Rimsky Korsakov: Scherezade (Reiner Chicago SO RCA LP)
A four-CD set of the 'Best of ... ' Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.
But for a proper CD (well, two), it was John Lanchberry conducting the Philharmonia in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Still my absolute favourite. :)
Lp was the complete works of Chopin.
Cd was the Third Symhony by Bax.
LP: Respighi: Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome (Sir Malcolm Sargent/LSO) - A gift from my violin teacher, after I heard the Dallas Symphony Orchestra play the Pines.
CD: Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Dances (Ashkenazy/Concertgebouw) - Heard this at Tower Records in Washington, DC and was totally transfixed...had to buy it right there, on the spot. Bought it before I owned a CD player. ;D
--Bruce
Quote from: bhodges on June 06, 2007, 06:25:31 AM
CD: Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Dances (Ashkenazy/Concertgebouw) - Heard this at Tower Records in Washington, DC and was totally transfixed...had to buy it right there, on the spot. Bought it before I owned a CD player. ;D
--Bruce
Superb recording that, Bruce. :)
I was playing electric bass and my teacher gave me 2 recordings. Stravinsky conducting Le Sacre and Stravinsky conducting the Firebird.
Allan
LP: Schumann's Piano Concerto / Richter / Rowicki / Warsaw National PO
CD: Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth / Karajan / Berlin PO (a pirate copy, mind you :) )
Dvorak New World Symphony, Giulini conducting the Philharmonia (Seraphim)
I forgot to mention my first CD which was Tubin Symphony 2 and 6 (BIS), bought before I had a CD player ::)
Quote from: Captain Haddock on June 06, 2007, 06:39:23 AM
I forgot to mention my first CD which was Tubin Symphony 2 and 6 (BIS), bought before I had a CD player ::)
Excellent, that was a good choice, as I well know. :)
Quote from: Harry on June 06, 2007, 06:19:28 AM
Lp was the complete works of Chopin.
Cd was the Third Symhony by Bax.
Which version of the Bax ?
I wish that RCA would issue the Edward Downes LSO recording on CD which was my introduction to this great work in the 1970s.
~
Brahms Symphony No. 1 (Columbia LP purchased in 1955)
Conductor: Arthur Rodzinski, New York Philharmonic
(Played many times after purchase. No subsequent version I like as well.)
'Furtwangler Goes Pop' an LP of the GOM conducting popular classics such as Hebrides, Oberon, Emperor Waltz etc on HMV (EMI). The sleeve had bubbles on.
Cluytens and the BPO in Beethoven 5 and Leonore III. Quite famous a performance of the 5th, now!
Sawallisch and the Philharmonia in the Nutcracker Suite and excerpts from Swan Lake. Never reissued on CD?
The Ballet Theatre Orch. under Joseph Levine in substantial excerpts (a single LP) from Sleeping Beauty. Never reissued on CD?
All from EMI but in those days it was HMV, Columbia and Capitol.
All mono!
Christmas presents, all.
Quote from: Harry on June 06, 2007, 06:40:49 AM
Excellent, that was a good choice, as I well know. :)
Yeah, it's a great disc, espec the spectacular recording of Symphony 2 "Legendary" which blew my head when listening to it on a friend's CD headphones before I had a CD player myself.
Thanks everyone for the v interesting replies :)
Disc one from this set:
(http://img.verycd.com/posts/0602/post-420400-1139565495.jpg)
About 3 months ago, I finally completed the set. I also have the overtures. I recommmed all discs without reservation.
LP: I don't have classical music on vinyl.
CD: Mussorgsky - The Greatest Classical Hit - Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra/Ivan Marinov. [GCH 2428]
Glenn Gould's WTC
I remember saying to my sister, I don't like this recording - it sounds like there's monks chanting in the background. (This was way back before I knew anything about artists and their idiosyncrasies ... obviously).
I think it was an el cheapo Turnabout Lp of Monteux and Munch conducting Rimsky-Korsakov. Now looking around the 'net I see that they want $12 or $15 for this thing. Sheesh. I think some of these recordings made it to CD on the Munch and Monteux "Concert Hall Recordings" sets that were put out by Disky.
Another one that I got early on from Licorice Pizza was Bernstein conductiong La Valse, Bolero and Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2. I didn't know until recently that Bernstein did the whole D&C ballet.
(http://i16.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/a3/02/69c2_1_b.JPG)
My first CD was years later, and that was Jeffrey Siegel playing Gershwin with Slatkin and St. Louis.
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51081AV59QL._AA280_.jpg)
I have that on a Vox Box now, and it is an excellent set and sounds better than that early CD.
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/416ZJ649R0L._AA240_.jpg)
However, the first CD that I ever heard was the original CD release of the Ferrier/Patzak/Walter DLvDE. That was a mind blower. I didn't even realize it was mono at first.
Quote from: johnshade on June 06, 2007, 06:42:52 AM
~
Brahms Symphony No. 1 (Columbia LP purchased in 1955)
Conductor: Arthur Rodzinski, New York Philharmonic
(Played many times after purchase. No subsequent version I like as well.)
I picked that up recently at a thrift shop. Unfortunately, pickups of that era weighed about 10 tons, so copies of these Columbias that I find are usually pretty ground up. This one seemed maybe a little less ground up than usual. I might try ripping it to mp3, though I don't really have the right kind of stylus for it. (I also found one of Rodzinski doing La Mer with Cleveland that was in OK shape.)
I don't remember exactly, but I think it was the Bohm recording of Bruckner's 4th symphony on Decca.
Quote from: springrite on June 06, 2007, 06:35:07 AM
Dvorak New World Symphony, Giulini conducting the Philharmonia (Seraphim)
Here's the latest reissue of that,
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NT8A8EH6L._AA240_.jpg)
though the scratchy Seraphim Lp I picked up recently sounds pretty good to me. Which reminds me of some other
early Lps, the Giulini Tchaikovsky 6 with the Philharmonia, and the Beethoven Symphonies with Böhm and the VPO in an International Preview Society box set.
I bought my first CD player on April 15th, 1984. The store where I bought it had a small selection of CDs, and I picked up the only classical one that interested me, Gould's second recording of the Goldberg Variations. On my way home, I stopped by another store and bought Ashkenazy's Decca recording of the Sibelius 4th symphony, with Finlandia and Luonnotar (with Söderström) for fillers and the Jessye Norman/Kurt Masur Philips disc of Strauss orchestral lieder, including the Vier letzte Lieder.
I was just listening to that Sibelius disc yesterday. Skipped the Finlandia, though.
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TE8GT174L._AA240_.jpg)
Funny, huh? Found in the Bargain Bin. :)
I came to ADORE that CD, and still play it from time to time. Introduced me to some great works and some outstanding Telarc discs I would recommend to this day. First time I ever heard part of The Rite of Spring (Glorification of the Earth) and it just floored me. First time I discovered the glorious first part to the famous Pomp and Circumstance March. Falla's La Vida Breve, Haydn's Creation, Haydn's Symphony 101 (The Clock, under Mackerras), excerpts of all these all fun pieces. If it were an LP it would be falling apart, as I had like no money and just played it over and over (on Saturday afternoons, on my new fancy computer since we didn't have a real CD player, and also while playing Solitaire and Mahjong). I was 12 and a nerd. :D
Then I got for that Christmas a real CD player and this indispensable Laserlight boxed set,
(http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/010/19698.jpg),
which had a CD each for the composers: Verdi, Wagner, Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Strauss Jr., Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi. Just the perfect budget priced intro for a kid to the greats. So much enchanting music, Vivaldi's Four Seasons was the first thing I listened to from that box.
My first classical purchase was a 7 inch 33rpm version of the 1812 Overture by Ormandy and the Philadelphia. It was an offer I saw on a box of Quaker Oats (remember their advertising slogan? Shot from guns?). It cost 50 cents.
I bought my first classical LP in January 1966...a purchase made with money from my first paycheck from my first real job. I still have the record: Vaughan Williams 8 and Elgar Enigma, Barbirolli conducting the Hallé.
(http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/berlin/Vanguard1.jpg)
It cost $1.99. I'd heard parts of RVW's Fourth during a televised Bernstein Young Person's Concert and then heard the entire symphony on the radio sometime later (on WCLV, Cleveland). When I had money finally, I went shopping. Couldn't find a Fourth, though, so I settled on the Eighth. Although I liked it, the Enigma on the second side blew me away. Made an instant Elgarian out of me. :)
Sarge
Some more Lps from my misspent yout...
(http://graphics.gemm.com/graphics_db/VI/vinylfindco.3516.large.jpg) (http://graphics.gemm.com/graphics_db/VI/vinylfindco.3433.large.jpg)
(http://i4.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/9b/f3/f7a2_1.JPG) (http://i17.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/8a/db/40e0_1.JPG)
The Amsterdam Guitar Trio's transcription of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Got it in High School
First LP: Beethovens' 5th on the 'Music for Pleasure' label - it cost 15 shillings and would have been in 1972 (ish). I don't still have it, but I do still have the MfP Shostakovich 5 and Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet discs (both Ancerl) that I bought about a year later.
First CD: Respighi Rome Trilogy symphonic poems on Naxos - cost £4.99 in 1996
Stravinsky:The Rite of Spring(Stravinsky,Columbia Symphony Orchestra)lp
Quote from: rockerreds on June 06, 2007, 08:18:55 AM
Stravinsky:The Rite of Spring(Stravinsky,Columbia Symphony Orchestra)lp
Oh, yeah, I forgot that one. I had it in this set:
(http://i16.ebayimg.com/02/i/08/b6/f6/b4_1.JPG)
My first buys, three on the same day in 1987.
Mahler 5 : MacKerras/RLPO
Holst - Elgar : Planets/Enigma : Jochum/Steinberg
Bruch - Mendelssohn : Violin concertos - Milstein/Barzin
;D
The first I listened to was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf... I've reflected on it a few times to try and determine who it was that narrated it, but have not yet come to a definitive conclusion. Boris Karlov seems to be the best guess at current. I used to visit the local public library which was across the street from my aunt's house where I walked to after school every day in my elementary 80s.
My first purchases were three CDs in 1990... Szell and Cleveland on Prokofiev's Lt. Kije.... it was a strange coincidence as I was trying to track down the theme to a Sting song (Russians (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g90uQ0_Xa84))... who knew it would point me right back to the start with Prokofiev. :) While at the record store, I picked up a recording of Rossini's overtures, I can't remember who performed them, but the store attendant recommended it and I had a few dollars to burn. I also picked up a Laserlight recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue/Concerto in F.
1985. 19 years old I bought a cassette.
Bach at his best. I loved it and started buying up many classical tapes by various composers many of which I still have [although I haven't had a tape player in years].
There was a Maestro Masters series on tape which was excellent and I bought many of those.
I still have the Bach tape :)
Oh, and first cd?
1988 I was 22 years old and I'd finally bought a cd player and the day I got the player I also bought about 6 discs to play when I got home. There were several classical and the ones I remember are:
Wagner ~ Overtures
Handel ~ Water Music
Beethoven & Schubert ~ #5 & 'Unfinished'
I don't have any of those anymore. Traded the Wagner, The Beethoven got damaged by a 'friend' so I threw it away and the Handel I gave to my Mother a couple of years ago. :)
Schubert: 8th and 9th Symphonies Mackerras/Scottish Chamber orchestra
In the beginning: two DG MCs, one with the "Pastoral", the other one with Mozart piano sonata KV 310 and some piano and violin sonata. I found this stuff at home.
The first consciously purchased was Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Berliner and Karajan. "Amadeus" had a great effect on me, so later I went for Piano Concerto K482, Ashkenazy and English Chamber Orchestra.
First LP: Kempff LvB 8/14/23 (mono version)
First CD: Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty - Karajan/VPO
Quote from: Holden on June 06, 2007, 01:27:53 PM
First LP: Kempff LvB 8/14/23 (mono version)
First CD
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B00000JXZ2/sr=1-1/qid=1181165116/ref=dp_image_0/002-6549595-1682448?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music&qid=1181165116&sr=1-1)
hey Holden! Can't see your image.
Quote from: George on June 06, 2007, 01:30:47 PM
hey Holden! Can't see your image.
I'm in NZ and using a PC with Vista and can't seem to be able to paste a picture from the Amazon website. Any ideas?
Quote from: Holden on June 06, 2007, 01:32:41 PM
I'm in NZ and using a PC with Vista and can't seem to be able to paste a picture from the Amazon website. Any ideas?
I'll quote it and see if I can't put it up. :)
Compact Cassettes not included? Because they were my first. I bought a few of the series that Phillips had when I was 18. I don't remember what they were called but they featured a different butterfly on each cover. I remember I bought Bach:Favorite Organ Works, Beethoven 9th Symphony, Mozart Piano Concerti and a few more.
First classical CD when I was 25 or so:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/ef/58/98e3124128a072d6e2805010._AA240_.L.jpg)
and
(http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BDDX4QEXL._AA240_.jpg)
still have them, and still my preferred versions for the suites.
Quote from: Holden on June 06, 2007, 01:27:53 PM
First LP: Kempff LvB 8/14/23 (mono version)
First CD: Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty - Karajan/VPO
(http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PPE7M7WSL._SS500_.jpg)
I could only find the later one. :-\
Nutcracker
My first: an LP c. 1966
Bernstein - Tchiakovsky's Romeo & Juliet with the Firebird Suite
I was about three years old so I can't remember (but I do remember I used to stand in front of my stuffed animals and conduct them).
Quote from: hornteacher on June 06, 2007, 03:12:18 PM
I was about three years old so I can't remember (but I do remember I used to stand in front of my stuffed animals and conduct them).
Yeah, I can picture you there, with your Hillary Hahn action figure as first violin. ;D
Buxtehude organ recital by Nicholas Danby
Barenboim Beethoven Piano Sonata cycle (early EMI, assuming there's more than one EMI cycle of his).
Cassette: Mozart's Requiem in D Minor (I am sure D minor, our D minor, would be proud)....but I lost it when I moved to London-I bought it when I was quite young (22 years old) after watching the movie Amadeus. It was the only Classical music cassette I had before I discovered Classical music all over again 10 years later with Bach's St. Matthew Passion-by then the cd had taken over the market.
CD: Bach St. Matthew Passion (Karajan)-this was my mother's actually......
marvin
PS (I have since replaced Mozart's Requiem with a cd version)
I'm pretty sure my first LPs (as a kid) were Pictures (orchestral on one side and Richter's famed live piano version on the other), Messiah selections on one LP, and 1812--but I couldn't say for sure what order.
That said, the LPs that really opened me up to classical music were two discs of Beethoven's late quartets (131 and 127/135) by Quartetto Italiano that my Dad gave me when I was in college. It was one of his best ever gift calls.
