20 Most Enduring Regularly Played Pieces
Posted by: Innocent Bystander on 16 April 2017
On the thread Which Gives Most Pleasure, Black Box Upgrades Or Expanding Your Music Collection a few people have indicated that they have a core of music they listen to repeatedly: a couple of people have said 1-20 albums, for me it is probably 20-40.
So if this applies to you – and some people mentioning this on the other thread are under the impression it might not be common - what are your 20 real core enduring regularly plays? I am meaning here the enduring ones that you invariably play very frequently, such that give or take just one or two it would be certain to be the same list in a year’s time – i.e. ignoring the inevitable repeated playings of some new good piece for a while after you have added it to your collection, and ignoring any current flavour of the month that you might have, perhaps through current mood or a recent ’rediscovery’ of something in your collection.
I have deliberately suggested being rigid and limiting the list to 20 items – which for me is forcing me to think carefully which ones I really do play often, which is not necessarily the same as if I were picking 20 ‘desert island disks’ as the only music I would be able to play: some music is in my head and never needs to be played again, though I wouldn’t want to be without the capability of so doing, while other music I just seem to keep playing. And I am finding it difficult as there is about double this number that are frequently played, but I have forced myself to limit it.
Mine are, in alphabetical order because there isn't a play preference order::
- Beatles – Abbey Road
- Black Sabbath – self titled first album
- Beethoven – Violin Concerto
- Bruch – Violin Concerto
- Deep Purple – self titled 3rd album
- Deep Purple – Made in Japan
- Edgar Broughton Band – self titled 3rd album
- Genesis – Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
- Grieg – Peer Gynt (full version with vocals)
- Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick
- Led Zeppelin I
- Led Zeppelin II
- Marillion – Script for a Jester’s Tear
- Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
- Puccini – Turandot
- Schubert – Trout quintet
- Twelfth Night – Live and Let Live (Definitive Edition – extended)
- Roger Waters – Amused to Death
- Roger Waters – Ca Ira
- Who - Tommy
Had to cheat and give 21 and I still can't believe I had to delete Beethoven, Dvorak, Gershwin, Dolores Keene, Led Zeppelin, Kirsty MacColl, The Nice, Nina Simone, Neil Young.
J.S. Bach - Goldberg Variations (Murray perahia and Glenn Gould versions) - 1st in the list and most played.
Beatles - Rubber soul.
David Bowie - Space Oddity.
Dave Brubeck - Time Out.
Ray Charles - Genius Loves Company.
Chopin - The Chopin I Love - Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate.
Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - first album.
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound.
Handel - Messiah.
Billy Joel - The Stranger
Mahler - Symphony no. 5 (Simon Rattle).
Michael Marra - On Stolen Stationery.
Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon.
Pink Floyd - Meddle.
Lou Reed - Transformer.
Paul simon - Graceland.
Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story.
Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat.
Yes - The Yes Album / Fragile.
sorry last post seems to be very messy - issue with newline characters when I cut and pasted 
Allan
Hi Bert, shouldn't your second choice read, Mussorgsky - Moving Pictures? Sorry if that sounds a little sarcastic, but I'm low on quality humor at the moment.
Best regards.
Phil.