how do you categorize and sort your classical vinyl records?

A-L-P-H-A-B-E-T-I-C-A-L It works for me.....Remember to keep records of each LP including Dollar value for Insurance purposes......Keep one hard copy and one printed copy...........update your list every so often.....

I have an obscenely complicated system of record/CD organization for classical music. It goes a little something like this:

Records on shelves, CDs in a box.




Just kidding, that's not all.

For each:
1. I sort by class of music: violin concerti, cello concerti, symphonies, ballet, opera, etc. I find that most albums I purchase fall into these kinds of broad categories.
2. Within each category, I group by my favorite work on the album that I reach for the most. As often as possible, I'll group ALL the albums that feature two different works together (like Lalo/Saint-Saens' violin concerti)
3. And parallel to that, I sort by which albums I reach for the most.

So when I'm flipping through a row of CDs, it might go like:
All CDs with a Brahms' Double Concerto first
All CDs with both a Brahms Double and the Violin Concerto
All other Brahms Violin Concerti
All Tchaikovsky/Brahms violin concerti
All other Tchaikovsky violin concerti
All other violin concerti
All cello concerti
All piano concerti

The bottom line is that I could never keep all the record labels straight. I don't ever think to myself, gosh, I just want to hear a DGG album today. I think, "Gosh, I want to hear a Piano Concerto. Now to figure out which one."

This is a carry over from my iTunes organizational system. I never keep classical albums together as they were ripped from my CDs. I make an "album" out of each work. This is because I reach for a work far more frequently than I could recall what album whatever work was on. So my classical music reports 500 albums (exactly, as of today, wow), but that probably represents ~150-200 actual albums. It gets way more complicated than this, but this is an overview.

Wow. You're system is really detailed compared to mine.

Digitally - I sort my classical music out on a mini-disc. I scrawl the composer's name on a sticky which goes on the mini-disc.

If I can't remember the names of the pieces of music on it, then clearly I don't love it enough to look it up on the LPs or CDs

For some reason, I've always filed my classical LPs and CDs according to record label. All the EMI red ones in one shelf; all of the white Olympia discs beside the red, and all of the Chante du Monde black ones on another, with all of the purple Russian Discs on another, with the Phillips red banded ones on the corner.

Oh yes. That's why: often you'll get Prokofiev's Violin Concerto coupled with Myaskovsky's Violin Concerto, in which case, alphabetically, they could be filed under 'P' or 'M'. Or Elgar and Myaskovsky's cello concertos, which would be filed under 'M' ....this could lead to me never ever realising I had the lesser cello concerto beginning with 'E', unless I looked for it under 'M'.
The way classical music often couples 2 different composers makes the alphabetical system rather difficult. It's true - you could file it under the performing artist, but that does no justice to the composer.


Label it is then!

Both CDs and LPs the same way. Alphabetical using this criteria

1. If everyting is by 1 composer, than by composer
2. If everything is one artist, then the artist
3. If neither of those, it's a judgment call. Usually which ever artist or composer gets top billing, especially top billing on the spine