or pencilled in annotations to later editions with the revised opus number - a total mess!
Yesterday I heard for the first time beethoven's rasumovsky quartets, and it was interesting to see there are actually 3 quartets going by that name, each op. 59. Your discussion reminded me of this.
Yes, that happens often, usually in groups of 3, 6 or (in the baroque period) 12. Those three quartets are technically Op. 59 Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
Thankfully the alternative way of numbering Dvorak's symphonies has vanished. In my early listening days it took me a while to figure out whether I was about to hear his 5th, 9th or the 'New World'. And speaking of 'named' works, you had me for a minute there, David, on the 'Pastoral'.
I need to vent about how much of a pain in the ass it was the get started cataloging music. I have online playlists where I attempt to catalogue music history into the established eras with early middle and late phases, also transition phases if needed.
Side note: the Renaissance and Medieval eras were easy because as I recall all the music fit into two or maybe three playlists because of the survival rate of music.
The first composer I decided to tackle was Franz Schubert who as you probably know has the most pieces ever published at around 1600 beating out Telemann at 1400 and Bach around 1000-1200 or so. Handel also was annoying. Schubert is still my favorite composer even after all of that so I think that says something, but his music was still a mess from after he died.
There are entire albums and volumes dedicated to fragments and variations for his work, which by the way are well worth the listen.
Ullmann, Shäfer, Holzmair, Boog, Rubens, Bauer, Bästlein, Roth, Ziesak, all perform wonderfully.
But it was a hassle and very confusing for an idiot kid with a love of Schubert to find all of those pieces and it really made me feel like Schumann and Mendelssohn probably did with their so called excavations of Schubert's music after he died.
Loving it, Dave. My favourite is Michael Haydn and his 'Bryan' numbers....Deutsch numbers are useful when you have four or five songs with exactly the same titles (eg 'Trinklied', 'Sehnsucht' etc) , or when there are three piano sonatas in A minor. :-). Oh, and Purcell's Zimmermann numbers can be fun too...
May I make a suggestion that you do a comparison of the Goldberg variations? There is a bewildering number of recordings out there.
Too many, to be honest, and too many good ones. I may cover specific recordings, but a general survey? I just don't know how I'd approach it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Sure, just a suggestion. I though it might be just the thing - not to worry!
Or even better. What about a talk on Glenn Gould? In fact. I may listen to his original Goldberg’s now.
All this cataloguing stuff used to frustrate me until a recently found a solution...Roon. If you're unfamiliar, Roon is a music software that organizes the music you have digitized as well as streaming service offerings. I use Qobuz, a french service that has a significant classical catalogue. You can sort works in Roon by popularity or composition date and even includes credits and liner notes. Now the challenge is digitizing my 1,500 albums...
Thank you Dave, really informative. I found the Mozart K system particularly confusing, why is it that K297 is symphony no 31 and K297b the sinfonia concertante?
I also think there's sometimes snobbery of calling works out by the key they are witten in when it's not necessary, ie can we just use the number system when it's there for those of us who are less literate? Do I really have to look up Mozart's c minor piano concerto to know that it's no 24 that is being talked about?
I've always found Sz and BB numbers for Béla Bartók's works pretty useless, except for chronology purposes. The works have pretty distinctive names already.
I hate to mention it, but we also have W (Waldbauer) and DD (Denjis Dille) numbers --- and as if that weren't already bad enough, Bartok started no less than three sets of opus numbers, starting over each time with a new opus one, until he finally abandoned opus numbers altogether in 1920 (no wonder).
Dave. Wonderful video.
The greatest challenge for me is when we download or import into iTunes that there is no consistency with the digital titles of each piece of music.
I have spent 20 years of my life with each classical purchase painstakingly renaming tracks in a consistent manner in iTunes.
Dave. Your library would take a life time. :)
I shudder to think about it.
This and the lack of standarization in how to approach metadata in digital files are the main reasons why I subscribe to streaming services that specialize in classical music. There are far too many issues with metadata, for example the composer tag, it's great that is available, until you realize that barely any app or device that plays the music actually displays it. Then the question of the title. Which is most appropriate, 'Symphony 1, op. 56, I - Largo' or 'I - Largo' and move the symphony bit to the album tag? What about the artist?! It's such a mess, and I prefer to pay someone to deal with it for me, as I've already wasted too much valuable time trying out different approaches to cataloguing my digital collection.
informative video, thank you Dave! Could you tell me where I can find a list of Bach's works purely in chronological order -- irrespective of genre?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Now Janacek’s works are cataloged with JW numbers, thanks to 3 scholars (John Tyrrell, Nigel Simeone, and Alena Nemcova), which given his total output have questionable value. However, I never understood where Op. 60 came from for his Sinfonietta that occasionally appears with that title. Perhaps Universal Edition was responsible?
Who knows? It's a nice number.
What I'd really like know is what cataloging system (if any) you use to find recordings in your collection. My collection is meager compared to yours but it still causes me problems. Maybe a video highlighting solutions to this problem?
Done long ago. You can find it in the Music Chats playlist.