First CD was probably Henry's Variations for a Door and a Sigh.
Can't remember the players, but it was Beethoven's "Eroica" on a cassette. Wore it out too! Also had Bach's Orchestral Suites, also on cassette. Same fate.
But 15 years later when I seriously got interested in classical music, it was Perlman's Mozart Violin Concertos & Pogorelich's Mozart sonatas disk. Great intro, IMO. :)
8)
Quote from: George on June 06, 2007, 03:18:29 PM
Yeah, I can picture you there, with your Hillary Hahn action figure as first violin. ;D
I think those would sell like crazy. 8)
LP: The Cliburn Tchaikovsky PC 1 with Kondrashin.
CD: It was a Richard Goode CD or twofer of some Beethoven piano sonatas on the BOMC (Book of the Month Club) label. Later, Elecktra/Nonesuch bought out the series, and issued the whole set, and I threw out my BOMC CDs in favor of the complete set.
Herbert von Karajan's 1963 performance of Beethoven's 9th, in the SACD hybrid version - which seems to have all but disappeared from the market (where I live). Still, though I've come to prefer other versions (including his 1977 recording), a solid recording and a good listen.
Never owned one, personally.
But my first experiene with classical music was probably an Van Cliburn's Tchaikovsky Piano Conerto on RCA Victor, as a baby. Great Record. :)
I think it was an LP with Bach Cantatas BWV 4, 54 and 59 conducted by Kurt Thomas in Leipzig.
I remember my first classical LP was Beethove 5th (DG, but remember the conductor) in 1977-78 when I was 7-8 years. Then it took some years before I bought this one in 2002:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51peWUz2VYL._AA240_.jpg)
Quote from: rubio on June 07, 2007, 08:49:05 AM
I remember my first classical LP was Beethove 5th (DG, but remember the conductor) in 1977-78 when I was 7-8 years. Then it took some years before I bought this one in 2002:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51peWUz2VYL._AA240_.jpg)
Just managed to get two new reissues of these performances for next to nothing on Amazon. :)
(http://www.iclassics.com/content/assets/selection/2/1221E.jpg)
Quote from: Mark on June 07, 2007, 08:50:58 AM
Just managed to get two new reissues of these performances for next to nothing on Amazon. :)
You are in for a treat, my friend! :)
Quote from: George on June 07, 2007, 12:32:53 PM
You are in for a treat, my friend! :)
Also picked up Maasaki Suzuki's Harpsichord version on BIS. From the samples I heard over at eMusic (http://www.emusic.com/album/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-BACH-J-S-Goldberg-Variations-Clavierubung-IV-MP3-Download/10897962.html), I think I'm gonna prefer this work on its intended instrument (which has a particularly fine tone on this recording, from the sound of it). :)
Ironically, I just got rid of Jeno Jando's Naxos version ... because of some weird noise in the background! ;D Don't think it was humming, though; probably just mics too close to the piano. Or not ... :D
Quote from: Mark on June 07, 2007, 12:38:23 PM
Also picked up Maasaki Suzuki's Harpsichord version on BIS. From the samples I heard over at eMusic (http://www.emusic.com/album/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-BACH-J-S-Goldberg-Variations-Clavierubung-IV-MP3-Download/10897962.html), I think I'm gonna prefer this work on its intended instrument (which has a particularly fine tone on this recording, from the sound of it). :)
Ironically, I just got rid of Jeno Jando's Naxos version ... because of some weird noise in the background! ;D Don't think it was humming, though; probably just mics too close to the piano. Or not ... :D
Hmm. ;)
Quote from: Mark on June 07, 2007, 08:50:58 AM
Just managed to get two new reissues of these performances for next to nothing on Amazon. :)
Do you have the link?
Quote from: Steve on June 07, 2007, 12:47:26 PM
Do you have the link?
Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould ('55) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002ISFRK/026-3060327-3609237)
Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould ('81) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bach-Goldberg-Variations-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B0002ISFRU/ref=pd_bxgy_m_h__img_b/026-3060327-3609237)
Double purchase: Beethoven 5th Symphony (Concertgebouw, Kleiber) and 3rd (Philharmonia, Karajan). Took all my pocket money for several months.
Quote from: rubio on June 07, 2007, 08:49:05 AM
I remember my first classical LP was Beethove 5th (DG, but remember the conductor) in 1977-78 when I was 7-8 years. Then it took some years before I bought this one in 2002:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51peWUz2VYL._AA240_.jpg)
An interesting first (sort of) purchase. I listen to this recording when I'm in the mood of listening and studying voice-leading and Bach.
Not sure which, both from my father-in law, who left us his collesction. These were the first two to get a spin. :
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41R9W4BDWZL._AA240_.jpg)
and
(http://www.classical.net.cn/imagedir/17400/172240115900926.jpg)
Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony (Karajan/BP)
Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Beethoven 6, both passed on to me from my grandmother, when I was about 12 years old. They were scratched old LPs, and I used to have to put a two cent coin on top of the needle to stop the records from jumping.
Beethoven Piano Concerto # 1 Dorfmann/Toscanini RCA. LP from early 70's. My parents got it for me for my birthday. I had asked for a "Beethoven Recording". Kept it for years but it got water damaged and moldy while in storage and had to be tossed.
1982
Classics for Pleasure - Richard strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra
Originally released on Decca, the RPO conducted by Henry Lewis. I still love this take on it.
At the same time, The Planets, Halle Orchestra conducted By James Loughran.
Hmm...I'd just watched (for the first time) 2001: A Space Oddysey one week before making my Classical purchses, both of which cost £1.99 each.
(http://www.hollowearth.org/nonesuch/sub.jpg)
(http://www.invinylveritas.com/pictures/Boultwilliams.jpg)
(http://i6.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/18/6c/2f4f_1.JPG)
I seem to have lost it in a move. I think all this stuff came out on Scribendum CDs.
Quote from: Corey on December 15, 2008, 01:49:04 PM
(http://www.hollowearth.org/nonesuch/sub.jpg)
Goodness! :o What a blast from the distant past! :D I'm sure I still have mine...somewhere. :-\
For me it was...
(http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/bernstein-beethoven5.jpg)
Critics seem to hate it, but it's still my favorite
Fifth. 0:)
1985; I was 19.
I bought Bach at his Best on cassette. I still have it. I can't find the cover online but this is the composer image used:
(http://www.npj.com/homepage/teritowe/jsb1748.jpg)
I remember a friend who visited picking up the cassette cover and saying 'freaky looking dude!' :D
Quote from: Corey on December 15, 2008, 01:49:04 PM
(http://www.hollowearth.org/nonesuch/sub.jpg)
(http://images.dmusic.com/v7/emoticons/bowdown.gif)
If you don't count a few cassettes and two Tchaikovsky CDs that were lying around the house as part of my parents' large-but-not-classical music collection, the first CD I personally sought out and bought (ca. 2004) was actually a set:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GDB0G4AEL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
That was also how I first learned about this Karajan fellow. ;)
And even though I've since switched to the newest remastering, I still keep the older set, honoris causa.
Mahler Symphony No.1: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra(Paul Kletzki) and Holst's Planets: B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra(Sir Malcolm Sargent)-HMV LPs.
Both bought for me by my father to start my record collection-1962.
First CD: Robert Simpson's Symphony No.9, December 1990.
LP: Schubert Unfinished, Sawallisch/Dresden on Philips (can't find the picture), B-side was compilation type with some lieder and piano pieces and I think one movement from Trout (can't recall who played those).
Cassette: Mozart's Requiem on Hungaroton, Ferencsik conducting, same artwork as on this CD
(http://www.hungaroton.hu/files/hungaroton/image/diskimages/HCD_12038.jpg)
CD: Funnily, can't remember exactly what was the first although was much later than above, Ashkenazy's 'favorite Chopin' on Decca/London was definitely among the first discs I bought.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414HBSB0QXL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
More nostalgia
(http://i15.ebayimg.com/05/i/001/0d/ec/0fd9_1.JPG) (http://onfinite.com/libraries/1288407/cfc.jpg)
(http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/projectileemesis/classicallps1208162.jpg) (http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/871956.jpg)
(http://i6.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/a3/ca/acda_1_b.JPG)
Bartok PC3/Ravel PC in G - Katchen/Kertesz
(http://i23.ebayimg.com/08/i/000/cb/85/6770_1.JPG)
(http://i23.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/a0/47/3891_1_sbl.JPG)
Prokofiev PC3/Ravel Left Hand PC - Browning/Leinsdorf/Philharmonia
I started collecting budget Lps in the early 80s. Lots of London Stereo Treasury (I didn't know about the vastly better orange labels), RCA Gold Seal, Seraphim, and Quintessence.
My first CD was Bruch/Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, Anne-Sophie Mutter, BPO, Karajan.
I did not even have a CD player at that time in fact it was the first time that I had heard a CD. I was in a store in Auckland when this unbelievable sound filled the room, I could not get over the actual reality of the sound, so purchased the CD then went looking for a player, arrived home a poor man but a grin so so wide :)
Quote from: moldyoldie on December 15, 2008, 02:19:58 PM
Goodness! :o What a blast from the distant past! :D I'm sure I still have mine...somewhere. :-\
I had on CD coupled with
The Wild Bull.
I envy all of you who can remember the exact one - I can't, although among the first ones I bought were:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41V7WEMDA7L._SL500_AA240_.jpg) (http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/1453/image1wt6.jpg)
Quite fortunately, I still rate both of them very highly.
First CD: Gershwin Complete Works for Orchestra and Piano and Orchestra
Jeffrey Siegel, Leonard Slatkin St Louis SO VOX probably 1992 or so.
Still available but with slightly different cover art than mine.
(http://www.arkivmusic.com/graphics/covers/full/02/28444.JPG)
I thought that this looked like an interesting thread without realising that I had started it myself ( ::) worrying). Anyway my first CD was Tubin Symphony 2 and 6 on BIS, bought some years before I had a CD player ??? It would not play on the micro-wave oven unfortunately.
Quote from: vandermolen on December 16, 2008, 05:22:10 AM
I thought that this looked like an interesting thread without realising that I had started it myself ( ::) worrying). Anyway my first CD was Tubin Symphony 2 and 6 on BIS, bought some years before I had a CD player ??? It would not play on the micro-wave oven unfortunately.
;D :) ???
My earliest classical music were on cassette tapes, mostly 4 for $10 (London, Seraphim, VOX, etc.). My first CDs came many years later. I remember one of my first CDs was Hooked on Classics, and I went on to buy many later CDs based on what was on that, since I had no idea what to get then.
An interesting story. Once I bought the Lebeque Sisters playing Gershwin. The cover photo was quite hot. I was waiting at the bus stop and admiring the cover when a Mexican migrant who was also waiting for the bus asked me in broken English was it was. I told him it is classical music. Then I convinced him somehow that classical music can be so exciting, and this CD in particular. I can't wait to get home to listen to it. He was to taken by that and offerred me $20 (more than the $12.99 cover price) to buy it from me since he has no idea where to find it. I told him he can not play in his tape or turntable. He needed to buy this new player called a CD player. "Just sell me this. Please. I will save money and I will be able to buy a player in a few month!" He said!
Quote from: donaldopato on December 16, 2008, 04:39:15 AM
First CD: Gershwin Complete Works for Orchestra and Piano and Orchestra
Jeffrey Siegel, Leonard Slatkin St Louis SO VOX probably 1992 or so.
Still available but with slightly different cover art than mine.
(http://www.arkivmusic.com/graphics/covers/full/02/28444.JPG)
Interesting, because my first CD was an older issue of 1/2 that box.
I had access for years to my parents' and my brother's classical music collections, which were not big, maybe around 50 recordings each, but pretty decent for a beginner to be able to explore.
The first classical cd I bought with my own money when I was 14 or 15 was this (it had just come out I seem to remember and was prominently displayed in the store):
(http://vocal-classics.com/images/Used%20CDs/DAW%20Bach%20Brand%20Gardino%202c.gif)
Mine was an old MHS CD of Rimsky-Korsakov overtures and the Capriccio Espagnol, with Enrique Batiz conducting the Mexico City Philharmonic.
Quote from: vandermolen on December 16, 2008, 05:22:10 AM
I thought that this looked like an interesting thread without realising that I had started it myself ( ::) worrying). Anyway my first CD was Tubin Symphony 2 and 6 on BIS, bought some years before I had a CD player ??? It would not play on the micro-wave oven unfortunately.
;D
Mine was a CD of Stravinsky conducting Le Sacre given to me by my first bass teacher, a great jazz player.
Allan
As "classical" does the piano duo Ferrante & Teicher count? Does anyone even remember them from the 60's? Oh, boy. That must have been the first--those "Autumn Leaves" with the descending double thirds, I used to swoon over, that is until I got Oscar Levant playing Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue" and the "Concerto in F". We also got a stock of old opera 78's at that time from a deceased uncle but I suppose those doesn't count.
Moving from borderline classical, the local lending library had LP's but it was exciting to finally venture out and buy my own. Bargains were to be had in places like Korvette's (overstock that few people were interested in). Yes, I remember them well: Myra Hess playing the Schumann PC (Seraphim, the highest Angels!) with the Symphonic Etudes, Van Cliburn in the ubiquitous Tschaikovsky PC with his picture on the front. Starting to feel at home in the LP section of the record department, I continued with his Rachmaninoff 3rd PC and Gary Graffman with the Chopin 1st PC and a Mendelssohn Rondo that was practically worn out from overuse. Also there were some Musical Heritage records gotten by mail, Bach Cantatas. Memories, memories...
ZB
Someone (I don't remember who) bought Hansel and Gretel for my sisters and me when I was 9 years old. It was in English and I learned to sing some of the songs (arias) like "Brother, come and dance with me."
It was not until 50 years later that I realized H and G was an opera. I looked for a CD of the complete opera but could not find it in my town. At that time I had to rely on local music stores the employees of which did not know even one classical piece of music. Life improved when I climbed aboard the Internet and discovered Amazon and bulletin boards like this one.
;D ;D
How often do you listen to the work today? :o
The first classical record I ever bought was Smetana's Moldau, which was paired with the overture and excerpts from The Bartered Bride. Exactly which recording it was has faded, but I suspect it was Bernstein/N.Y. Philharmonic. The record is long gone, but the works are heard several times per year, at least in the car!
