Instructions for Searching Henry's Record Collection.

Searching the database should be mostly self-explanatory: just enter the search criteria, choose whether to require them all to match or any to match (that is, Boolean AND versus OR), and select which categories of the database to search in. There are four categories: orchestral music, instrumental/chamber music, songs (among English-speaking music lovers these seem to be called "lieder"), and operas. You must choose at least one category, otherwise your search will retrieve nothing. You can select or unselect as many of the four categories as you want -- they are, as we say in the business, mutually non-exclusive.

If your search is failing to turn up the results you expect, you may be able to find an explanation among the quirks enumerated below. (And if you discover other quirks, please email me about them!)

  1. The search algorithm tries to find an unbroken match for your criteria anywhere in the relevant field. For example, if you put "beethoven" in the Composer field and "certo" in the Title field, you will retrieve all concertos by Beethoven, for whatever instruments. Note that searches are not case-sensitive, so you needn't worry about capitalization.

    I haven't included any fancier searching capabilities (such as alternative-chaining) yet, but might if there were demand for them. Let me know.

  2. By default, the searcher will look in all four categories: orchestral, chamber, opera, and songs. You can greatly improve the speed of searches by omitting unecessary categories.

  3. Titling is a little inconsistent. If a piece is well-known (for example, one of the Brandenburg Concertos by Bach), you can count on the well-known portion of its name being included in the entry, but nothing else. So a search with "Bach" and "Brandenburg" would get you the one you're looking for (among others), but don't try looking it up by BWV number because that's probably not included in the entry.

  4. Speaking of which, opus numbers are sometimes given, sometimes not. In the works of Bach, Mozart and Schubert, the BWV/K/D numbers (respectively) are usually present when the work is not well-known, but should not be relied upon too heavily.

  5. Pieces with special titles have the title included in parentheses and single-quotes after the standard name. For example: "Sonata for Pno No. 14 (`Moonlight')".

  6. Key signatures are included only inconsistently. Live with it.

  7. Works in series are numbered based on how many there are in the series. For example, Haydn wrote more than 100 symphonies; thus, the database lists his "Symphony No. 094", not "Symphony No. 94". (But since this is the famous ``surprise'' symphony, you might be better off just putting "surprise" in the Title field.)

  8. Instrument names are abbreviated: V, Va, Vc, Pno, Cl (Clarinet), Hn (Horn), Tpt (trumpet), etc. Most of them are obvious, but I don't have a complete list, so just learn them as you go.

  9. Concertos are listed like this: "Concerto for Pno No. 1", or sometimes "Concerto for V and Orch". Occasionally there will be a title as complete as this one for Stenhammar's second concerto: "Concerto for Pno No. 2 in d, op. 23". But in general, don't include the key or the opus number in a search, because they probably won't be listed and then the search would fail.

    So your best policy is to search for "Concerto" or "Concerto for Vc" (or whatever), and simply ignore any spurious matches.

  10. The format of search results contains a few potential mystifiers: DATE is the date the recording was made, whereas DATECAT is the date the recording was catalogued in this database. And FILEDUNDER tells you where this piece is located in Henry's record library (i.e., if this piece apppears on a multi-composer disc, you'd need to know which name the disc is filed under to physically find it on Henry's shelves). You may also run into fields named XFLD1 or XFLD2 -- just ignore those; in the offline version of the database, those fields hold specialized information that is probably of little use to the general public.

Finally, here is a mail I sent to someone, explaining why the database failed to turn up a certain recording that he expected. His questions are not uncommon, so perhaps posting my answers here will save everyone a little time: 

From: Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com>
To: JMPENNET@bouyguestelecom.fr
Subject: Re: Henry's record collection.
Date: Tue Feb 17 11:35:11 CST 1998

JMPENNET@bouyguestelecom.fr wrote:
>The search software doesn't seem to work properly (perhaps am I to
>dump): I can't find titles I can read in the data base.
>
>Well, I'm looking for a recording of Bellini's "Puritani" with
>C.Deutekom, V.Terranova, etc. in Amsterdam (1992 or 1993), and Alta
>Vista drove me through your site (where I can't find it however).