Something i always found annoying when i started my musical journey was works with Opus numbers that faded away.Hello Debussy and Stravinsky.Why did that happen?....why start then stop.The worst was Schubert Opus numbers!...pointless now.Richard Strauss Opus numbers is another.Also why Opus numbers fell out of fashion in the 20thC.I dont really care that much about the subject.But its just a point of interest to know.I so agree with you Mr Hurwitz if theres one thing that puts newbies off music is catalogue numbers.A friend of mine some years ago got into a pickle when they didnt know what Opus numbers are.And thought it was about a music term.They started comparing composers Opus numbers and thought they were missing something.
I have always been fond of Tchaikovsky's Op. 49. It's my favorite, so thrilling and exciting. And who doesn't enjoy Op. 71a at Christmastime? LOL! (Also, if Nutcracker is 71a, what's 71b?)
You've got it wrong, sorry to say. Op. 71a is the Nutcracker Suite. Op. 71 is the complete ballet. Normally, complete or larger works have the basic number, while the a's, b's etc are suites or excerpts meant for independent performance, especially if they get published separately.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Ah. I stand corrected. Thanks. I learned something.
Not to mention the gruesome JS number system used for all those scraps that Sibelius didn't feel fit for publication. OMG...
Guilty as charged for one work with Beethoven- it's always "op. 111" for me, but i suspect 110/111 are some of the few opus numbers a lot of people actually know
not sure how much material could be made out of it but a video on work and symphony "nickname" origins could be interesting!
Except we don't know most of the origins, except perhaps for Kurt Atterberg's award-winning "Dollar" Symphony!
@@DavesClassicalGuide well you can always just spend the video making fun of the Bruckner symphony nicknames that basically nobody ever uses
BRB gonna listen to the "apocalyptic symphony"
Why are some of Mozart's symphonies catalogued with more than one Köchel number? For example, Symphony #31 (the "Paris") is K.297 but also "300a", according to the Charles Mackerras set. Or even worse, Symphony #24 in B-flat major, K.182 is also marked as "166c/173dA". What do the other catalog numbers mean? Thanks.
It means the or K number got reassigned in later editions of the catalogue, or the symphony version derived from a larger work (such as a serenade that got broken up, or a multi-movement opera overture), or any number of similar things that can only be determined on a case by case basis.
@@DavesClassicalGuide thank you. That makes more sense. So Handel's HWV numbers must be full of these multiple cataloging references since Handel often borrowed from his earlier works?
And what happens to cataloging when one composer borrows/arranges from another composer? I'm thinking of Bach's a-minor organ concerto arrangement of Vivaldi's concerto. Is Bach's arrangement given a separate BWV number? Or Mozart's orchestration of Handel's Messiah a separate K number?
@@donalddonaldson7404 You can answer your own questions--just have a look. It makes no sense to try to describe what happens when you can see for yourself.
Oh, you missed the Wagner system! It's WWV for Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis, and it's got 113 items! As funny as Bruckner if not more! I mean, there are only 10 operas anyone cares about, plus a handful of minor works like the Siegfried Idyll and Faust Overture, but every music-related scrap he ever produced is included even if it's lost or a fragment from a libretto! Did you guys know that Parsifal is WWV 111? And best of all is the Ring; the four huge operas don't even get their own WWV numbers, but Das Rheingold is WWV 86A, Siegfried WWV 86C, and I'm not going to type the others with the umlauts.
Ive tried doing my collection. I gave up.
Dave, greetings from the Penal Colonies. Nothing re Bruckner comes easy. WAB numbers - it was to be!!!! Best wishes, B
I hate those wascally WABbits! Those Bruckner numbers have never made sense to me. I usually don’t even think about opus numbers except, maybe, for 20th and 21st-century composers where the numbers actually add up. And yes, hard to find anything more insufferable than someone who casually refers to works by opus number with an upturned nose and a pinky finger aloft from a tea cup.
Oh, gracious! Opus snobs? BAHAHAHA!!
I'm looking for Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony, MWV 1000.
@@leo1961berlin
Not necessarily. the 8th is known as the "Symphony of a Thousand", not 1008. LOL
@@leo1961berlin
That wasn't the point. I was inventing my own numbering system a la Peter Schickele with PDQ Bach. LOL
@@leo1961berlin
I'm a big fan of Peter Schickele.
Well now that you know what Beethoven's opus 97 is, you don't have to worry about the opus snobs anymore! Problem solved!
Liszt is another victim. Recently some people have plugged alternative versions of works including alternative early drafts. Then there are scraps of paper that Liszt wrote on that are considered worthy enough ( by some ) to be put in different places of various catalogues. Leslie Howard has even recorded these and even provided completions showing how bad the early drafts would have been if Liszt hadn't restarted them. The result is lots of i, ii, iii etc being added to various catalogue numbers as people keep changing things around.
Thankfully Liszt usually named his pieces either individually or as part of a group. That suits me fine
Yeah, I purposely didn't mention LIszt, because it's just such a mess--and getting worse by the day, it seems.