Best Ways to Organize a Classical Record LP Collection ?

ebm, which A to Z you sort?
If Ansermet conducts Brahms what letter will that be?

Composer, composition, Label, artist.

Opera in separate section, as does vocal centered around 1 artist

Records w/ various composers w/ 1 artist, I put in so called Collection section. So say Van Cliburn plays romantic Favorites goes under V.

Repeat works or more than 1 composition by the same artist then goes chronologically based on release date w/in the label. So-

Beethoven Symphonies -Karajan 1st cycle goes before 2nd cycle.
Or, La Boheme on Decca (London) - Mono Tebaldi goes before Stereo Tebaldi goes before Freni, Pavarotti.

I sort of agree with elee - 

I have my music divided into four groups, Orchestral, Vocal, Chamber, and solo (or two) piano music. In each group I sub-divide as needed for what ever is appropriate to me, for example  usually by composer/performer/label, but for solo piano I have two seperate sub groups, one for performers (i.e. I love Moravec so I have all of his music filed under his name) but more often filed by composer and I have them filed in the order of my personal performance preference.

To me it makes sense for you, having such a large collection to sort through, would be just to file them by composer. Then as you become more familiar with the actual recordings themselves where/how you want to file them should become evident.

What fun you should have.......:-)

I have a collection of about 3,000 classical LPs.  They are generally ordered chronologically by when composed.  Hence, medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, etc. Bach before Haydn before Mozart before Beethoven, etc. Vocal and opera recordings are segregated from instrumental but are also arranged chronologically.

 Recordings by the same composer are ordered: symphonies and other large orchestral works; concerti; chamber works; solo instruments.  It's far from perfect, but I can usually find what I'm looking for very quickly.

What I’ve done is to first sort into the following categories, and then within each category by composer, or by the composer of either the major work or the work that is of greatest interest to me in the case of recordings having works by multiple composers. One reason I chose this methodology is simply that in my case it happens to work out nicely with respect to the available shelving. The categories are:

-- Analog mastered recordings on labels which usually provide exceptionally good sound quality (e.g., Astrée, Harmonia Mundi, Chesky, Wilson Audio, Pierre Verany, some EMI, RCA Japan, etc.).

There are a number of past threads here providing discussions of the best sounding classical labels. Search posts by member Rushton in particular.

-- Digitally mastered recordings on labels which usually provide very good to excellent sound quality (e.g., Telarc).

-- Recordings on labels which usually provide good but not exceptional sound quality (e.g., Philips, London, Argo).

-- Historical recordings from the mono era (e.g., Toscanini)

-- Most others.

-- Recordings that are in questionable condition, or worse.

Enjoy! Regards,
-- Al