What was your first classical LP or CD?

[steve ridgway]

Ligeti for me in 2016 when I was wondering what one could actually have listened to 50 years ago before the rock music I liked really got going.

[Allegro feroce]

I remember listening when I was little a couple of those cheap anthology CD with popular excerpts from different compositions. If my memory serves me right, I really liked the Polovtsian Dances bit, so I asked my parents to get me the full thing and they bought the Sheherezade + Polovtsian Dances recording with the Royal Philharmonic under Beecham. I loved Sheherezade, I remember listening to it over and over.

[Mapman]

I'm not entirely sure what my first CD was. I remember that when I was in elementary school, my dad and I decided to get a set of Beethoven's symphonies. We went to Borders and bought these:

[Symphonic Addict]

My first CD ever was a two-set of Bach's Brandengurg Concertos (don't remember the performers at the moment). I felt so grateful for the experience because it made my tastes getting cimented with classical or academic music. Then came Beethoven's famous Piano Sonatas 8, 14 and 23, Haydn's Symphony No. 104, Mahler's 1st, etc.

[joachim]

When I was a child, my mother, who was from Alsace, often sang Beethoven's Ode to Joy, to words in French that she had learned at the nuns' school. When I was 13 I received a record player for my birthday, and my first purchase was this 9th symphony by Beethoven, conducted by Furtwangler, in 2 LPs 33 rpm. Proportionally, LPs were much more expensive than CDs now, so the savings in my boyhood piggy bank melted like snow in the sun!   

[Carlo Gesualdo]

My first Classical LP was Carlo Gesualdo on Candide a division of VOX.

My first CD was Olivier Messiaen: Turangalila symphony on Naxos.

[Olias]

I'm not entirely sure I remember but I'm pretty sure my first recording was a cassette tape of Mozart Opera Overtures and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  The movie Amadeus had just come out and everyone was on a Mozart kick in the 1980s.

I'm pretty sure my first CD was Mozart's four horn concerti with Barry Tuckwell as soloist.

[Rosalba]

My first classical LP was Holst's The Planet Suite conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.

My elder brother had bought it because we all liked the record requests of Mars and Jupiter which were regularly played on the radio programme Children's Favourites. But when he played it through, he didn't like the less familiar pieces. I remember him saying, 'Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age - huh, it makes you old listening to it!'

It was in the early 1960s and I was twelve. My brother was 17. He always had charm and successfully persuaded me to buy it off him with my saved-up pocket money at cost. However, I'm not complaining - I played it often and grew to love them all, even Saturn.

[Olias]

My first classical LP was Holst's The Planet Suite conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.

My elder brother had bought it because we all liked the record requests of Mars and Jupiter which were regularly played on the radio programme Children's Favourites. But when he played it through, he didn't like the less familiar pieces. I remember him saying, 'Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age - huh, it makes you old listening to it!'

It was in the early 1960s and I was twelve. My brother was 17. He always had charm and successfully persuaded me to buy it off him with my saved-up pocket money at cost. However, I'm not complaining - I played it often and grew to love them all, even Saturn.

Haha, Saturn probably wouldn't mean much to a 17 year old.  I recently turned 50 and Saturn takes on a whole new meaning. 

[Rosalba]

Haha, Saturn probably wouldn't mean much to a 17 year old.  I recently turned 50 and Saturn takes on a whole new meaning. 

Yes indeed! I recently turned ... a bit older than 50!

[LKB]

Haha, Saturn probably wouldn't mean much to a 17 year old.  I recently turned 50 and Saturn takes on a whole new meaning. 

My dad introduced me to The Planets when l was fifteen, via von Karajan's old Decca recording with the VPO. It pretty much bowled me over, love at first listen, especially Saturn... 

[Rosalba]

My dad introduced me to The Planets when l was fifteen, via von Karajan's old Decca recording with the VPO. It pretty much bowled me over, love at first listen, especially Saturn... 

[Bachtoven]

Stravinsky Rite of Spring CSO/Solti.

[Olias]

Yes indeed! I recently turned ... a bit older than 50!

Haha!  How's Yorkshire these days?  I've visited the UK seven times now but haven't gotten to Yorkshire yet.  Looking forward to seeing it sometime.

[geralmar]

Ravel, Bolero; Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra, L.P., Columbia ML 5569 (mono), 1960.

My parents had an obscure mail order club recording which I loved; but I decided I wanted my own record and so used my allowance to buy the Ormandy.  I was shocked.  I presumed every recording of Bolero would sound exactly the same as my parents' copy.  I then saved my allowance again and bought the mono Munch, Paris Conservatoire recording on a bargain Richmond L.P.  Closer to my ideal; but still not the same.  When I was a little older I wrote the mail order club and asked if I could buy their recording.  I received back a post card informing me their membership rolls were "closed", meaning they were out of business and I was out of luck.  My history with Bolero recordings over the next six decades approaches the obsessive and need not be recounted here.

[Jo498]

Which one was the obscure mail order club recording? Or is this information lost in the fogs of history?

[foxandpeng]

Yes indeed! I recently turned ... a bit older than 50!

I feel your pain 😞

[Rosalba]

Ravel, Bolero; Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra, L.P., Columbia ML 5569 (mono), 1960.

My parents had an obscure mail order club recording which I loved; but I decided I wanted my own record and so used my allowance to buy the Ormandy.  I was shocked.  I presumed every recording of Bolero would sound exactly the same as my parents' copy.  I then saved my allowance again and bought the mono Munch, Paris Conservatoire recording on a bargain Richmond L.P.  Closer to my ideal; but still not the same.  When I was a little older I wrote the mail order club and asked if I could buy their recording.  I received back a post card informing me their membership rolls were "closed", meaning they were out of business and I was out of luck.  My history with Bolero recordings over the next six decades approaches the obsessive and need not be recounted here.

I remember that my parents had a recording of Bolero on 78s. This is a lovely story. Although you were unsuccessful, maybe it sharpened your perceptions at an early age and led to more refined enjoyment over the years. It must have sharpened your determination too!

[geralmar]

Which one was the obscure mail order club recording? Or is this information lost in the fogs of history?

Music Treasures of the World (U.S.A). The club had two iterations, one in the early 1950s, one in the late 1960s.  My parents belonged to the first; I joined the second when I was in college.  The recordings were all monophonic and many also graced the old Urania catalogue, which meant conductors like Swarowsky and Abendroth and Viennese and East German orchestras.  The records were sold negative option; one was mailed automatically to the home each month.  No opportunity to choose-- you got that month's selection.  The L.P.s were all jacketless and packaged in generic keyhole sleeves.  The record contents were revealed by reading the exposed record label.  The only difference between the two runs was the 1950s pressings used paper sleeves; the 1960s pressings arrived in plastic sleeves.  The 1960s run did offer the option of "electronic stereo", otherwise they were the old 1950s recordings.  The 1960s Club was a subsidiary of the Grolier Encyclopedia Co.  Many titles can be found on ebay.  I would not recommend a single one.

[Jo498]

Thanks. I am definitely too young and cannot remember having ever seen such LPs (and they would probably not have been available in Europe). I recall some cheap LPs from the 1970s (I guess, or even early 80s) but they were not quite as spartanic. E.g. we had a bunch from the "Funk and Wagnall's Family Library" (no idea where my father got them in Germany), I think these were often "Vox" and similar recordings, e.g. Beethoven's 5th and Mozart's last piano concerto with (young) Brendel.