The Most Expensive Recording in your Collection

[beclemund]

Yes Solti's Ring, paid 84 UK pounds (including UK import tax, shipping and handling)  last year.

Considering it's a 14 disc set, that's a decent price. I paid 110 USD for mine a few years ago. I had not experienced any other ring cycle and still have not. It was certainly worth every penny, but I am seeking out an alternate Walküre.

[Anne]

I am quite shocked at what some of you have been spending. I don't pay more than standard prices and I usually pay under unless I am being especially impatient. I have a set of Leontine Price arias on four CDs and noticed it at some stratospheric price on Amazon marketplace as it is NLA. Tempting!

Mike

Are you talking about the Leontine Price red boxed set for $499?  I bought mine 7-8 years ago at a normal price.  Now I wonder if I should get a safety deposit box at the bank for it!

[knight66]

Are you talking about the Leontine Price red boxed set for $499?  I bought mine 7-8 years ago at a normal price.  Now I wonder if I should get a safety deposit box at the bank for it!

Yes, I am thinking I could turn it into a holiday; mind you, so far no one is paying that absurd price.

Mike

[marvinbrown]

Anne, Knight and Beclemund...my experience has taught me that when shopping for operas and opera related recordings one has to be very carefull.  Here in London (I do not know if this is a London thing by the way)  one can easily make a mistake and end up paying a fortune for opera recordings that can be bought for half, a third, or even a fifth of a price from the interent (amazon.co.uk etc).  I have seen prices at HMV and Virgin Records that would make the peacefull angles furious....Karajan's Parsifal (£70), Levine Rind DVD (£110), Karajan Carmen (£40), Solti Ring (£140), even Karajan's St Matthew Passion (£45).....I bought all of these brand new for a fraction of the price I see in retail shops. When it comes to opera one has to shop around and be especially carefull otherwise the results can be disastrous.
 
   marvin

   

[knight66]

Marvin, I agree, I only use HMV when the discs are reduced and now most of my shopping is on the net, looking for keen prices. I just ordered the Moffo Traviata that has been remastered for about £3.

Mike

[bhodges]

I wanted this for the performance of Ligeti's Six Bagatelles, and paid about $40 for it on eBay.  It's out of print and I haven't seen many copies, so it was worth it.  Program includes:

Schoenberg: Kammersymphonie No. 1
Sciarrino: Autoritratto Nella Notte
Ligeti: Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet
Ligeti: Double Concerto for Flute and Oboe



--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

The New York Philharmonic's American collection, Vol. 2, a five- or six-disk set I bought directly from the orchestra for $90. I acquired for the sake of one piece and one piece only: Boulez's reading of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra. And damn, it was worth every penny. It's a lgendary performance amont Carterphiles, and it does stand head and shoulders above the three commercial recordings available.

I also bought the Composers Quartet's performance of Carter's String Quartet No. 4 for $50 on eBay. Serves me right for not paying $18 for it at Tower when I had the chance.

[gomro]

I think the most expensive recordings in my collection would be the Stockhausen Verlag discs, but even they aren't colossally expensive. Plus I've nabbed a few of them from eBay at quite a bit under the Stockhausenian price+shipping.

[marvinbrown]

I just ordered the Moffo Traviata that has been remastered for about £3.

Mike

  Now thats what I call a bargain!!! Sadly the most affordable opera I ever bought was about £8 (those are rare to come buy these days)

  marvin

[knight66]

It has arrived and the first disc has given me lots of pleasure. Moffo had a beautiful voice back then. She also acts well...a few scoops up to notes apart, things are going very well.

Mike

[Mark]

I've had a look through my collection, and I reckon that the most expensive CD I own is a disc of Peter Rosel playing Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 14 and 23. I'd been after this for ages before joining this forum last year, and when I posted about looking for it, Holden and M Forever kindly pointed me in the right direction. I had to buy it from Japan in the end, and with shipping and taxes it came in at around £20 - the most I've yet spent on a single classical CD.

Worth every penny, though, IMO.

[sidoze]

$51 for this:

jeez, no wonder you like it! 

[sidoze]

How stupid will you feel then if you had spent close to $300 for it.

An Italian guy on Ebay bought Richter's Leipzig recital / M&A from me for £150 plus shipping, and that's just a single CD.

[not edward]

An Italian guy on Ebay bought Richter's Leipzig recital / M&A from me for £150 plus shipping, and that's just a single CD.

It was probably Alessandro Nava of Urania, shortly to flood the market with pirate issues of it.

[George]

jeez, no wonder you like it! 

Actually it's the reverse, I paid that much because I liked it that much.

[sidoze]

It was probably Alessandro Nava of Urania, shortly to flood the market with pirate issues of it.

LOL! It's actually quite strange that that CD hasn't been reissued since the Richter / wife / family legal dispute ended. Parnassus have brought out another volume of their series I think.

Actually it's the reverse, I paid that much because I liked it that much.

Illogic. Can't compute. <implodes>

[SimonGodders]

An Italian guy on Ebay bought Richter's Leipzig recital / M&A from me for £150 plus shipping, and that's just a single CD.

Nuts! That should hopefully be re-released soon from Pristine Classical...(fingers crossed )

[Dancing Divertimentian]

The most expensive single disc I have is one I bought from Amazon Germany. Upwards of $45.00. I knew going in it would be expensive due to the unfavorable exchange rate (I'm in the States) but got blindsided by the outrageous shipping!

It's still a good catch as it's an extremely rare Schoenberg disc (w/ the string trio, et al) and no one else on the entire web had it (I searched high and low).

So, it's bittersweet. But the musical returns have been of enormous value!

[DieNacht]

Wagner 6LP box Tristan & Isolde / Furtwängler.
http://cart.classicalvinylrecords.com/index.php?p=product&id=14918&parent=12

extremely good condition, bought initially for around 5 Euros. Prices vary on the web, though.

[Conor71]

Theres nothing too expensive in my collection - I think I payed about $70 AUS for my copy of the Mozart Symphonies box set by Bohm (pictured) below when I bought it from Amazon UK a few years ago