The second was Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with Eugen Jochum on DGG. I visited it regularly at a department store in Dayton, and hoped that no other acolyte of Bruckner's had bought it. It was expensive: a 2-record set, paired with the Psalm 150 and 3 motets. I believe it was $7.00 or so! Imported from U.S. occupied West Germany! ;D
When I invested $40.00 in all the Bruckner symphonies on DGG, it galled me that I had spent $7.00 a few years earlier on the one work, which would be duplicated when the box arrived. But, knowing records, I calmed my inner Lincoln squeezer by telling myself that the extra copy could remain pristine, as a back-up, in case the older copy became scratched or ruined. 0:)
My first CD (c. 1985) was Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht on London, with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. I won it in a listening contest on local classical radio, and did not yet own a CD player! They were still too new and expensive!
I now have a CD set of my beloved Bruckner/Jochumcycle, and the Seventh Symphony and Verklärte Nacht are also heard several times per year!
Hasn't this topic been done already? ???
Anyway, my first classical recording was on CD of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with Fritz Reiner/CSO on RCA. My second CD was Bernstein's second go at Ives's Symphony No. 2 on DG.
Quote from: Mirror Image on September 12, 2011, 03:54:00 PM
Hasn't this topic been done already? ???
I don't know! If it has, I did not participate...obviously! ;D
I checked all my posts going back to January and saw no comments from me on a similar topic: possibly the topic appeared during one of my absences.
Quote from: Mirror Image on September 12, 2011, 03:54:00 PM
Anyway, my first classical recording was on CD of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with Fritz Reiner/CSO on RCA. My second CD was Bernstein's second go at Ives's Symphony No. 2 on DG.
The
Ives Second with
Bernstein was one of my all-around faves!
Quote from: Cato on September 12, 2011, 04:12:13 PM
The Ives Second with Bernstein was one of my all-around faves!
Yeah, it's a great recording. It also had some other great performances on it like
Central Park in the Dark,
The Unanswered Question,
The Gong on the Hook and Ladder or Firemen's Parade on Main Street, among others.
Concerning topic duplication, in February a topic appeared for 2 pages called "When Did You Start Listening?" which obviously is not quite the same occasion as when you invested your coin in a recording!
Concerning tapes: I did not buy pre-recorded tapes for a long time, until the Musical Heritage Society offered 3 tapes of excerpts of Rimsky-Korsakov operas with Neeme Järvi conducting the Scottish National Orchestra.
Those I nearly wore out! And they survived assorted hungry tape players!
Quote from: Cato on September 12, 2011, 04:39:33 PM
Concerning tapes: I did not buy pre-recorded tapes for a long time, until the Musical Heritage Society offered 3 tapes of excerpts of Rimsky-Korsakov operas with Neeme Järvi conducting the Scottish National Orchestra.
;D My first classical recording - a gift from family - was a Musical Heritage Society CD of Rimsky-Korsakov (Capriccio, May Night overture, Sadko, Russian Easter) with the Mexico City PO and Enrique Batiz.
The first classical recording I bought might have been an "Immortal Beethoven" 2-cassette pack of various movements from Beethoven works, back when I was 10 or so years old. My favorite things on the cassettes were the scherzo from Symphony No 9 and the first movement of the "Emperor" concerto. Guess I had good taste. :)
Quote from: Brian on September 12, 2011, 05:54:06 PMGuess I had good taste. :)
That could be debated. ;) :D
My first purchase, in my early teens, was a cassette of John Williams conducting the Boston Pops in various sci-fi themes. Don't roll your eyes! This was probably the foundation of my taste for late Romantic and early Modern symphonies. I can still recall the "Asteroid field"music despite not having heard it for 20+ years - a delightful, spritely scherzo by Gustav Holstokiev. This is also where I first heard Jerry Goldsmith's haunting Alien "end title" music.
I found a CD containing most of the music in a bargain bin years ago, but sadly the asteroid field wasn't on it.
I think we've done this topic before.
(http://www.vinylparadise.com/1classic/7orc2/7pkozmu1.jpg)
Turnabout TVS34668. Monteux conducts the Capriccio Espagnol, and Munch the rest.
Quote from: Daverz on September 12, 2011, 10:35:29 PM
I think we've done this topic before.
It would be a stigma on this forum if we hadn't! I suppose MI was thinking about
this topic (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,18934.msg536087.html). If that's too general, there's
this one (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1383.msg33266.html) from '07; but that doesn't include tapes, so the present thread has a wider scope. ::)
A little more on topic:
I bought my first CDs, funded by accumulated festival and birthday money, which would drain out rapidly over the next year or so, on May 7, 2006.
The CDs were: LvB's piano sonatas Nos. 8, 14, 21, and 23, played by Kempff (DGG) and Mozart's serenades (EKN, "Post Horn" and Ser. Not.) played by the ASMF and conducted by Marriner (a single from the Philips Mozart edition).
I'm still discovering things about the sonatas, but I haven't listened to the serenades in a long time.
I'm pretty sure I've related this tale before, but I'll indulge myself and tell it again.
I was 16; it was an English lesson. And the teacher came into the room, bless him, carrying a gramophone and an LP record in a battered sleeve, announcing that today we would not be doing English, but would be listening to Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. He spent a few minutes telling us about the 'story'; explained that we should look out for the idée fixe, and what it signified, and then off we went.
Back then I was full of Del Shannon and the Beatles, and resistive to the notion that classical music might be for me. But when that tune floated up, and the teacher gave us the nod ('this is the tune you have to look out for'), I was swept up into Berlioz's obsession. Next day I raided my scanty savings and went into town after school, hunting through the record racks to find a Symphonie Fantastique LP that I could afford. It was the cheapest in the shop, and even then it took almost all I had, but I took it home, commandeered my parents' rarely-used radiogram, and during the following weeks played the grooves flat.
The original LP is long gone, and I had to do some googling to find an image of the cover. It's so many years since I saw it, that it produced a slightly spooky feeling when I first spotted it on the screen: an image largely forgotten over decades, yet once so very, so excitingly, familiar:
(http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/e7a9d4ae7d92afe2cd16d627fc01096b/649852.jpg)
My first "proper" classical purchase was still not exactly proper - I picked up a bunch of Pilz discs for $2 each, going by names I recognised, as I didn't know anything about the music. I guess I didn't listen to them seriously. It was only years later that I was prompted to return to them, specifically to CD of Chopin's nocturnes, and THAT was when the infection really took hold.
After 40 years, I can't remember which was first, but I think these were my first four LPs:
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet, Marche Slave (DG/Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic)
Bach: Organ works, including the Toccata & Fugue in d minor (DG/Walcha, or was it Richter?)
Tchaikovsky: 4th Symphony (Columbia/Bernstein/NY Philharmonic)
2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack
My first opera recording was a 1953 Bayreuth Lohengrin on Richmond (Decca's budget label), with Windgassen, Steber, Varnay, Uhde, and Greindl, Keilberth conducting.
The other thread we had recently was WAY too restrictive. I don't know or care what my first cd is... my first cm purchase was on tape! It was Beethoven's 1st and 2nd symphonies and the best of Bach. ;D I listened to those tapes so many times I about wore them out.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71VdCPwgQKL._SL500_.jpg)
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a0/5c/2e32225b9da04a5ff587c010.L.jpg)
Favorite moments from those tapes: the opening of the Italian concerto, and the end of the intro to lvb's 1st symphony. :)
When I was sixteen, I heard Vaughan Williams Fourth twice: a Bernstein concert on TV, and a broadcast from Cleveland's WCLV, probably Boult. A short time later I got a part time job at, yes, the chicken place ;D With my first paycheck I went shopping for VW. I couldn't find the Fourth (pickins were slim in my part of the world) but I did find Barbirolli's VW8 coupled with Elgar. Although that strange little Eighth didn't appeal immediately I did fall in love with the Enigma. I still listen to both works often. In fact the Eighth is now my favorite of the nine.
Still have the LP:
(http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/berlin/Vanguard1.jpg)
Sarge
I bought two classical recordings in one go, age 14 (late 1975, early 1976):
1) Wagner's 'Greatest Hits' vol. 1, a CBS compilation with Szell and Ormandy, containing Meistersinger Prelude, Tannhäuser March, Tristan Liebestod, Lohengrin Bridal Choir and Prelude Third Act.
(http://i15.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/ed/83/b285_1.JPG)
2) Beethoven, Pastoral Symphony, with Eugen Jochum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$(KGrHqMOKowE1z-YTje1BNiRM0M0MQ~~_12.JPG)
(cover was different; this was issued later, not in 1970s)
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on September 13, 2011, 04:50:23 AM
I couldn't find the Fourth (pickins were slim in my part of the world)
I didn't know you worked in India for a summer! ;D
Quote
Still have the LP:
Very nice!
first LP: Schubert Unfinished Sawallisch on Philips
(http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/f/franz_schubert-schubert_und_seine_welt.jpg)
two cassettes: one with Strauss waltzes, don't remember played by who (cover was photo of the famous Johann Strauss statue from Vienna) and another was Mozart's Requiem by Ferencsik licenced from Hungaroton, same cover as later CD:
(http://blog.joinsmsn.com/usr/l/a/lapereau/5/ferencsik.jpg)
Oddly, can't remember first CD, even though it was much more recent.
Kinda sad that I can't remember the specific one, but it was probably one of the following very early purchases from a bricks and mortar store:
Sibelius - Symphony No.2 (Gibson, Chandos)
Bruckner - Symphony No.8 & 0 (Mehta, IPO, Sony)
Berlioz - L'Enfance du Christ (Herreweghe, HM)
I remember more clearly my first second-hand buys, at a bulk discount store which sometimes got classical in:
Bach - Cantatas Vol.1 (Werner, Erato)
Two of Warner's cheaply-done Dvořák anniversary edition boxes (Concertos, Symphonies)
Despite the unevenness of the latter, it had a lot of gems to discover, including the Requiem and Violin Concerto (in a very fine performance).
Not counting the (contemporary) orchestral movie soundtracks I devoured in my early teens, the first time I heard a bona fide classical work in its entirety immediately followed my first classical music purchase, when I was 16-17.
It was Beethoven's 9th symphony, from this box:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WWhqcSqoL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
I suppose this pattern - having to buy the music to listen to it, rather than be gifted it, or hearing it 'in the house' - shaped my aggressive collector instincts of future years. And no, I hadn't seen Clockwork Orange yet, at the time!
Along with the above, I bought three more discs:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419X6YGQN1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5125M3ak26L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RV1gppWIL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
And even though it was the Beethoven (again!) that I truly fell in love with, among them, to this day I maintain that any of you rolling your eyes at the last one are ignoring a legitimately rather beautiful, if unfaithful, reimagining of the Rach 2.
Though of course hearing Richter in it within the next couple of years set me straight on what the Rach 2 really is.
Well, I remember the VERY FIRST COMPLETE OPERA I ever bought, this:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GlYPSXSnL._SS400_.jpg)
That recording kick started a passion for opera and vocal that has lived on untill this very day! Giulini's Le Nozze brings back such good memories 0:).
marvin
Quote from: Opus106 on September 13, 2011, 06:08:19 AM
I didn't know you worked in India for a summer! ;D
Where I worked was as hot as India!
Sarge
Quote from: marvinbrown on September 13, 2011, 07:25:22 AM
Well, I remember the VERY FIRST COMPLETE OPERA I ever bought, this:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GlYPSXSnL._SS400_.jpg)
That recording kick started a passion for opera and vocal that has lived on untill this very day! Giulini's Le Nozze brings back such good memories 0:).
marvin
Mine was
Das Rheingold: the famous
Georg Solti recording from the early stereo era on London records.
My mother was baffled that I liked such things! ;D
Quote from: Cato on September 13, 2011, 07:46:45 AM
My mother was baffled that I liked such things! ;D
:D
My father isn't baffled that I like such things, as you put it, but he's always been baffled that I
invest so much (financially, but particularly emotionally) into them. My mother is only baffled that I have the
patience for hours of Mahler et al.
Edit: And I'm probably baffled myself that I have patience for Wagner, but there you go... ;D
Quote from: Renfield on September 13, 2011, 08:06:29 AM
:D
Edit: And I'm probably baffled myself that I have patience for Wagner, but there you go... ;D
I cannot tell you how many hours I spent with
Goetterdaemmerung and its score! 8)
in the first couple of hauls in 2006 :
[asin]B000056OBA[/asin]
[asin]B0009JMEL0[/asin]
[asin]B00068B8JI[/asin]
[asin]B00005R1LR[/asin]
and some various HMV Classics cheap intro CDs to classical works (Bach, Handel).
since then, it's been just a blur.... ;D
Quote from: Papy Oli on September 13, 2011, 11:15:04 AM
and some various HMV Classics cheap intro CDs to classical works (Bach, Handel).
since then, it's been just a blur.... ;D
Many of us understand!
Another very early record in my collection was an RCA Arthur Rubinstein performance of the
Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto and the
Liszt First. The picture of Rubinstein crossing his left hand over his right struck me for some reason: was it posed, or was the shutter clicked that quickly?
Best picture of it I could find:
(http://www.vinylparadise.com/1classic/3pian/lsc2069.jpg)
I was given this as a Birthday present in 2000 :) :
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410VXZ7JTZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
I did'nt buy a Classical recording until 2005, when I bought this:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31eHnzBy-QL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
After this I began collecting Classical recordings seriously in 2007. I listened to both of these recordings earlier in the year - they are probably due a re-visit soon though :).
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61owJLRtc4L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
This was my very first CD purchase. :) Was playing the first movement of the Unfinished in a Youth Orchestra, back in the early 2000s. (maybe 2003, 2004?) and decided to get the CD
Quote from: Cato on September 13, 2011, 07:46:45 AM
Mine was Das Rheingold: the famousGeorg Solti recording from the early stereo era on London records.
My mother was baffled that I liked such things! ;D
....and I'm baffled that you picked the Ring Cycle (albeit the first installment) as your introduction to opera. I had to build up to Wagner, let's see: Mozart -> Rossini -> Verdi -> Puccini -> R.Strauss -> Wagner! Not always in that order but I had a massive collection of Verdi, Puccini and Richard Strauss before I even got to Wagner.
My first introduction to Wagner was Tristan und Isolde (Furtwangler EMI). I remember after the glorious prelude that I had problems with the vocals, I could not sustain an interest in the piece as I found it too heavy. I had to put it aside. A few months later, after repeated attempts I was hooked 0:)! Go figure ;D!
marvin
It was an LP. I think it was Beethoven's fifth. It had a whitish cover. I think it was performed by the Concertgebouw.
Where was my Boswell, I'd like to know. I wasn't taking notes.
Quote from: marvinbrown on September 14, 2011, 02:29:31 AM
....and I'm baffled that you picked the Ring Cycle (albeit the first installment) as your introduction to opera. I had to build up to Wagner, let's see: Mozart -> Rossini -> Verdi -> Puccini -> R.Strauss -> Wagner! Not always in that order but I had a massive collection of Verdi, Puccini and Richard Strauss before I even got to Wagner.
