Do you know 1000 pieces - really?

[Roehre]

That still seems to suggest that the core repertoire which most of us might claim to know is well under 1000 pieces. Clearly there are over 1000 pieces, but most of us only know a fraction of what's been written.

In the German and Austrian monasteries alone there are some 100.000 unpublished scores of 16-19th C music gathering dust. Any of the larger publishing houses has between around 1000 and 10000 different pieces of music available (though there is some doubling with out-of-copyright works). Every year this corpus of music increases by some 1000 works (conservative estimation, that is). So, we don't live to even only hear more than approximately 0.0001 %, let alone know those pieces.

Now listening and collecting for slightly over 40 years, my collection consists of some 47.000 pieces (without doublings approximately 35.000- as there are hardly works which are represented more than twice), of which I think I know approximately 1000 - 1500 very well indeed, and able to identify the composer of approximately another 15-20.000 straight away, leaving a staggering around 15.000 of which I recognize not immediately either composer or work .
Another 5000 or so I manage an informed guess which turns out to be correct, leaving some10.000 of which I haven't a clue when at random played for me These works mostly but not exclusively are 17th and 18th C
Thank goodness for my database

[Pabmusic]

In the German and Austrian monasteries alone there are some 100.000 unpublished scores of 16-19th C music gathering dust...Thank goodness for my database

So much easier with a computer! I'm hoping that more Dittersdorf (for one) will emerge. He wrote over 120 symphonies, and the few we have are such fun that one keeps hoping...

[Dave2002]

Surely you're omitting other important genres:

Overtures
Ballet scores and other incidental music
Sonatas for two instruments
trios
Quintets
Sextets
Septets
Octets
Nonets(OK,OK etc)
Suites (eg Sheherezade)
Fantasias
Variations
Solo sonatas for other instruments
"Other" works (eg Des Canyons aux etoiles; Ameriques;Atmospheres)

I think several thousand is probably more likely.

I agree, but I think you may find that even if there are very many such pieces, very few are generally known, or by those who we would consider to be major composers, and they don't bump figures up too much. Of course there is the long tail phenomenon, so you can get almost any large number of pieces if you go obscure enough.

You can crank up quite a few more if you consider collections such as Haydn's pieces for baryton. Of course also there are many pieces by JSB and Scarlatti, but how many of us listen to more than a small or modest fraction of their works?

[Pabmusic]

I agree, but I think you may find that even if there are very many such pieces, very few are generally known, or by those who we would consider to be major composers...

Are you really suggesting we shouldn't count pieces by composers we would not consider 'major'?

[vinteuil]

. Of course also there are many pieces by JSB and Scarlatti, but how many of us listen to more than a small or modest fraction of their works?

... Dave, Dave, Dave

Never misunderestimate the listening habits of fellow boardees!

[Suffolkcoastal]

I've got around 10,000 different works in my collection and reckon I could identify the work in question in about 2,500 cases without too much difficulty after a couple of seconds of listening. Mind you there are a few better known works I admit to not knowing that well.

[JFLL]

Of course, it all depends (as Professor Joad might have said) on the question 'what do you mean by "know"'? Dave has conveniently defined it as 'really remembering' a piece. But even that is problematic. There's a core group consisting of pieces of which you've only got to hear a few bars and you say, 'Oh, yes, X's string quintet in C major' (probably adding the op number if you're as nerdy as most of us here ), then there are the pieces which you know you know but might take a time to identify, then there are those which you're pretty sure you've heard but couldn't positively identify (in my case, many of Bach's cantatas, though I think I've heard them all at least once and dearly love them (all) when I do listen to them), then the rest (which themselves could be divided into sub-groups). Is this helpful? Probably not.

[3rd Viennese School]

Just add up the opus numbers of Stockhausen and Maxwell Davies and you should reach 1000.

3VS

[Martin]

I guess you could start here...

http://www.listology.com/rdegnan/lis...t-hear-you-die

And those are just the classical ones.

[Vile Consort]

There are several ways one might "know" a piece.

• the ability to identify it (e.g. it's Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in E flat opus 73, first movement, second subject) - which in many cases one might be able to do from hearing less than a bar of the work.
  
• knowing exactly how the piece goes without necessarily being able to identify it fully - and by "knowing how it goes" I mean everything down to the orchestration, harmony, dynamics, counterpoint, chord spacings, etc. so that you would notice if the piece were subtly altered.
  
• being able to play the piece without the dots.
  
• the ability to picture the score in one's mind's eye. I suppose that would be an addition to no. 2 above and possibly no. 3.

I would have thought I could manage at least one of the above for around 1000 pieces. I am assisted here by counting all of Bach's organ works and most of Buxtehude's, which between them amount to more than 300 works!