VOTD 4/22/2023 #3

 Franz Joseph Haydn: Haydn's Complete Sonatas for Keyboard (Murray Hill) record one

Yet another Jerry's Records dollar sale buy

Yes, it's an unusual thing for me, buying and listening to this. There are two memories it elicits for me.

One is that as a kid, more towards my teen years, we'd occasionally get a catalog for discounted books and records. I'd be allowed to make an order now and then, or two or three of us would decide on something. One thing was a big book of Dick Tracy daily strip reproductions, others were Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Flash was far better drawn, but Buck's stories were more fun as I recall.

This catalog also carried Murray Hill Records releases. Among the things they'd release were "The Complete [ ] Music of..." box sets. I think I remember asking for the complete orchestral music of Debussy. Looking it up now, I see that it was seven LPs, and I'm certain I didn't get to all seven. But I did spend time with it, finding I liked the "Images" and "Nocturnes". 

So here's this twelve-LP box of Haydn, or as they put it, "12 magnificent long-playing records". To fit twelve LPs in a budget box, the pressings are just shy of being flexi discs. $2. I also bought, at $2 apiece, the complete solo piano music of Chopin (12 records), the complete keyboard music of Bach (18 records), the complete organ music of Bach (18 records) and the Beethoven complete piano music (21 records). Damn. 92 LPs, and I don't think one has been played before. I know I have a problem with accumulating things, I think I need to pull back after today.

The second memory: my father liked these Haydn sonatas. There was a series of recordings of them on Nonesuch records, so for a couple of years when I needed a Christmas gift for him, buy him one of those. I could walk to the downtown National Record Mart, which had a substantial classical section, with a large portion devoted to Nonesuch LPs. I'd look at them and think, "Well, I got him the one with the dark green cover, I'll get the one with the dark red cover this year." He said he always liked them.

This Murray Hill monster lists performances as being on harpsichord, clavichord, and piano. Disc one is harpsichord. It's fine, but I prefer the piano.

I'm going to be plowing through these boxes for months to come. I passed on the complete Mozart symphonies Murray Hill box, even I have my limits.