My history's very different. Most of my first opera purchases were Wagner: The 1953 Bayreuth
Lohengrin I mentioned earlier in this thread, a 1951 Bayreuth
Parsifal, Solti's recording of
Siegfried (the only
Ring recording I could find around these parts). I had recordings of all the canonical (post-
Rienzi) Wagner before I bought my first Italian opera recording (
Rigoletto). Of course, I'd heard quite a bit of non-Wagner opera from our public library's collection, and via the Met broadcasts, so those first Wagner recordings I bought weren't really my introduction to opera.
Quote from: Cato on September 13, 2011, 09:24:17 AM
I cannot tell you how many hours I spent with Goetterdaemmerung and its score! 8)
This post prompted me to download the score from IMSLP . . . .
Which thoughtful super-market was that?
Quote from: Leon on September 14, 2011, 07:12:11 AM
I'm not sure, but could have been the Weingartner's my mother shopped at when I was growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Did the conductor set up shop in the US anytime? ;D Seriously, I wish stores these days would do something like that, here at last, instead of handing out plastic trinkets. ::)
Although we had lots of classical records in the house when I was growing up - my mom was a big fan of Russian composers - the first recording I recall actually buying was Berio's Sinfonia, the LP below. It came with a small sampler, and soon after I bought all of the records on that: Steve Reich It's Gonna Rain and Violin Phase, Terry Riley A Rainbow in Curved Air, Harry Partch Castor and Pollux, and Conlon Nancarrow Studies for Player Piano.
The first CD I bought was Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead (same cover as LP below) after hearing it at Tower Records in Washington, DC. They were playing it full blast, and I deliberately stayed in the store long enough to hear the entire thing, then bought it. :D
--Bruce
Both the Berio and the Rachmaninov are classic performances!
To add to my earlier post: my first LPs were by Beethoven and Wagner, my first CD was by Havergal Brian - Symphonies 7 & 31 under Mackerras with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. I even bought a CD player to be able to hear it (1988)!
Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on September 14, 2011, 07:42:23 AM
Both the Berio and the Rachmaninov are classic performances!
Agreed. And full disclosure: one of the reasons I bought the Berio (as a curious 15-year-old) was the cover! And a little oddity: I didn't hear the Mahler
Resurrection (the basis of the Berio middle movement) until probably 10 or 15 years
after getting to know the Berio.
--Bruce
Speaking as someone who explored a great deal of modern music before taking much interest in Mahler — I don't consider that an oddity, at all, Bruce : )
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 14, 2011, 08:59:06 AM
Speaking as someone who explored a great deal of modern music before taking much interest in Mahler — I don't consider that an oddity, at all, Bruce : )
Well, you're one in a million. ;D
PS, it took me quite a long time after getting to know the Mahler 2, to
not think of the Berio - not that mingling thoughts of the two is a bad thing.
--Bruce
Some fascinating stories here: many thanks to all!
Here was a shocker: ;D
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 14, 2011, 06:43:02 AM
This post prompted me to download the score (of Goetterdaemmerung from IMSLP . . . .
Karl: How long did that take?! :o
Quote from: Cato on September 14, 2011, 09:54:24 AM
Some fascinating stories here: many thanks to all!
Here was a shocker: ;D
Karl: How long did that take?! :o
I'd say perhaps a quarter of an hour . . . . (Full scores, aye.)
Prompted by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, it was the Mussorgsky Pictures on Supraphon, followed by Jochums Bruckner 4 in combination with a concert of the same work. After that it quickly became a blur, but I was lured into chamber music as well as early music quite early on.
My first classical CD was most likely this:
[asin]B000JCDSFI[/asin]
Can't say that I've felt a need to buy other versions of the works - and that's certainly not the fault of the compositions.
(http://ring.cdandlp.com/chapoultepek69%20/photo_grande/114770503.jpg)
On vinyl! Do I still listen to this work?
Duh. ::)
Just had a spooky experience. I wondered if I could find images of my second and third LP purchases (following the Symphonie Fantastique described above, as soon as I could scrape the money together to buy them). And here they are:
(http://991.com/newGallery/Rimsky-Korsakov-Scheherazade-526056.jpg)
The LP itself is long gone, and I couldn't remember anything about it except it was on HMV Concert Classics, but when I found it on the net (Kletzki/Philharmonia) I discovered that the soloist was none other than Hugh Bean. The name meant nothing to me then (this was the mid-1960s), but I do now wonder if it had a subconscious effect when I came, years later, to choose a recording of the Elgar violin concerto.
Bought at the same time (my goodness, what a powerful and permanent impact these early purchases had on a sixteen-year-old Beatles fan), was this:
(http://991.com/newGallery/Elgar-The-Enigma-Variat-483286.jpg)
That image haunted me for years - I used to prop the sleeve up and look at it while I listened to the music (until one day I actually visited the Malvern Hills and saw for myself that the real thing was infinitely more haunting and spectacular).
Hugh Bean.....I was referring to purchases becoming a blur, but Boult's V-W 6th coupled with Bean's Lark ascending probably was one of my first purchases as well.
Quote from: Elgarian on September 15, 2011, 12:47:06 AM
Just had a spooky experience. I wondered if I could find images of my second and third LP purchases (following the Symphonie Fantastique described above, as soon as I could scrape the money together to buy them). And here they are:
(http://991.com/newGallery/Rimsky-Korsakov-Scheherazade-526056.jpg)
The LP itself is long gone, and I couldn't remember anything about it except it was on HMV Concert Classics, but when I found it on the net (Kletzki/Philharmonia) I discovered that the soloist was none other than Hugh Bean. The name meant nothing to me then (this was the mid-1960s), but I do now wonder if it had a subconscious effect when I came, years later, to choose a recording of the Elgar violin concerto.
How strange - I immediately thought of Beecham and here it is someone else. Then I thought my memory might be playing tricks on me, but it's not:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RyehniJ0L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Chagall?
Quote from: The new erato on September 15, 2011, 01:23:14 AM
Chagall?
Yes - and both use the same cover for the same piece! It is a nice cover though. :)
Quote from: Elgarian on September 15, 2011, 12:47:06 AM
Just had a spooky experience. I wondered if I could find images of my second and third LP purchases (following the Symphonie Fantastique described above, as soon as I could scrape the money together to buy them). And here they are:
The LP itself is long gone, and I couldn't remember anything about it except it was on HMV Concert Classics, but when I found it on the net (Kletzki/Philharmonia) I discovered that the soloist was none other than Hugh Bean. The name meant nothing to me then (this was the mid-1960s), but I do now wonder if it had a subconscious effect when I came, years later, to choose a recording of the Elgar violin concerto.
Bought at the same time (my goodness, what a powerful and permanent impact these early purchases had on a sixteen-year-old Beatles fan), was this:
That image haunted me for years - I used to prop the sleeve up and look at it while I listened to the music (until one day I actually visited the Malvern Hills and saw for myself that the real thing was infinitely more haunting and spectacular).
It is truly amazing what the Internet contains: it has become an extra memory for us. All we need to have is just a word or two to lead us back to the full memory.
Or if not an extra memory, an attic full of stuff, including the most eccentric pieces of junk!
I started loving classical music after listening to Mozart's Symphonies No.40 & 41, so my first classical CD was the Karajan set of Mozart symphonies No.35-36-38-39-40-41.
I was very struck by the extreme harmony and beauty of that music :)
Ilaria
Mine was this old warhorse:
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2175/kleiberbeethoven.jpg)
And it's still one of my favorites.
(http://www.cdbiblio.com/eingang/cdimages/img_mozart/mozart0270.jpg)
still love it ;D
My first classical CD was a very cheap The Greatest Classical Hits: Mussorgsky disc of Pictures At An Exhibition performed by Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra/Ivan Marinov.
I think I bought it in 1994, 2-3 years before getting seriously interested about classical music.
At that time my knowledge about classical music was zero and I had no knowledge about Elgar. :D
Quote from: westknife on September 29, 2011, 09:02:32 AM
Mine was this old warhorse:
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2175/kleiberbeethoven.jpg)
And it's still one of my favorites.
Carlos Kleiber! About 40 years ago or so I heard a performance of
Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischuetz conducted by him on DGG.
He was rather reclusive...an odd trait for a conductor, one might think.
Speaking of DGG and odd: I had a high-school friend who bought nothing but DGG records. His first record was
Schumann's First Symphony, and he was so thrilled with the performance and quality of the recording that he refused to consider any other label! $:)
Talk about yer brand loyalty!
Quote from: Cato on September 30, 2011, 09:30:23 AMSpeaking of DGG and odd: I had a high-school friend who bought nothing but DGG records. His first record was Schumann's First Symphony, and he was so thrilled with the performance and quality of the recording that he refused to consider any other label! $:)
Just think of all the music he's missed by sticking to one label, what a shame. :-\
Many years ago ... my parents gave me my first LP: Bach's Cantatas BWV 4, 54 & 59 conducted by Kurt Thomas with Giebel and Theo Adam.
We might have talked about this before, but since so many new people are here...
Today I pulled out my first CD, which I actually won on a "name-that-tune" contest on a classical radio station in Toledo (the one in Ohio). It was 1984 or 1985, and we did not even own a CD player, since I had a "good number" ;) of vinyl records.
I had decided that I could name the work before it started, so I dialed the number early. When the announcer answered, I heard the "tune" starting out with a low C on the pedal of an organ and tremolos on the basses also on C: I told the announcer the name of the work, and had won the CD.
There was not much to choose from at the store where I was supposed to select my CD. But fortunately they had this:
(http://cdn.discogs.com/yWxBtqpaJWXxpjoYno41OZzWPDs=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-5024825-1382451114-8750.jpeg.jpg)
The Schoenberg was the attraction. ;) I believe two years went by before we took the plunge for a CD player.
Oh! And that tune? The first track on this CD:
[asin]Deutsche Grammophon
ASIN: B000001GQT[/asin]
Might be a time for a merger?
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,19224
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1383
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,25215
Not much of a story: the first CD I bought (Mutter's Bach concertos) was found at the PX in the American army family housing area in Perlacher Forest, Munich Germany. That was Sep or Oct 1985. Same place I bought my first CD player. I was stationed then a hour's drive south, at Flint Kaserne in Bad Toelz, home of 1st Battalion/10th Special Forces Group.
(http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/asheville/bachmutteracc.jpg)
Sarge
Quote from: Cato on January 13, 2016, 01:36:12 PM
Oh! And that tune? The first track on this CD:
[asin]Deutsche Grammophon
ASIN: B000001GQT[/asin]
Too easy! ;D
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on January 13, 2016, 02:09:36 PM
Too easy! ;D
Sarge
Oh yes! Way too easy!
I won some records in a similar contest when we lived in Columbus in the late 1970's. I think they played the
Largo from
Dvorak's Ninth.
My first CD was not classical. But I don't remember what it was. Maybe Streisand's The Broadway Album. I know that was one of the early ones. I think I bought it in 1985, shortly after my roommate bought his first CD player. It could also have been Donald Fagen's The Nightfly or Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms.
I remember my first classical CD, though, the Brendel version on Philips Silver Line of Schubert's Piano Sonata D960. The first movement was playing at Olsson's in Georgetown on a day like today in January, 1987, and I had to have it. I hadn't bought anything other than classical I'd heard in movies prior to that. It was the first of many classical CDs I would purchase.
Quote from: Jay F on January 13, 2016, 02:45:46 PM
I remember my first classical CD, though, the Brendel version on Philips Silver Line of Schubert's Piano Sonata D960. The first movement was playing at Olsson's in Georgetown on a day like today in January, 1987, and I had to have it. I hadn't bought anything other than classical I'd heard in movies prior to that. It was the first of many classical CDs I would purchase.
Fascinating how some things capture our fancy instantly! 0:)
Certainly the first CD I ever heard is more significant
(http://cdn.discogs.com/rlBXtf_ffRwPzNoASdwW_iaxZH8=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-1689680-1237119685.jpeg.jpg)
So electrifying was the effect of that opening song that I didn't realize that this was a mono recording at first. And this was on a cheap portable CD player with the Sennheiser on-ear 'phones with the yellow earpads circa 1987. Checked out from the university library of the small Northern California town I was living in at the time.
When I was growing up there were a few classical music CDs in the house, but mainly 'best of' compilations which my parents had. The first CD that was utterly my own was a gift from my parents for my tenth birthday:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71j0DYfjuwL._SX355_.jpg)
And they were kind enough to give me this as well:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jIOXz7wLL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
This was all the way back in 2007. I memorised the entire score by 2008, but I've since forgotten large chunks of it!
Assuming Cato doesn't object, I am moving this thread to the "General Classical Music Discussion" board.
My first CD was Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead (with a different cover), with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Concertgebouw. I was browsing in Tower Records in Baltimore, and when this came on I was transfixed. It is still one of my favorite recordings, both for the interpretation and for sound quality.
[asin]B0000041YX[/asin]
--Bruce
Fall of 1985, bought Bach Violin Concertos with Kuijken and Karajan and Nutcracker Suites.
I remember some CDs of Handel, Haydn and Schumann playing when I was growing up, but the first first classical CD that I owned my parents gave me when I was like, 12 and it had a couple of Vivaldi trio sonatas and concertos . I don't think I ever listened to it though...The first CD I bought two years or so ago was Argerich playing Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, Polonaise Fantaisie, Polonaise Heroique and the Mazurkas op. 59.
My first CD was not classical music. In fact I had I think about 200 CDs when I bought my first classical music CD (a crappy budget label release of Mussorsgky)
This was it. Even before I owned a CD player. ::)
[asin]B000027RYW[/asin]
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-chbDn7mL._SL500_SX355_.jpg)
Charles Koechlin - bought it ca 1995 or 1996. I walked into a Macro-supermarket and saw a rack of cds, next to the hairdryers and the coffeemakers. A miracle!
P.
IIRC, when my dad bought our first CD player, the album that I immediately bought was this one:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/998/MI0000998672.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I can't remember now, but it may have been this one. It was certainly in the first five, and I can't remember which the others were at the moment
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDfLk_82JkPwSVrWZc3N6iPsOAeWP7StC_O2VSwoXJzyCTstT-)
I'm not sure when this was, early 90s though. I loved it, lent it out, never got it back.
This is the first classical CD I ever bought, which was in 2007, which I found in a used CD store near my town:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/958/MI0000958284.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I didn't really understand the music at the time as I was completely new to classical music, but two or three subsequent listens gave me a greater appreciation for the music and the performance, without question, is in a class of its own. Absolutely incredible.
