Topic: What was your first classical LP or CD?

[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.

[AaronSF]

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Istomin, Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra on a Columbia LP.  I think I was 13 when I bought this.

[Lisztianwagner]

LP: Wagner's Götterdämmerung/Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker/DG (1971) (the first and only LP I have)
CD: Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro/Kleiber/Wiener Philharmoniker/Decca Legends (1955)

[ritter]

LP: Wagner's Götterdämmerung/Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker/DG (1971) (the first and only LP I have)
CD: Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro/Kleiber/Wiener Philharmoniker/Decca Legends (1955)

Not bad entry points, Ilaria, not bad at all!  . Good evening to you!

By coincidence, my first LP was Karajan’s recording of Das Rheingold. And the Kleiber Figaro had been in my dad’s collection since before I was born.

The batch of CDs we got when my dad purchased our first CD player included Verdi’s Falstaff in the Giulini recording on DG (which had just been released at the time). There were other things in that first contingent, for sure, but that’s the one I remember.

[Lisztianwagner]

Not bad entry points, Ilaria, not bad at all!  . Good evening to you!

By coincidence, my first LP was Karajan’s recording of Das Rheingold. And the Kleiber Figaro had been in my dad’s collection since before I was born.

The batch of CDs we got when my dad purchased our first CD player included Verdi’s Falstaff in the Giulini recording on DG (which had just been released at the time). There were other things in that first contingent, for sure, but that’s the one I remember.

Thank you, yours don't seem bad either!!  Good evening to you too, Rafael!

Unfortunately, the negative side is that I haven't got a record player, so I have never been able to listen to the Wagner LP.
About Kleiber's Figaro, after many years and many listening, I still think it's absolutely the best recording ever made of that opera, even much better than Karajan's.

[Cato]

First CD was won via a "Name That Tune" contest on a classical radio station: Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.

First record was the DGG 2-record set of Eugen Jochum conducting Bruckner's Symphony #7.

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

First CD was won via a "Name That Tune" contest on a classical radio station: Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.

First record was the DGG 2-record set of Eugen Jochum conducting Bruckner's Symphony #7.

Most suitable!

[geralmar]

First CD was won via a "Name That Tune" contest on a classical radio station: Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll..

Fascinating.  My first CD I won in a classical music radio station contest where the question was, "Name the lead actors who played the title roles in " The Magnificent Seven".  I had purchased a bargain CD player; but balked at paying $18 U.S. for a CD.

[DizzyD]

This one, which was really cheap at the neighborhood Record Bar waaaaaay back when, while I was in my teens. Sadly I don't have it anymore...or any other LPs. 

[Peter Power Pop]

My first classical LP was a double-LP of Ravel conducted by Ernest Ansermet. It had a silver cover.

My first classical CD was this: