COMMENTARY: No, I won’t be throwing out my thousands of CDs
In the late 1970s, when I was living in Boston, the record store of choice for classical music fans was the Harvard Coop. It had an extensive catalog and informed salespeople eager to offer invariably strong opinions on which albums to buy. I’d often bump into friends and fellow musicians, all of us flipping through bins of LPs. After making a purchase I’d have to squeeze yet more shelf space out of my cramped apartment, but I was pleased at my growing home library.
Then, in 1982, CDs arrived. Slowly everyone started converting from 12- inch vinyl LPs to 4 1/ 2- inch plastic CDs in jewel- box cases that required a completely different storage setup. And what were you supposed to do with your old LPs?
Now the cycle has repeated itself, with CD sales dwindling to a fraction of their heights a couple of decades ago. Download and streaming services have taken hold, and physical discs have become obsolete. After all, with everything available online, why clutter up your living space?
This question has taken on newly personal significance as two albums of Virgil Thomson’s music that I made as a pianist in the early 1990s were recently reissued. While a two- CD set is available, online options have immediately made these recordings vastly more accessible than ever before. And bringing attention to some wonderful yet littleknown music was the main impetus for the original project.
And yet I can’t imagine giving up my home collection. Yes, finding room in a Manhattan apartment to store ever- increasing numbers of CDs is a constant challenge. In my front hallway and living room I have five wallaffixed cabinets made for me by a carpenter friend, more than 90 feet of shelf space. In my home office I also have an industriallooking file cabinet that efficiently holds nearly 2,000 CDs. I probably have, in total, more than 4,000 discs. ( And I know people who have twice that many!)
And, perhaps out of nostalgia, I still have a stereo cabinet with a long shelf for some old LPs, along with a good turntable in the living room. ( Vinyl has been making a comeback over the last decade. And when I’ve popped into stores selling used and justreleased LPs, the majority of customers seem to be young people looking for rock and pop albums. Go figure.)
Books have gone digital, too, so we all could certainly clear out our shelves. Yet many of us still love holding real books in our hands and keeping a personal library, however crammed. It means so much to me to have bookcases in my apartment filled with novels I love by Charles Dickens, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Hardy and Philip Roth; dozens of biographies and histories; a complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays; and a 12volume 1911 edition of Jane Austen’s works that I found in a used bookstore.
I feel the same about having right at hand the historic 22- disc edition of Stravinsky conducting his own works; the EMI collection of Maria Callas’ recordings of dozens of complete operas, both studio accounts and live performances; big boxed sets of Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen, Franz Liszt and Gyorgy Ligeti; multiple surveys of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, from Artur Schnabel’s influential recordings of the 1930s to young Igor Levit’s recent, extraordinary nine- disc set. At last count, I have 15 complete recordings of Richard Wagner’s “Ring.”
Most of these recordings are available online. But not organized in volumes like archival documents, with extensive notes, essays and information.
For a while, my husband, Ben, deferred to me about what was, after all, an essential element of my life’s work. And in earlier days, when he was looking forward to joining me for a concert of Jean Sibelius symphonies or a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Falstaff,” he was quite glad to have my library of recordings available to prep himself. But he has gone 100% Spotify. And even if, at home, he can channel online recordings through a small Flip 5, an external Bluetooth speaker that actually sounds very good, he also loves his earbuds.
Years ago, as my collection kept expanding, Ben reached a breaking point and instituted a household regulation: For every new CD I bring in, I must give up an old one. That’s actually reasonable. And when I leave the giveaways in the lobby, they are usually scooped right up, which suggests to me that many other music lovers also still like physical discs and box sets. Maybe it’s generational.
Perhaps there’s a middle ground. Many recordings may reach more listeners, do more good and remain available longer online. But it is worth keeping at home recordings I cherish and albums of archival value, like a six- disc set of Bela Bartok at the piano or Artur Rubinstein’s 82disc RCA catalog. Perhaps it will suffice for me to read an electronic version of Barack
Obama’s new memoir, whereas I am very glad to have a hardcover of my friend Alex Ross’ latest book, “Wagnerism.”
And in truth, now and then, I sneak new CDs into the apartment. There are worse habits.