Unprofessional
Music
I play several instruments (accordeon; acoustic and electric guitar; harmonicas) but I am much better at listening and letting other people play by collecting their output on CD. This is one of the few areas of interest (but see Philately) where collectors with just an academic salary can still be relatively successful. I concentrate on chamber music, and more specifically on string quartets, alternatively plus or minus one player (string trios and string quintets) and possibly plus the piano (piano trios, piano quartets and piano quintets). Currently, my collection contains around 2200 different string quartets, the most important ones in several versions, on a total of around 5500 pieces of chamber music, over the period 1750 to today. The complete list of all works, and of the stringquartets alonemay be found below. Since I aim for (impossible) goal of completeness of the string quartet collection, I would be greatly indebted to anyone pointing out a string quartet available on CD which is not in the quartets list, as well as chamber works of the major composers not in the overall list.
Both surveys list the works alphabetically on composer name. Towards the end of the lists totals per type, country, year and key may be found. Thirdly, I add my list of works to be taken to that desert island. And finally, in a carreer that never really took of ... That guitarist on the right is linguist Dan Everett.
Complete listing of chamber music
Listing of all string quartets
To the desert island ...
Crossroads ...
Philately
The picture on the left shows the world's stamp #1: the Penny Black of 1840. Note that it does not carry the name of the country. Until today, the portrait of the current sovereign is supposed to be enough identification for stamps of the United Kingdom.
Below one finds a few particularly nice pieces from the countries of my major interest.