Quote from: Mirror Image on January 14, 2016, 03:45:48 AM
This is the first classical CD I ever bought, which was in 2007, which I found in a used CD store near my town:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/958/MI0000958284.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I didn't really understand the music at the time as I was completely new to classical music, but two or three subsequent listens gave me a greater appreciation for the music and the performance, without question, is in a class of its own. Absolutely incredible.
What was the attraction? Had you heard something about
Bartok or had you heard other works by him?
Fascinating, the first buys mentioned:
Koechlin,
Tubin,
Verdi's Falstaff.
The first CD I can´t remember, but my very first batch of LPs was this:
(http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a533/acchordrecords/2014/01_18_14/T1RIKA1_resize_zps98587d03.jpg) (http://cdn.discogs.com/bXKSK02sZvoYG0kln8x2YklndAA=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-4293934-1383922658-7475.jpeg.jpg) (http://img.cdandlp.com/2015/09/imgL/116491152.jpg)
They accompanied the turntable which my father bought at my won´t-take-no-for-an-answer kind of request. It must have been in 1985, I think.
It was a gift. This one:
[asin]B00000E3XZ[/asin]
I too bought my first CDs before owning a player, I'd purchased a Poulenc chamber music LP, new, and was so surprised and disappointed at all the clicks and pops on a new record that I immediately and querulously returned it. The clerk recommended I get into CDs. I thought about it a few months before I did so. My wife encouraged me, but I was afraid that a few CDs would not be enough (how prescient!) and wavered. When I went back to the shop I saw this on the register counter. I wanted it big time, but still hesitated. Passed a night worrying that when I went back it would be gone. Next day, on my lunch hour, I drove to the shop and it was still there! The clerk thanked me for buying it as it had sat there on the counter for months and he was "tired of looking at it." Later, I joined the BMG Classical Club and was a member for many years. The rest is history.
It was Zappa who pushed me into the CD era with a Utility Muffin Research Kitchen oven mitt. I was in western New York, quietly working on my doctorate and enduring Buffalo winters, when I discovered that the Zappa catalogue was being re-issued on CD by Ryko Disc, and one of the first items was We're Only In It For The Money, and album long out of print which I had never succeeded in finding in my used-record-shop trawling. But wait, there was more: the disc had both We're Only In It For The Money AND Lumpy Gravy (which I had never heard, but I had always been rather curious about) on a single compact disc.
How long the interval was between my purchasing this CD at a Buffalo record store, and my buying a CD player which I could patch into my boom box, I do not now recollect.
(Oven mitt shown actual size)
The first CD I ever owned was given to me by the manager of a long forgotten pop group, by way of apology for the record company taking so long to pay me after I'd shot a photo for the artwork. The first classical CD I owned was probably Andre Previn playing and conducting Gershwin's Concerto in F.
Quote from: NikF on January 14, 2016, 04:44:20 AM
The first classical CD I owned was probably Andre Previn playing and conducting Gershwin's Concerto in F.
How do you like the piece?
I bought my first CD the day after the Labeque Sisters appears on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I saw their CD with the lovely photo cover (Gershwin: An American in Paris) and bought the CD, about a week before I bought a CD player.
Quote from: karlhenning on January 14, 2016, 05:37:07 AM
How do you like the piece?
I thought it was great. I'd a cassette tape of Rhapsody in Blue (and I think Cuban Overture) and someone had said that I should give the Concerto in F a try. So I bought the CD - choosing Previn because his was a name I'd been familiar with - and listened to it. I also remember thinking it sounded like more of a mature composition.
What do you think of it?
Quote from: NikF on January 14, 2016, 05:54:13 AM
I thought it was great. I'd a cassette tape of Rhapsody in Blue (and I think Cuban Overture) and someone had said that I should give the Concerto in F a try. So I bought the CD - choosing Previn because his was a name I'd been familiar with - and listened to it. I also remember thinking it sounded like more of a mature composition.
What do you think of it?
I do like it, and agree that it is a more thoroughly thought-out composition than the famous
Rhapsody (against which I won't hear a word, mind . . . for a piece which the composer knocked off in a few weeks, its status as a well-loved classic bespeaks it sufficiently).
Quote from: karlhenning on January 14, 2016, 06:02:07 AM
I do like it, and agree that it is a more thoroughly thought-out composition than the famous Rhapsody (against which I won't hear a word, mind . . . for a piece which the composer knocked off in a few weeks, its status as a well-loved classic bespeaks it sufficiently).
Here's how much I like the Rhapsody. It was already music I strongly identified as being 'American' and more specifically soundtrack for New York City. Then one day I found myself travelling to Manhattan for the first time to work for a couple of days. I exited the airport and got in to a taxi - and as soon as I saw the city approaching I took one of those Sony Walkman cassette players from my bag, put headphones on and listened to Rhapsody in Blue. ;D So while I now consider the Concerto in F to be in some ways a greater work, the Rhapsody is still special to me.
And nothing at all wrong with that!
As I wrote last fall in a similar thread:
I started listening to classical music probably in 1987 with the odd selection of LPs and cassette tapes my parents had.
For about a year (1987/88) I bought a few cassette tapes: Mozart 40/41 with Klemperer, Beethoven Tripel/Brahms double with Fricsay/Schneiderhan etc, Beethoven's violin concerto with Hoelscher/Vonk and I got Beethoven's 5th with Kleiber as a present for my 16th birthday in March 1988. But it was obvious that CD was the coming medium so we got our dad to buy a CD-player for the family before Xmas 1988. The first CD I bought a week or two before we got the player was Beethoven's piano concertos 3+4 with Ashkenazy/Solti on Decca Ovation. I still have it and still think that the 3rd pc is one of the most powerful interpretations of the piece I have encountered.
(The 2nd and 3rd CDs I bought I have given away since, it was Beethoven's sonatas op.31/2, op.106, 111 and the 5th piano concerto with Kempff/DG).)
All of these were bought in late fall or early winter 1988.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51STJhjps4L.jpg)
The Pretenders debut album to test out my new CD player.
And you still haven't stopped your sobbing.
Quote from: Cato on January 14, 2016, 03:54:48 AM
What was the attraction? Had you heard something about Bartok or had you heard other works by him?
Fascinating, the first buys mentioned: Koechlin, Tubin, Verdi's Falstaff.
A good question, I hope I can provide an equally good answer. ;) In a magazine, one of my favorite guitarists named Ben Monder mentioned the classical music he loved and Bartok was one of the composers that he mentioned. He also mentioned that he wished he could play
Bluebeard's Castle on the guitar, which would be impossible without overdubs or a virtual guitar orchestra. 8) The second composer I got into was Ives, and Copland as well, thanks to a Bill Frisell album titled
Have A Little Faith where he performed, with his band, a pared down version of Copland's
Billy the Kid and the movement
The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment) from Ives'
Three Places in New England. Needles to say, I picked a strange avenue to start exploring classical even after suggestions of composers to check out first like Brahms or Tchaikovsky.
Quote from: Super Blood Moon on January 14, 2016, 07:51:49 AM
The Pretenders debut album to test out my new CD player.
Saw them live back in the day. Farndon carried a bottle of something intoxicating on stage with him and at first it seemed he could hardly lift his guitar. Chrissie talked about having to cancel her first date in our city because of a bad cold and then comes back and has yet another cold and "I sure hope you appreciate this!" then gave us the finger. The crowd did it in return and she laughed. My ears are still ringing from that concert, easily one of the best rock concerts I've ever been to. But the Smiths beat all.
Many thanks for all the stories: interesting how so many of us owned the CD's first, and then bought a player!
Zauberdrachen mentioned the BMG Classical Club. I should mention that my second CD purchase came via the Musical Heritage Society, and the CD had Dvorak's complete Slavonic Dances with Neeme Jaervi and the Scottish National Orchestra.
Quote from: Cato on January 14, 2016, 04:15:13 PM
Many thanks for all the stories: interesting how so many of us owned the CD's first, and then bought a player!
Yes, I was hoping that I could play the CD in our microwave oven (after all, it does have a turntable) - but sadly this was not the case. 8)
Quote from: vandermolen on January 15, 2016, 05:47:59 AM
Yes, I was hoping that I could play the CD in our microwave oven (after all, it does have a turntable) - but sadly this was not the case. 8)
Wow, you tried that? ;) It wasn't VW's
Serenade to Music was it? How many minutes did you set it for? Dunno why you don't like that work, 'cause I'll bet it was a sizzling performance!
Quote from: ZauberdrachenNr.7 on January 15, 2016, 07:17:07 AM
Wow, you tried that? ;) It wasn't VW's Serenade to Music was it? How many minutes did you set it for? Dunno why you don't like that work, 'cause I'll bet it was a sizzling performance!
:)
In retrospect if I'd tried to play Sibelius's 'Tapioca' conducted by Charles Much on the microwave I suspect that it would have played fine. The performance would have been burning with conviction no doubt.
8)
PS don't try this at home.
Quote from: vandermolen on January 15, 2016, 07:24:23 AM
:)
In retrospect if I'd tried to play Sibelius's 'Tapioca' conducted by Charles Much on the microwave I suspect that it would have played fine. The performance would have been burning with conviction no doubt.
8)
PS don't try this at home.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I've had that and it's excellent! Or Eggs Berlioz or Bizet Cakes anyone? (
real recipes!) In fact, I guess I won't be trying it at home - I don't own a microwave, one of less than 10% of Americans who don't. Don't like 'em.
Quote from: ZauberdrachenNr.7 on January 15, 2016, 07:45:06 AM
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I've had that and it's excellent! Or Eggs Berlioz or Bizet Cakes anyone? (real recipes!) In fact, I guess I won't be trying it at home - I don't own a microwave, one of less than 10% of Americans who don't. Don't like 'em.
Probably sensible not to own a microwave. There could be health risks associated with them. I've only ever used mine for playing CDs. 8)
Quote from: vandermolen on January 15, 2016, 07:24:23 AM
:)
In retrospect if I'd tried to play Sibelius's 'Tapioca' conducted by Charles Much on the microwave I suspect that it would have played fine. The performance would have been burning with conviction no doubt.
8)
PS don't try this at home.
Beethoven's Erotica Symphony is the hot one! 0:)
Quote from: Cato on January 15, 2016, 09:06:56 AM
Beethoven's Erotica Symphony is the hot one! 0:)
Ah, yes, that's the one with all the ecstasy in the, er, last movements!
Quote from: vandermolen on January 15, 2016, 07:24:23 AM
:)
In retrospect if I'd tried to play Sibelius's 'Tapioca' conducted by Charles Much on the microwave I suspect that it would have played fine. The performance would have been burning with conviction no doubt.
8)
Wouldn't Skriabin's ~
Prométhée, le Poème du feu Op.60 be the prime candidate for hot play on the microwave turntable?
the hot play of a CD
Quote from: ritter on January 14, 2016, 01:55:29 AM
IIRC, when my dad bought our first CD player, the album that I immediately bought was this one:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/998/MI0000998672.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I was at that performance, very memorable!
1984 - The last year that Carlo Maria Giulini was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The then 29 year old Simon Rattle had been a principal Guest Conductor since 1981 and had become a firm favourite of mine (even if he did come from Liverpool instead of Manchester ::) )and I got my first CD player and disc ...
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91v3oAjkPbL._SX425_.jpg)
Hard to imagine now that he didn't have white hair!
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0003/045/MI0003045409.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I bought this as my first LP was the Pastoral under Steinberg.
Quote from: ZauberdrachenNr.7 on January 15, 2016, 09:34:31 AM
Ah, yes, that's the one with all the ecstasy in the, er, last movements!
I must apologise for derailing this thread. >:D
Quote from: CRMS on January 15, 2016, 07:40:23 PM
1984 - The last year that Carlo Maria Giulini was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The then 29 year old Simon Rattle had been a principal Guest Conductor since 1981 and had become a firm favourite of mine (even if he did come from Liverpool instead of Manchester ::) )and I got my first CD player and disc ...
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91v3oAjkPbL._SX425_.jpg)
Hard to imagine now that he didn't have white hair!
80's classical album covers suck most of the time. Here Rattle looks so menacing in the dark he could be a Sith lord from Star Wars. ::)
I also dislike the EMI digital logo and the displacement of it. Just horrible. :-X
Most classical album covers with photos of musicians suck, regardless of time period. But as documented in the "Covers"-Threads the 1980s had some cool iconic covers as well, often obsessed with computer graphics to highlight the digital technology.
Although the best classical covers are probably from the 1950s and 60s.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/218Q25G4YZL.jpg)
Quote from: CRMS on January 15, 2016, 07:40:23 PM
1984 - The last year that Carlo Maria Giulini was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The then 29 year old Simon Rattle had been a principal Guest Conductor since 1981 and had become a firm favourite of mine (even if he did come from Liverpool instead of Manchester ::) )and I got my first CD player and disc ...
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91v3oAjkPbL._SX425_.jpg)
Hard to imagine now that he didn't have white hair!
Terrible photo of Rattle. He looks like the wine waiter at the Savoy Hotel.
I liked Philips' mid-price Silverline design.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTM2OFgxNjAw/z/v9IAAOSw-nZTm46X/$_57.JPG)
Quote from: vandermolen on January 16, 2016, 10:18:55 AM
Terrible photo of Rattle. He looks like the wine waiter at the Savoy Hotel.
Savoy Hotel should pay more attention for who they hire... :o
Quote from: Jay F on January 16, 2016, 10:55:57 AM
I liked Philips' mid-price Silverline design.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTM2OFgxNjAw/z/v9IAAOSw-nZTm46X/$_57.JPG)
I only have a few of the Silverline and not sure if I owned any in the late 1980s but I cannot help but love them and most others from the time out of pure nostalgia!
I could afford so few CDs as a teenager back then but spent quite a bit of time browsing the free and beautiful catalogues from the labels to determine which ones I would get eventually...
Quote from: CRMS on January 15, 2016, 07:40:23 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91v3oAjkPbL._SX425_.jpg)
I agree with all the negative comments about this cover...but the Sibelius 5 and Night Ride are superb. My favorite performances. A great first CD.
Sarge
Quote from: vandermolen on January 15, 2016, 11:31:20 PM
I must apologise for derailing this thread. >:D
No, not at all, I was inspired to listen to Norrington's LvB 9 and quite enjoyed it. So thanks are in order.
Quote from: Jo498 on January 16, 2016, 11:42:14 AM
I only have a few of the Silverline and not sure if I owned any in the late 1980s but I cannot help but love them and most others from the time out of pure nostalgia!
I could afford so few CDs as a teenager back then but spent quite a bit of time browsing the free and beautiful catalogues from the labels to determine which ones I would get eventually...
Here's a whole lot of them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=philips+silver+line+classics&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO5eTJ9a_KAhWGOD4KHahnAx8Q_AUICSgD&biw=1440&bih=740
Quote from: Cato on January 14, 2016, 04:15:13 PM
Many thanks for all the stories: interesting how so many of us owned the CD's first, and then bought a player!
