I'm in a dilemma with organizing my collection.

I was trying to organize them by the composers (Bach, Beethoven and etc). This seems fine at first but then you have "special" edition pieces performed/conducted by renowned people (yo yo ma, gould, karajan, ashkanezy and etc).

I was thinking of:
1. classifying them as composers for "normal" edition
2. performer/conductor if it's a "special" edition.

any thoughts? maybe you have other ideas? please share! :)

thank you

There is no easy solution. My collection remains a mess!

The solution may be to put a number on the recording when you receive it (101,102,103 and so on). Then create a data base book with everything sorted multiple ways.

It's difficult. I just keep discs with music from a single composer together, and in alphabetical order. So I've got, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. And then a whole section of Horowitz doinghis thing right after Haydn. The tough choices are those discs with say two violin concertos, Brahms and Mendelsohn. Does it go in with the other Brahms, the Mendelsohn, with the soloist, the conductor, or the orchestra? I generally choose the soloist, for no really good reason.

The tough choices are those discs with say two violin concertos, Brahms and Mendelsohn. Does it go in with the other Brahms, the Mendelsohn, with the soloist, the conductor, or the orchestra? I generally choose the soloist, for no really good reason.

this is the difficulty as well. and this is quite common for famous performers.

It's difficult. I just keep discs with music from a single composer together, and in alphabetical order. So I've got, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. And then a whole section of Horowitz doinghis thing right after Haydn. The tough choices are those discs with say two violin concertos, Brahms and Mendelsohn. Does it go in with the other Brahms, the Mendelsohn, with the soloist, the conductor, or the orchestra? I generally choose the soloist, for no really good reason.

There are always exceptions but there is usually one main performance on a record. The second is usually a short work or partial piece often called filler, used to fill the extra time difference between the length of the average orchestral work and the length of the two sided LP. Every classical collector I know sorts by the composer of the main piece.

I'm in a dilemma with organizing my collection.

I was trying to organize them by the composers (Bach, Beethoven and etc). This seems fine at first but then you have "special" edition pieces performed/conducted by renowned people (yo yo ma, gould, karajan, ashkanezy and etc).

I was thinking of:
1. classifying them as composers for "normal" edition
2. performer/conductor if it's a "special" edition.

any thoughts? maybe you have other ideas? please share! :)

thank you

Are they in jewel boxes, in a bookshelf or something? I put all mine in large CD books, and I categorize instrumentation into each respective book. From there, I try* to keep it alphabetical by composer. Such as one book for orchestral, another for chamber, another for solo keyboard, etc. The solo keyboard book for instance is more difficult to keep organized, because it's sometimes organized by performer, and other times by primary composer. Anyways, I find it easier to find what I'm looking for this way. I keep "complete editions/collections" in the original packaging, ie Beethoven cycles, complete Bach, complete Stravinsky, Shostakovitch quartets...