I think the problem is that we do not have any Puritani with Deutekom
listed as a soloist.  This does not mean your recording is not present
in the database, it only means that Deutekom is not listed among the
singers for that item.  So if you put his name under Soloists and try
a search, you will get no results -- because the database cannot find
a match for that one part.  (I think the instructions explain this,
but perhaps not as clearly as possible).

Try the search without listing any soloists -- just specify Bellini
and Puritani.

>In fact, I'm looking for opera live recordings data base: does this mean
>anything to someone with such official function?

Ahh, perhaps our site can only be of limited help.  It does not
contain all recordings made, only recordings in Henry Fogel's record
collection.  This is very many, but it is certainly not a complete set
of all live opera recordings ever made.

I did the search for:

   COMPOSER: "Bellini"
   TITLE: "Puritani"

And got these results:

   Match 1:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: I Puritani: Excerpts
     SOLOISTS: Sutherland; Raimondi; Zanasi
     COND: Serafin
     ORCH: Orchestra del Teatro Massimo, Palermo
     DATE: 1961
     LABEL: Myto 2MCD 973.158
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: L
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1997/11/22
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 2:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani
     SOLOISTS: Pierre Duval; Joan Sutherland; Ezio Flagello; Renato
     Capecchi; Flo Chorus
     COND: Bonynge
     ORCH: Florence May Festival
     DATE: 
     LABEL: London OSA-1373
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: S
     CDLP: LP
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1989/01/07
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 3:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani
     SOLOISTS: Ambrosian Opera Chorus; Montserrat Caballe; Alfredo
     Kraus; Matteo Manuguerra; Julia Hamari
     COND: Muti
     ORCH: New Philharmonia Orchestra
     DATE: 1979/06-07
     LABEL: EMI CMS 7 69663 2
     TIME: 172:18
     LIVESTUDIO: S
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1989/01/04
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 4:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani
     SOLOISTS: Beverly Sills; Nicolai Gedda; Louis Quilico; Paul
     Plischka; Ambrosian Opera Chorus
     COND: Rudel
     ORCH: London Philharmonic Orchestra
     DATE: 1973/08
     LABEL: EMI Angel AVC-34013
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: S
     CDLP: LP
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1989/01/07
     XFLD1: EMI ANL
   
   Match 5:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani
     SOLOISTS: Antonio Zerbini; Ferruccio Mazzoli; Gianni Raimondi;
     Joan Sutherland; Mas Chorus
     COND: Serafin
     ORCH: Orchestra del Teatro Massimo, Palermo
     DATE: 1961
     LABEL: Melodram MEL 460 (3)
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: L
     CDLP: LP
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1989/01/07
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 6:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani, I
     SOLOISTS: Gruberova; Lavender; Kim; D'Artegna
     COND: Luisi
     ORCH: Munich Radio Orch
     DATE: 1993
     LABEL: Nightingale NC070562-2
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: S
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1994/10/30
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 7:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani, I
     SOLOISTS: Pagliughi; Filippeschi; Panerai; Bruscantini
     COND: Previtali
     ORCH: RAI Rome Orchestra
     DATE: 1952
     LABEL: Pantheon PHE 6640-41
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: L
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1995/11/23
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 8:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani, I
     SOLOISTS: Gencer; Raimondi; Ausensi
     COND: Quadri
     ORCH: Colon (Teatro), Buenos Aires
     DATE: 1961
     LABEL: Myto MCD 923.63
     TIME: 
     LIVESTUDIO: L
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 1993/12/26
     XFLD1: 
   
   Match 9:
     COMP: Bellini
     TITLE: Puritani, I
     SOLOISTS: Callas; di Stefano; Panerai; Rossi-Lemeni; Chorus of La Scala;
     COND: Serafin
     ORCH: La Scala Orchestra
     DATE: 1953/02/24-30
     LABEL: EMI 5 56275 2; Angel CL 3502 [LP]
     TIME: 136:05
     LIVESTUDIO: S
     CDLP: CD
     FILEDUNDER: Opera
     DATECAT: 
     XFLD1: 
   
I hope this helps,
-Karl Fogel

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