I bought a 45rpm vinyl single*** when I was about 11, and then challenged my dad to buy me an 'electric gramophone' for me to play it on. Unusually, it worked (though he wasn't generally an indulgent man).
I was a bit of a late adopter of CDs, due to already having an extensive LP collection and a high-end player. So this was my first, which must have been sometime in 1991:
[asin]B000002ZO8[/asin]Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues, played by Nikolayeva - actually a 3-CD box.
I have to say that this purchase single-handedly radically altered my musical tastes. Prior to this, it was mainly big orchestral music, typically the late romantics - or in jazz (which I like equally), post-Bitches Brew fusion, likewise big congested wodges of sound.
Hearing this delicate and spacey Hyperion recording of solo piano music, without pops fizzes or crackles, and inaudible blackness between tracks - just made me want to hear more ... silence! From then on and right up to the present it was solo instrumental music, or small acoustic jazz groups, that make up the bulk of my listening, and it is the spaces between the notes that I enjoy the most.
*** I've been trying to remember what it was - I think it was some ghastly echo-ey romantic ballad by Dickie Valentine -
Hey Venus - obviously totally inappropriate for an 11-year-old boy. (It was the overblown reverb that I liked.) My parents were a bit shocked when they heard it, so much so that they went out and bought me my 2nd record - something they thought more suitable - it was the novelty song by Mike Sarne
Come Outside (with Wendy Richards interjections "Get lorst", "Ooh, you do keep on"). They obviously hadn't thought to listen to the flip side before buying it, where the lyrics went "If there's one fing that I like, it's a bird up on my bike, a burn-up wiv a bird up on my bike". :laugh:
Quote from: CRMS on January 15, 2016, 07:40:23 PM
1984 - The last year that Carlo Maria Giulini was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The then 29 year old Simon Rattle had been a principal Guest Conductor since 1981 and had become a firm favourite of mine (even if he did come from Liverpool instead of Manchester ::) )and I got my first CD player and disc ...
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91v3oAjkPbL._SX425_.jpg)
Hard to imagine now that he didn't have white hair!
Giulini's three sidekicks (principal guest conductor and associate conductor) were Rattle, Michael Tilson Thomas and Andrew Litton. Quite a lineup!
Quote from: 71 dB on January 16, 2016, 11:03:54 AM
Savoy Hotel should pay more attention for who they hire... :o
😀
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on January 16, 2016, 12:37:07 PM
I agree with all the negative comments about this cover...but the Sibelius 5 and Night Ride are superb. My favorite performances. A great first CD.
Sarge
I agree with you on that Sarge and his Sibelus Symphony 3 was equally fine in my opinion.
Quote from: vandermolen on January 17, 2016, 01:52:05 AM
I agree with you on that Sarge and his Sibelius Symphony 3 was equally fine in my opinion.
This work, but not this recording, was another early CD purchase, again from the Musical Heritage Society. Probably it was one of the first 5 CD's I owned.
Neeme Jaervi and the
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The
Third and
First Symphonies need more respect! 0:)
Quote from: Cato on January 17, 2016, 04:45:54 AM
Neeme Jaervi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The Third and First Symphonies need more respect! 0:)
On BIS I presume?
Quote from: Mirror Image on January 17, 2016, 06:06:48 AM
On BIS I presume?
Probably licensed to the Musical Heritage Society, now defunct. It was sold some years ago to another company, which then went out of business.
Quote from: Cato on January 17, 2016, 04:45:54 AM
The Third and First Symphonies need more respect! 0:)
Yes, I love the third! I need to revisit the first, though...been awhile...
Number's 1 and 2. Number 1 after watching the movie on VHS which my roommate's girlfriend brought over. Highly ironic since at the time we were still awash in the punk & underground metal scene. ZING!!! All out the window after that! ;D ;D
Number 2 since I loved number 1 so much but hadn't yet gotten my head around the whole "highlights REALLY aren't the way to go in classical" concept.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/713AW5f56dL._SL1310_.jpg)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XboNxaVOL.jpg)
Hard to believe this was all 30 years ago now!!! :o
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on January 17, 2016, 06:17:03 PM
Number's 1 and 2. Number 1 after watching the movie on VHS which my roommate's girlfriend brought over. Highly ironic since at the time we were still awash in the punk & underground metal scene. ZING!!! All out the window after that! ;D ;D
Number 2 since I loved number 1 so much but hadn't yet gotten my head around the whole "highlights REALLY aren't the way to go in classical" concept.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/713AW5f56dL._SL1310_.jpg)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XboNxaVOL.jpg)
Hard to believe this was all 30 years ago now!!! :o
I had a small number of LPs by the time CDs started. Gave them all away...mostly operas...because it seemed vinyl was forever finished. Most were historical mono operas. The small number I truly liked now exist in CD incarnations on my shelves. Ditto the cassettes, most of which were actually pop or rock.
The first LP I got as a preteen with my own money was Vivaldi's Four Seasons, on Seraphim...Don't remember the performers, but it included a reading of the four sonnets Vivaldi included with the first edition.
First CD was the same as DD: the Amadeus soundtrack, immediately after getting a portable CD player. Needed to test out the newfangled technology.
I believe, those were the two. At the time I was in school abroad. I was looking for a recording that embodied french spirit to its heart. Regine Crespin, a fabulous diva, fulfilled my expectation a thousand times.
Rasumovsky string quartet is a nice story. While in school, I had bought season tickets for classical music concert, and that year the Guarneri string quartet gave the full cycle of Beethoven string quartet. This was the most intense musical experience of my life. Looking for their recordings, I could not find any CD version (I just had bought my first player), so I settled for the Alban Berg version. I still wish I could have found a recording of the Guarneri.
Quote from: ZauberdrachenNr.7 on January 14, 2016, 03:49:00 PM
Saw them live back in the day. Farndon carried a bottle of something intoxicating on stage with him and at first it seemed he could hardly lift his guitar. Chrissie talked about having to cancel her first date in our city because of a bad cold and then comes back and has yet another cold and "I sure hope you appreciate this!" then gave us the finger. The crowd did it in return and she laughed. My ears are still ringing from that concert, easily one of the best rock concerts I've ever been to. But the Smiths beat all.
For live rock concerts I've seen, Talking Heads were the best. Positively uplifting.
Quote from: Spineur on January 19, 2016, 10:33:51 AM
I believe, those were the two. At the time I was in school abroad. I was looking for a recording that embodied french spirit to its heart. Regine Crespin, a fabulous diva, fulfilled my expectation a thousand times.
Rasumovsky string quartet is a nice story. While in school, I had bought season tickets for classical music concert, and that year the Guarneri string quartet gave the full cycle of Beethoven string quartet. This was the most intense musical experience of my life. Looking for their recordings, I could not find any CD version (I just had bought my first player), so I settled for the Alban Berg version. I still wish I could have found a recording of the Guarneri.
Fascinating choices and nice story about the "French spirit."
One of my earliest records on 33 1/3 was of
Charles Munch conducting
Chausson's Symphony and
Franck's Le Chasseur Maudit ! Great works, no matter what country one hails from! 0:)
(http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0657/5689/products/HS10462-1_grande.jpeg?v=1428542869)
And Munch with the BSO is a good fit for that lit.
Quote from: Spineur on January 19, 2016, 10:33:51 AM
I believe, those were the two. At the time I was in school abroad. I was looking for a recording that embodied french spirit to its heart. Regine Crespin, a fabulous diva, fulfilled my expectation a thousand times.
Heck, I don't remember but the Crespin recording sounds enticing as I am her most devoted fan.
I do not remember for sure the first CD I purchased, maybe it was Goebel's Brandenburgs. But I remember my first LP, which was Beethoven's 2. symphony with Philharmonia Orch. and Otto Klemperer. My father was a Klemperer fan and had already got Klemperer's recordings of symphonies 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9. But the emerging completist in me wanted all Klemperer's Beethoven symphonies. So I got no.2 and later no.s 1, 4 and 8.
Quote from: (: premont :) on January 22, 2016, 12:44:23 PM
I do not remember for sure the first CD I purchased, maybe it was Goebel's Brandenburgs. But I remember my first LP, which was Beethoven's 2. symphony with Philharmonia Orch. and Otto Klemperer. My father was a Klemperer fan and had already got Klemperer's recordings of symphonies 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9. But the emerging completist in me wanted all Klemperer's Beethoven symphonies. So I got no.2 and later no.s 1, 4 and 8.
I know that curse! :D
Quote from: karlhenning on January 22, 2016, 03:18:44 AM
And Munch with the BSO is a good fit for that lit.
An early stereo performance with incredible drive, and the sound was marvelous. Not every BSO recording has
sounded that good throughout the years. I recall some sounding rather muffled.
Quote from: aukhawk on January 17, 2016, 01:26:32 AM
[asin]B000002ZO8[/asin]Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues, played by Nikolayeva - actually a 3-CD box.
One of my first as well (though not the first, I don't remember what that would have been). Certainly the first major and expensive set I owned (I remember it costing around 450 Norwegian Kroner, close to 50 USD at todays exchange rate). Certainly very expensive in 1991! Got it as a present(or rather, bought it for money I got as a present) for my 40th birthday at a time when money was very tight for music purchases.
Two of my first three classical CDs were by Alfred Brendel, the Schubert 960 and Mozart PCs 23 & 27. I still have them, plus a number of other CDs by Brendel, but now this enormous box set is available for $287.68. I think I'll buy it. I remember when the box set containing just the Mozart Piano Concertos cost right around $200.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014VLVTW6/ref=s9_simh_gw_g15_i1_r?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=048BCJWJJPHF0QP6M5ZJ&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop
[asin]B014VLVTW6[/asin]
Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic with, as I recall, the Westminster Choir and solo singers performing Bruckner's Te Deum and Mozart's Requiem, on Columbia/Sony. The original recordings date from the 1950s. 8)
Well, I bought my first CD player at Christmas time 1984 when the price fell under $500 (was a Yamaha single-disc player) - the unit was bought at a local stereo shop that had few CDs on sale, so I bought the two below - Amanda McBroom (she wrote The Rose and is still living off the royalties, I suspect) - we also saw her in NYC years ago at the now closed Rainbows & Stars in Rockefeller Center - dinner & a show, a wonderful experience (bought an additional CD of one of her performances there). Dave :)
(https://giradman.smugmug.com/Other/Miscellaneous/i-tQ84xHc/0/O/Screen%20Shot%202016-01-23%20at%2011.04.28%20PM.png)
My first CD is actually a bit embarassing.... ::)
But since we are here amongst friends..... :D (well, most of us anyway) ....here it is...drumroll:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/984/MI0000984745.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
I was 14 when I got into Classical music, first by listening to the radio. Later I discoverd a large pile of LPs my mom bought when she was in her twenties, a project she abandoned after a few years.Those were mostly Romantic war horses. I bought a few LP's myself but then decided to jump on the bandwagon of the CD that was just making headway. Choices were still rather limited, but that didn't bother me as I was just starting to explore.
I decided on something different from Grieg or Schumann for my first CD, somethjng Baroque. And since I was pretty clueless, why not Vivaldi's Four Seasons? :D
Despite the overexposure, still a good piece of music BTW. After I got my CD-player, a gift from my grandparents, I biked to the nearest town.
It was a tiny, tiny, store that sold audio equipment LPs....and CDs. Lo and behold, there were three or four recordings of the Four Seasons! ???
I listened to them all and picked the one I liked best. Of course I know now to pick a better performance, but the truth is that I got a lot of mileage and pleasure out of that recording. :)
It was the last time I randomly picked a recording BTW. My next move to buy a Classic music magazine and follow on the leads I found in there.
(No, I did not have internet.... 8))
Q
Talking about embarassing - my first CD was by Celine Dion - I know that for sure as it was a freebie with the first player I bought. I think I have played it once; the selection at the time was pretty meagre. I seem to remember I bought a Dire Straits album and a couple of other albums to go with the player. Here's the player BTW:
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qI5Gek3UI44/maxresdefault.jpg)
The first classical lp i ever purchased was Karl Munchinger's recording of Haydn's Symphony no.100, after hearing it on the radio:
(http://cdn.discogs.com/svjm0SX5qx-AtsYUQ_Ks7cuBR8s=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-6730584-1425484340-5973.jpeg.jpg)
can't remember the first classical cd I owned, though the same recording in a Belart edition was one of the first.
But I know the first cd of any kind I had was the soundtrack to Georgio Moroder's presentation of Fritz Lang's Metropolis:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/A1V-PggKeuL._SY300_.jpg)
Quote from: The new erato on January 24, 2016, 12:08:49 AM
Talking about embarassing - my first CD was by Celine Dion - I know that for sure as it was a freebie with the first player I bought. I think I have played it once; the selection at the time was pretty meagre. I seem to remember I bought a Dire Straits album and a couple of other albums to go with the player. Here's the player BTW:
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qI5Gek3UI44/maxresdefault.jpg)
'..it was a freebie with the first player I bought...' Come on, admit it - you are clearly a fully paid up member of the Celine Dion fan club. :) :) 8)
Was CD No.2 The Spice Girls? Actually I do have one of their CDs ::)
Quote from: Que on January 23, 2016, 11:49:28 PM
My first CD is actually a bit embarrassing.... ::)
I decided on something different from Grieg or Schumann for my first CD, somethjng Baroque. And since I was pretty clueless, why not Vivaldi's Four Seasons? :D
Despite the overexposure, still a good piece of music BTW.
No need to apologize for listening to
Vivaldi! Anyone whose works are still touching humanity's ears after 300 + years must have had talent and at least a touch of genius.
I began the topic by mentioning the first CD I bought:
Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht with
Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. At a large drug store near our house in Toledo I discovered that it sold CD's ??? ??? ???. This was again early in the 1980's "CD era" so there was something of a snowball going downhill in the market at that time. But more amazingly, this drug store's CD department had a classical section with name brand recordings!
And the prices were cheap! So
Vivaldi's Four Seasons was another very early purchase: they also sold several of DGG's
Bruckner symphonies with
Jochum conducting, the
Sibelius symphonies with
Colin Davis conducting on Philips, etc.
In the 1990's the store was bought by an out-of-town chain from Detroit, which ran it into the ground and bankrupted it fairly quickly...in two years!
Quote from: Luke on January 14, 2016, 02:53:11 AM
I can't remember now, but it may have been this one. It was certainly in the first five, and I can't remember which the others were at the moment
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDfLk_82JkPwSVrWZc3N6iPsOAeWP7StC_O2VSwoXJzyCTstT-)
I'm not sure when this was, early 90s though. I loved it, lent it out, never got it back.
