As the last five crates were dumped unceremoniously into a ute and sped out of my life, I groped for some musical comfort, flimsy cheque quivering in my hand. What consolation could Bach’s cantatas hold for me? They were, after all, among the few essentials that escaped the dreaded CD cull. I’d been doing plenty of Weinen and Klagen (BWV12) about selling off my lovingly and painstakingly amassed library, but Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig (Ah how fleeting, ah how futile, BWV26) seemed to sum up both the transaction and the artifacts themselves.
Saying au revoir to 95 per cent of my CDs brings me closer to a long-held dream of one day moving to Paris: turns out you need money to live la vie bohème, and without all that beloved baggage it feels as if I have little left to stay for. Oh, that’s not true; I have plenty of friends. In fact, when word got out that everything must go, from Adams to Zelenka, musical acquaintances I hadn’t seen in years were popping round “for tea”.
A warning to hoarders contemplating a similar tabula rasa: you will not rake in a huge profit. Some conservatorium libraries won’t even accept bequests, lacking the manpower to manage such intakes. My collection, however precious and comprehensive, fetched no more than a few thousand dollars between two buyers divvying up the spoils. But I sold neither my soul nor my body — so why did divesting myself of CDs feel like my heart had been gouged out and tossed in the truck along with my Bachs and Beethovens?
It’s not about the objects. They were a burden; I cursed them every time I moved into another cramped apartment. But these precarious piles of shiny silver discs in their scuffed jewel cases became not only an aural but a visual reflection of my taste, knowledge, passion, eclecticism and status as a music lover.
In Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, a novel about a DJ whose records are meticulously catalogued but whose love life is a mess, the protagonist arranges his LPs autobiographically – that is, chronologically in the order in which they came into his life, therefore searchable only if he takes a trip down memory lane. My own treasure trove – oddly, I’m told – was organised by label. Even so, people sensed its autobiographical importance.
The reactions of those who had seen my Great Wall and learned of its pending demolition shocked me – as if I’d had a road accident and hadn’t realised how serious it was until I registered the horror on the faces of onlookers. Bulk Buyer 1 regarded me with pity, asked if I’d be all right, sighed with sympathetic disbelief that I could bear to sever ties. Bulk Buyer 2, by contrast, was chipper, positively flushed with the triumph of acquisition as he shook my hand.
My flatmate brother took a different tack, trying to convince me that this was an irrational attachment. “You’re collecting a dead format,” he jeered as he retreated to his room, where the shelves are lined with hundreds of fussily alphabetised comic books in mint condition (it runs in the family, you see).
Hypocrisy aside, he has a point. Though fully functional, my CDs remained largely untouched. It’s not a case of someone preferring the tactile quality of musty old books even though they own a Kindle: I backed up most of the discs on my computer, which connects to my sound system for a constant stream of music. Shelves were disturbed only to refer to liner notes (granted, a frequent recourse in this line of work) or to force someone to borrow a CD, even if Xenakis choral music wasn’t their thing.
So why hang on to them? Well, vinyl and even cassette have experienced a renaissance in recent years – perhaps CDs are next. And it’s perfectly normal to collect dead, unused ephemera: player piano rolls, obsolete coins, stuffed beavers…
So I allowed myself a modest keep-pile, which required the weighty decision-making of Sophie’s Choice. Every time I rescued one old friend, I would have to condemn another. (Could I choose between Bach Collegium Japan‘s and The Monteverdi Choir’s complete cantatas? No.)
This process exposed musical predilections I didn’t even know I had. The anointed few to remain include Glenn Gould, Debussy, Messiaen and Cage boxed sets, Italian madrigals, anything by Machaut, Handel operas and lashings of accordion. Strange bedfellows, then, but together they represent my love of music, distilled. I’ve discarded the snobbery and exhibitionism to remind myself, as Hornby puts it so simply in High Fidelity: “It’s not what you like but what you’re like that’s important.”
So, what track sums up this unbearable lightness of being almost completely CD-less? It’s not Bach that comes to mind, but Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. Never had it on disc, never will.
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