A Classical Discography

Michael Gray

vinylThis work is a guide to a large swath of classical music recordings from the past century, uniquely founded on research in the archives of the producing companies in Europe, Japan, and the USA. Thus far it is limited to commercially published LP recordings, principally recorded from 1950 thru 1979, but with a expanding number of exceptions extending into the 1980s. This coverage is supplemented by the inclusion of a substantial number of 78 rpm records and acoustic cylinders made before 1950.

Use the Search boxes to make your queries. You can use either a full name, such as Debussy, or a truncation (e.g. Debu), which can often yield the best and quickest results. Supplying a title, performer, or other criteria to a query will narrow your results. You can also use wild cards: %, for a string of characters of any length, or _ (underline), for any single specific character. __ will stand for two characters, ___ for three, and so on. Names in Conductor field are Last name, First name. Data in Date is expressed as 'year' 'month' 'day', e.g. 1928 June 15. Works recorded as a set (e.g., Violin Sonatas and Partitas (6), BWV1001 - BWV1006) are given only a set entry and are not listed individually. As a rule, Principal Number contains the first number under which the recording was issued in its home country. From 1950 onwards, however, the first LP issue number has been used; digital recordings use the first LP number, otherwise the first CD number. Other issue numbers are found in the 78/45 field, or under LP issues, such as Musical Heritage Society MHS series. LP prefixes are occasionally truncated to simplify queries in the Number field.

Users should consult specialist discographies, including www.medieval.org, www.chantdiscography.com, and https://gramophonecompanydiscography.com/, for acoustic records made by the Gramophone company and to find comprehensive coverage of records not included exclusively herein, aprrecordings.co.uk, for 78 rpm piano discs. Other categories of records are included selectively. These include records of opera 'Fantasies'; instrumental arrangements of operatic arias, popular classics, and similar discs; records by military bands; 'pirate' recordings issued on LP by labels such as Allegro, Royale and others; and records made primarily for pedagogy.

The cooperation of many institutions and individuals are making this on-going work possible. Additions and corrections may be sent via the webform on the Contact page.

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Michael Gray

Revised December 2024

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