This is an incredible recording. The best
Prometheus I've heard. Everything about it is perfect.
Quote from: vandermolen on January 24, 2016, 02:21:04 AM
'..it was a freebie with the first player I bought...' Come on, admit it - you are clearly a fully paid up member of the Celine Dion fan club. :) :) 8)
I cannot reply to this now, I'm busy planning my moves now that her husband finally is dead.
Quote from: Cato on January 24, 2016, 03:10:23 AM
No need to apologize for listening to Vivaldi! Anyone whose works are still touching humanity's ears after 300 + years must have had talent and at least a touch of genius.
I think Que is more embarassed by the performance tradition of that version.....
Quote from: The new erato on January 24, 2016, 04:41:08 AM
I think Que is more embarrassed by the performance tradition of that version.....
Aha!
Quote from: The new erato on January 24, 2016, 04:39:58 AM
I cannot reply to this now, I'm busy planning my moves now that her husband finally is dead.
She apparently goes for older guys! ;)
Quote from: Cato on January 24, 2016, 04:55:41 AM
She apparently goes for older guys! ;)
I should be just what the doctor ordered then.
Quote from: The new erato on January 24, 2016, 04:39:58 AM
I cannot reply to this now, I'm busy planning my moves now that her husband finally is dead.
:)
Quote from: Que on January 23, 2016, 11:49:28 PM
My first CD is actually a bit embarassing.... ::)
But since we are here amongst friends..... :D (well, most of us anyway) ....here it is...drumroll:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/984/MI0000984745.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
What's wrong with that? ??? Zukerman did some fine work in St. Paul.
Quote from: Que on January 23, 2016, 11:49:28 PM
My first CD is actually a bit embarassing.... ::)
But since we are here amongst friends..... :D (well, most of us anyway) ....here it is...drumroll:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/984/MI0000984745.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
It was one of my first dozen classical CDs. I was familiar with Vivaldi because of Woody Allen, and the
Four Seasons because I'd heard it, sort of, on the New York Rock & Roll Exchange's first album, so I bought this version. Not much later, I learned that most movie Vivaldi was played by Pinnock or Hogwood, so I started listening to them. I liked that brisk, astringent sound, at least until I bought B&W Matrix speakers, but that's another story.
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on January 24, 2016, 03:47:54 PM
What's wrong with that? ??? Zukerman did some fine work in St. Paul.
[Zukerman / Vivaldi]Well, I have moved on since then.... :)
The recording, if memory serves me right, was in a transitional style - smaller ensemble, faster tempi, which is all good but it was still rather heavy handed and more Classical than Baroque in style....
"More emotion" is what Zukerman seems to have had in mind....a kind of "
Sturm und Drang" performance. But I guess even then my taste wasn't too bad. :D
Q
I think it was an EMI classical sampler, dreadful thing for sound quality. I got rid of it.
My first CDP was a second generation one, the Yamaha CDX-2 I was using Kef 104 speakers at that time, which could sound great with careful placement.
My family had lots of CDs, LPs and cassettes, and added new ones occasionally. I don't remember which ones were specifically for me and which ones were for the family in general, so I can't say with specificity which was my "first" CD.
The first one that was definitely bought specifically for me—my parents disliked Bartók—that I remember at least, was this one:
[asin]B0000042GU[/asin]
accompanied by a hardcover score of the six. I would have been 10 years old + a few months.
Quote from: amw on January 27, 2016, 04:05:36 AM
The first one that was definitely bought specifically for me—my parents disliked Bartók—that I remember at least, was this one:
accompanied by a hardcover score of the six. I would have been 10 years old + a few months.
Wow! What a gift for a 10-year old! And a
Bartok fan at age 10! 8)
I had to be content with records from the library, and a mono record player for many years. My parents - especially my father - did not think much of buying records. The radio was good enough: I had a little one-speaker radio which did pick up a classical station with some difficulty.
Quote from: amw on January 27, 2016, 04:05:36 AM
...The first one that was definitely bought specifically for me—my parents disliked Bartók—that I remember at least, was this one:
[asin]B0000042GU[/asin]
accompanied by a hardcover score of the six. I would have been 10 years old + a few months.
Well, if the Takacs couldn't convert them, what's to say? ;D
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on January 22, 2016, 06:23:56 AM
Heck, I don't remember but the Crespin recording sounds enticing as I am her most devoted fan.
This CD was reissued and coupled with another CD and you can still get it for almost nothing
[asin]B0000A1BGD[/asin]
I heard Régine Crespin as Madame de Croissy, prieure du Carmel in the "Dialogues des Carmélites" at the MET. A performance I will always remember. This was one of my best night at the opera. The MET stagging was stripped, almost bare, exactly as it should be. And of course the music ... This is sending me shivers down my spine.
Régine Crespin had also done "Madame Lidoine" la nouvelle prieure earlier in her carrier.
I have also a recording of her in "Les nuits d'été" de Berlioz. The best recording of this piece IMHO.
Quote from: Spineur on February 01, 2016, 12:03:49 PM
I heard Régine Crespin as Madame de Croissy, prieure du Carmel in the "Dialogues des Carmélites" at the MET. A performance I will always remember. This was one of my best night at the opera. The MET stagging was stripped, almost bare, exactly as it should be. And of course the music ... This is sending me shivers down my spine.
Poulenc's work should be better known, but that is true of so many things!
The first opera I ever saw in a live performance was
Lohengrin. The first opera I ever bought on LP was
Das Rheingold. (My parents were appalled, especially my mother, who thought this confirmed the presence of a very eccentric gene in the DNA, and probably from my father's side! )
The first opera on CD I ever purchased was
Moses und Aron by
Schoenberg. (
Georg Solti conducting on London.)
Quote from: Cato on February 02, 2016, 02:51:30 PM
The first opera I ever saw in a live performance was Lohengrin.
That was my first live opera too:
Lohengrin, performed by the Met during their annual week in Cleveland. 1967. Two high school friends and I made the pilgrimage from Wayne County. It inspired my first piano composition. My friend, when he heard it, said, That sounds like the Lohengrin Prelude Act 1. I was offended...but of course I
had totally ripped off Wagner ;D
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on February 02, 2016, 03:13:44 PM
It inspired my first piano composition. My friend, when he heard it, said, That sounds like the Lohengrin Prelude Act 1. I was offended...but of course I had totally ripped off Wagner ;D
Sarge
Why rip off a B-lister?! Rip off the A-list! 8)
I once composed a huge march for organ which was not quite
Wagner, in the same way that
Richard Strauss is not quite
Wagner, but the air reeked of Bayreuth nonetheless! 0:)
The score did not survive the purges of 1983 and 1995. Possibly the organist who premiered it at the Greek Orthodox church in Cincinnati still has a copy.
Quote from: Cato on February 02, 2016, 03:31:47 PM
The score did not survive the purges of 1983 and 1995.
I don't know if I still have my Wagnerian piece buried somewhere in my life's material hoard. I do know I still have the Rachmaninovian Prelude I composed for my HS love. It will never see the light of day, though ;D (Note to self: time to build a bonfire.)
Sarge
I remember mine quite clearly.
LP, around Sept 1970, Mozart's Horn Concertos.
Every time I listen to any of them I recall walking to college from my neighborhood, like it was yesterday. I associate that LP or any recording of the Horn Concertos with that time period.
The first classical recording I bought was the Fritz Reiner Living Stereo recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (also including Hungarian Sketches, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta) seven years ago. One hell of an introduction to classical music if I must say so myself. I didn't really know what to think of the music when I first heard it. Over time I began to appreciate the music more and more.
(https://fanart.tv/fanart/music/fd14da1b-3c2d-4cc8-9ca6-fc8c62ce6988/albumcover/concerto-for-orchestra--music-for-strings-percussion-and-celesta-chicago-symphony-orchestra-feat-conductor-fritz-reiner-4ddd39e39247b.jpg)
Thanks, I like threads/topics like this because I know these kinds of things bring back memories. Hopefully, good ones.
Quote from: Dave B on August 06, 2016, 07:13:25 PM
Thanks, I like threads/topics like this because I know these kinds of things bring back memories. Hopefully, good ones.
Yeah, I'm always curious about these kinds of things as well. I actually came to classical music by way of jazz. There were two occasions where classical music became burned into my subconscious: 1. the Bill Frisell album titled
Have A Little Faith where he performed works from Copland and Ives and 2. when I was flipping through a jazz magazine and one of my favorite players (named Ben Monder) was being interviewed and mentioned Bartok's name as composer he wished he could play on the guitar (he was talking about playing something unrealistic like
Bluebeard's Castle). That really stayed with me for years before I actually got the courage to buy my first recording. Good, and happy, memories. There's just nothing like that thrill of discovery.
I think we had this several times already...
My first LPs were not mine but technically my fathers/my parents. As a little child before I got into classical music I remember being fond of an LP with opera choruses (especially "Steuermann, lass die Wacht" from Flying Dutchman). And I also knew had a few of the typical "children's music" LPs: Peter and the Wolf, Carnaval des animaux, Nutcracker Suite etc. (When I was about ten I was very fond of an incredibly kitschy arrangement of "Für Elise" with a vocalising or humming choir on a James Last LP)
Later on my father became a little more serious about classical (but still mostly focused on lighter stuff, he had been a fan of operetta as well... ::)) and I got drawn into it. The first pieces I remember were Tchaikovsky's 1812, Marche slave, Capriccio italienne, b flat minor piano concerto, 5th + 6th symphony, also Dvorak's 9th, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites, Bach's most famous organ pieces and similar discs with "classical hits". But we also had some symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. I remember redecorating (paniting or hanging wallpapers) with my father in our house and we listened to Haydn's #94 on his old portable LP player.
By then (ca. 1987) it was fairly obvious that CDs were the new thing but they were still expensive and it took also a while until my brother and I had convinced my father to get a CD player for the family. So I did not buy any LPs, but a few cassette tapes (cheapish, convenient). I do not remember which one was the first, but among them were Klemperer with Mozart's symphonies 40+41, the Brahms double/Beethoven triple with Fricsay/Starker etc. and C. Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's 5th.
The first CD I bought in late fall 1988, a few days or weeks before we even got the player: Beethoven's piano concertos 3+4 with Ashkenazy/Solti on Decca Ovation.
Yes, I have written in other threads on this.......
LP's -- a gift along with a small portable record player, somewhere around late age four, early five.
Rimsky Korsakov ~ Scheherazade
"Smiling Bach (The?)" ~ Wanda Landowska, harpsichord
(from which I specifically remember only Italian Concerto).
Prokofiev ~ Lieutenant Kijé Suite / Kodály ~ Háry János Suite
[I'm sure I had that total lack of any sense of discernment common to most tykes that age, and recall loving all of it -- while most favoring the Prokofiev / Janacek disc.]
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 15, 2016, 05:44:55 AM
LP's a gift along with a small portable record player, somewhere around late age four, early five years.
Rimskey-Korsakov ~ Scheherazade
"The Smiling Bach" ~ Wanda Landowska, harpsichord. (The only piece I specifically remember on this was Italian Concerto).
Prokofiev ~ Lieutenant Kije suite / Janacek ~ Harry Janos suite.
[I'm sure I had that total lack of any sense of discernment common to most tykes that age, and recall loving all of it, while most favoring the Prokofiev / Janacek disc.]
The
Háry János Suite is surely by
Kodály.
I think I was ten.
(https://img.discogs.com/GUZshm0YWdKHvPngM6tKhf7lTL0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-3931513-1363718939-9126.jpeg.jpg)
My first purchase might have been this:
(http://img.cdandlp.com/2013/09/imgL/116194283.jpg)
Wasn't mine, but I got to play it on my little record player.
(https://img.discogs.com/uLm25xwgoM3XBjhc-dQkrqE6ErM=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-6817988-1427995062-6830.jpeg.jpg)
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring - Bernstein/NYPO, 1/1958
Quote from: Cato on September 12, 2011, 03:47:50 PM
How often do you listen to the work today? :o
The first classical record I ever bought was Smetana's Moldau, which was paired with the overture and excerpts from The Bartered Bride. Exactly which recording it was has faded, but I suspect it was Bernstein/N.Y. Philharmonic. The record is long gone, but the works are heard several times per year, at least in the car!
The second was Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with Eugen Jochum on DGG. I visited it regularly at a department store in Dayton, and hoped that no other acolyte of Bruckner's had bought it. It was expensive: a 2-record set, paired with the Psalm 150 and 3 motets. I believe it was $7.00 or so! Imported from U.S. occupied West Germany! ;D
When I invested $40.00 in all the Bruckner symphonies on DGG, it galled me that I had spent $7.00 a few years earlier on the one work, which would be duplicated when the box arrived. But, knowing records, I calmed my inner Lincoln squeezer by telling myself that the extra copy could remain pristine, as a back-up, in case the older copy became scratched or ruined. 0:)
My first CD (c. 1985) was Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht on London, with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. I won it in a listening contest on local classical radio, and did not yet own a CD player! They were still too new and expensive!
I now have a CD set of my beloved Bruckner/Jochum cycle, and the Seventh Symphony and Verklärte Nacht are also heard several times per year!
I was amazed to see this topic is c. 9 years old!
first I knew by heart:
[asin]B000028AYC[/asin]
first one I bought myself:
[asin]B00000IFP6[/asin]
I just thought that 'this looks like a very interesting thread' and then noticed that I had started it myself in 2007. ::)
Quote from: Scarpia on August 16, 2016, 09:14:18 AM
I think I was ten.
(https://img.discogs.com/GUZshm0YWdKHvPngM6tKhf7lTL0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-3931513-1363718939-9126.jpeg.jpg)
My first purchase might have been this:
(http://img.cdandlp.com/2013/09/imgL/116194283.jpg)
Wasn't mine, but I got to play it on my little record player.
(https://img.discogs.com/uLm25xwgoM3XBjhc-dQkrqE6ErM=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-6817988-1427995062-6830.jpeg.jpg)
That Sean Connery/Dorati recording is rated very highly.
The first LP i bought was Vivaldi's 4 seasons. Simon Standage on the violin with the English Concert.
Quote from: jessop on August 16, 2016, 01:54:57 AM
You are so old!
But you've known this for quite a while!. Yes -- age, somewhere between the age of the hills and dust....
Quote from: vandermolen on August 17, 2016, 01:42:52 PM
That Sean Connery/Dorati recording is rated very highly.
I recall rating it very highly at the time. :) I've got to find it on CD somewhere.
Quote from: jessop on August 17, 2016, 02:26:42 PM
The first LP i bought was Vivaldi's 4 seasons. Simon Standage on the violin with the English Concert.
Wait, I'm getting a recovered memory. The first LP purchased might have been this one:
(http://bbs.catholic.or.kr/attbox/bbs/include/readImg.asp?gubun=100&maingroup=2&filenm=u90120-0(48).jpg)
It is
very good, in it's way. Schwalbe was superb in everything he did.
Quote from: vandermolen on August 17, 2016, 01:40:47 PM
I just thought that 'this looks like a very interesting thread' and then noticed that I had started it myself in 2007. ::)
Tempus sure does Fugit! ;)
Quote from: Scarpia on August 17, 2016, 06:25:13 PM
Wait, I'm getting a recovered memory. The first LP purchased might have been this one:
(http://bbs.catholic.or.kr/attbox/bbs/include/readImg.asp?gubun=100&maingroup=2&filenm=u90120-0(48).jpg)
It is very good, in it's way. Schwalbe was superb in everything he did.
The cover is very cool, far above the typical DG cover most of which are stuffy and boring.
Quote from: Scarpia on August 17, 2016, 06:22:17 PM
I recall rating it very highly at the time. :) I've got to find it on CD somewhere.
[asin]B00GKI4QU6[/asin]
Quote from: Jo498 on August 17, 2016, 11:12:34 PM
The cover is very cool, far above the typical DG cover most of which are stuffy and boring.
Is this the only Karajan album without himself on the cover?
I'm pretty sure it isn't but ut sure can seem like that!
Do cassettes count? If yes then this one:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ciJJvkE9L._SS500_SS280.jpg)
Never bought any vinyl but first cds are likely these:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51rhXZi7lKL._SS500_PJStripe-Robin-Large,TopLeft,0,0_SS280.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513clgbGP9L._SL500_.jpg)
Still a reference recording if there ever was one.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 18, 2016, 09:47:18 PM
The first vinyl LP I brought was Debussy's La Mer, but that was quite a bit after I got my first classical CDs
Which recording?
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 18, 2016, 10:24:52 PM
The orchestra is "L'Orchestre De La Suisse Romande", I picked it up cheap but enjoyed it nethertheless! :D
Obviously by now I have it on CD too! (off the deutsche grammophon label)
Ah...was the conductor Ansermet? I haven't heard it but I believe it is a recording loved by many.
I have La Mer on LP too...but with Boulez! 8)
Quote from: jessop on August 18, 2016, 10:36:08 PM
Ah...was the conductor Ansermet? I haven't heard it but I believe it is a recording loved by many.
I have La Mer on LP too...but with Boulez! 8)
I thought that the Boulez LP with La Mer and Nocturnes on was excellent.
I feel that I prefer Nocturnes to La Mer although I haven't the faintest idea as to why..............
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 18, 2016, 11:28:21 PM
The awesome second movement of Nocturnes? Is that why? Or that opening of Nuages? ;)
I do really like La Mer though, there's something special about it to me, but I wouldn't know what to pick if I had to decide between the two :laugh:
It could be my infatuation of this video
https://www.youtube.com/v/y17-pJZ9nEg
The first LP I bought myself was in 1976, on the news of Britten's death (with another cover that I cannot find) - all three pieces are still favourites:
(http://thumbs2.picclick.com/d/l400/pict/172289231897_/ASENSIO-English-Chamber-Britten-Hindemith.jpg)
The first series of LP's I conscously played, from my parents' collection and early 1970s, were the first Karajan Beethoven cycle:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Karajan_Beethoven_Symphonies_1963.jpg)
Gosh, this is really buried in the memory archives.
However, I think it was Ferrante and Teicher piano duo. The record had some classical bits together with the much admired "Falling Leaves" descending double third chromatic scales in sync.
This was bought together with Oscar Levant playing Rhapsody in Blue with Gershwin's Piano Concerto on the flip side.
I used to borrow LP's from the lending library for the most part when I was in high school.
Can you remember the first CD that you heard/brought?
I was at a music store in their upper room browsing LPs and Tapes and as I descended the stairs to leave I heard a solo Clarinet playing eventually joined by the other wind instruments I did not know that there was a group playing that day, reaching the ground floor there was no sight of the ens but an assistant saw me looking around and laughed he showed me this box thingy that turned out to be a CD player and told me all about this amazing new format, I was hooked on the clarity of sound and in a few days was the owner of a beginners set up "Technics" all in one unit but separate speakers but still to purchase a CD.
In a music shop as I looked for the CD section a young assistant started chatting and said they had just received stock of a CD that was much in demand it was on the DG label and was Mendelssohn/Bruch violin con, BPO Karajan. Anna Sophie Mutter. It was a remaster of a 1981 recording and of course aad but still sounded fantastic.
I still have and love it.
I believe the first CD I ever bought was the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 with Haitink/Concertgebouw many years ago.
So much more convenient than turntables and vinyl discs.
Although I must say, I like the analog sound of the late 1960's-1970's much better than the current digital sound, which leaves me cold.
I have some BSO/Brahms Symphonies/Charles Munch CDs from that time period and they are so warm and natural sounding.
I remember it very well:
(http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/993/MI0000993582.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
My first classical CD:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71ZxtiozuaL._SX522_.jpg)
Mozart, Requiem
Charpentier, Te Deum
Jean-Claude Malgoire (http://amzn.to/2cp6yZa)
My first CD:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51eRpbMVegL._SS500.jpg)
Scorpion
Savage Amusement (http://amzn.to/2cc2Vof)
My first vinyl:
(http://www.soundstation.dk/images/products/large/33/112233-a.jpg)
Alice Cooper, EP
House of Fire, Poison (live)
Spark in the Dark (live), Under my Wheels (live)
Epic (http://amzn.to/2cznhDP)
The first classical recording that I heard was Mozart. I can't remember if it was Don Giovanni or Die Zauberflöte.
(http://oi68.tinypic.com/2wn38qq.jpg) (http://oi68.tinypic.com/b96kg3.jpg)
My father had both of these LP in his collections. I have listened to these hundreds of times when I was a kid. I still do listen to them nowadays.
I was probably about nine years old. My great aunt gave me two LPs, both bargain label. Holst Planets and Sound of Music. I don't recall who conducted the holst. Before I had a CD player, I started to buy CDs so that I would have something to play on the machine. The forst cd was the complete Ravel Daphnis and Chloe conducted by Dutoit. Years later he was the conductor of a performance when I was in the choir.
Mike
Quote from: knight66 on September 15, 2016, 08:13:41 AM
The first cd was the complete Ravel Daphnis and Chloe conducted by Dutoit.
The one with just one track, right? So convenient!
Quote from: jlaurson on September 14, 2016, 11:00:28 PM
My first vinyl:
(http://www.soundstation.dk/images/products/large/33/112233-a.jpg)
Alice Cooper, EP
House of Fire, Poison (live)
Spark in the Dark (live), Under my Wheels (live)
Epic (http://amzn.to/2cznhDP)
Über-cool! (Where's the "rock on" emoji when one needs it?)
Quote from: Wanderer on September 15, 2016, 08:32:34 AM
Über-cool! (Where's the "rock on" emoji when one needs it?)
Here you go 8)
(http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/asheville/beavis_and_butthead_headbanging.gif)
Sarge
Quote from: Wanderer on September 15, 2016, 08:32:34 AM
The one with just one track, right? So convenient!
I had forgotten that, yes it had only one track.
Mike
Quote from: knight66 on September 15, 2016, 09:00:15 AM
Quote from: Wanderer on September 15, 2016, 08:32:34 AM
The one with just one track, right? So convenient!
I had forgotten that, yes it had only one track.
Mike
Karajan's Alpine Symphony also had one track in its initial release. Made it a challenge.
"Does this sound like a babbling brook or a bear attack?"
(scratching head)
The first LP I ever owned was Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812 & Capriccio Italien, with Deems Taylor's descriptions of the techniques used to record the cannon and carillon for 1812.
Antal Dorati conducted the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra for the Mercury label.
My father had purchased this record to show off his new stereo for me and my brother. By the end of 1812, l knew l was hooked for life... The year was 1967.
Cheers,
LKB
Back in 1962 or 63, my Dad gave me his LP of Haydn 94 & 100 which he had got a different recording of. Can't remember the band, though but I sure remember the music! :)
8)
Quote from: amw on January 27, 2016, 04:05:36 AM
My family had lots of CDs, LPs and cassettes, and added new ones occasionally. I don't remember which ones were specifically for me and which ones were for the family in general, so I can't say with specificity which was my "first" CD.
The first one that was definitely bought specifically for me—my parents disliked Bartók—that I remember at least, was this one:
[asin]B0000042GU[/asin]
accompanied by a hardcover score of the six. I would have been 10 years old + a few months.
Update: I've since been helping my parents by going through our old LP collection and found the first LP set that
they remember buying for me—when I was about six years old (in 1998). It was this one.
(https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0902/5612/products/alfred_brendel_beethoven_complete_piano_music_vinyl_front_cover.JPG?v=1484814096)
Photo is not mine because ours is in much worse shape—the box is virtually unreadable and falling apart, and most of the LPs aren't in sleeves anymore. (and some are missing completely....) I listened to these a
lot back when we had a turntable.
Even before that, they had bought me a fair number of cassettes, which are now location unknown due to 20 years of moving all over the world. I had a cassette player I'd carry with me everywhere as a very small child, apparently. No memory of that but the pictures exist.
Tchaikovsky 1812 with Malcolm Sargent and Tchaikovsky Symphony 6 with Furtwangler
The CD that started it all:
[asin]B00000AF4Z[/asin]
I dug it out from my dad's CD collection when I was about 7 years old and classical music has basically been my entire life ever since :)
This one, albeit not the gold edition(https://img.discogs.com/GNkwLcOF3fTaVcZXIDjZskpwlCs=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1484491-1231354276.jpeg.jpg)
On hearing about the death of Benjamin Britten, in 1976, I bought this one (other cover art), with three pieces for strings that remained favourites ever since:
Simple Symphony
Fünf Stücke für Streichorchester
Antiche danze et arie No. 3
(https://img.discogs.com/mX81diNWZbHbEMQtPukHFWWe8_4=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4217104-1358881826-9682.jpeg.jpg)
Of course, it all started much earlier with music my parents owned. The first LP they consciously bought for 'us', their children, was one - a collection of different pieces - with Maazel directing the first El Sombrero de tres picos Suite - the music that haunted me most when I was about ten:
(https://cloud10.todocoleccion.online/discos-vinilo/tc/2014/01/28/20/41292415.jpg)
LP: Karl Bohm's DG Beethoven symphony set (used) with the Vienna PO.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91D9M8-qTUL._SL1500_.jpg)
After that it's hazy but LP #2 might've been something along these lines (used again):
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91c8hNW0ekL._SL1500_.jpg)
My parents had a copy of the Fantasia LP set, among other classical LPs. This was the thing I listened to most, though:
(https://img.discogs.com/U9DzpuGQCvnnCtPfradkL5KIXS8=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1568667-1343874026-8539.jpeg.jpg)
This:
My first classical purchase was a cassette tape of Bach's organ music on a now forgotten budget label played by a now forgotten organist. That purchase was inspired by an LP that my mother owned which I listened to as a child, which I later bought on CD. So technically speaking you could say this was my first classical recording. It is still my favorite performance/recording of Bach's better known organ pieces.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nbTrIZm1L.jpg)
Quote from: CRC on October 05, 2017, 01:43:04 AM
My first classical purchase was a cassette tape of Bach's organ music on a now forgotten budget label played by a now forgotten organist. That purchase was inspired by an LP that my mother owned which I listened to as a child, which I later bought on CD. So technically speaking you could say this was my first classical recording. It is still my favorite performance/recording of Bach's better known organ pieces.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nbTrIZm1L.jpg)
I'm sure many here will recognize the pictured recording. l owned it on LP and it lives on in my CD collection. A good way to begin ones journey into the expanding universe of serious music. 8)
Cheers,
LKB
Quote from: LKB on October 05, 2017, 09:23:03 AM
I'm sure many here will recognize the pictured recording. l owned it on LP and it lives on in my CD collection. A good way to begin ones journey into the expanding universe of serious music. 8)
Cheers,
LKB
Yup, anyone who starts out with Bach is destined for musical greatness.
Wagner -- Overtures -- George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra
I purchased it for the Flying Dutchman Overture. A case of luck to hit on such an excellent orchestra and conductor the first time.
Quote from: jlspinks on October 07, 2017, 07:37:49 AM
Wagner -- Overtures -- George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra
I purchased it for the Flying Dutchman Overture. A case of luck to hit on such an excellent orchestra and conductor the first time.
A pity about the composer, though. 0:)
Welcome to GMG!
Quote from: North Star on October 07, 2017, 08:07:16 AM
A pity about the composer, though. 0:)
Welcome to GMG!
You can be my proxy poster and I'll just stop by now and then... :D :D
Quote from: jlspinks on October 07, 2017, 07:37:49 AM
Wagner -- Overtures -- George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra
I purchased it for the Flying Dutchman Overture. A case of luck to hit on such an excellent orchestra and conductor the first time.
Indeed, though, welcome to GMG. We're all of different minds about music, but Szell/Cleveland is something we can all agree on. :)
8)
As previously mentioned it was Rimsky Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on an RCA LP. Still regarded as one of the finest performances of the work. Maybe I was about 14.
Welcome to the forum, jlspinks! And don't you worry: there's strong and enthusiastic support for Wagner among the loyal opposition in this forum... ;D
As a matter of fact, the first LP I asked my parents to buy for me was this:
(https://img.discogs.com/zKT3g1OLs3XAjn6KN2ryGUCGdRs=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-4982681-1381310199-3158.jpeg.jpg)
I didn't really know what I was getting into (I just thought that the title was intriguing)...and here I am, more than 40 years later, still hooked ;)
Quote from: North Star on October 07, 2017, 08:07:16 AM
A pity about the composer, though. 0:)
Welcome to GMG!
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on October 07, 2017, 08:30:52 AM
You can be my proxy poster and I'll just stop by now and then... :D :D
Indeed, though, welcome to GMG. We're all of different minds about music, but Szell/Cleveland is something we can all agree on. :)
8)
Sheesh...and we wonder why this board is becoming a ghost town... ::)
I have a feeling that it might be possible I posted in this thread (or another like it) a few years back, so apologies if this was mentioned before:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/410VXZ7JTZL.jpg)
Purchased for me, as a birthday present, by my g/f of the time.
I didn't get properly bitten by the Classical bug until a few years later:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516xcXMFO-L._SL1400_.jpg)
Prior to being interested in Classical Music I was was a movie enthusiast.
I had just watched the (minimalist) movie Jerry by Gus van Sant and I loved the music, which I found out was by Arvo Pärt so I ordered the above Disc...
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on October 07, 2017, 08:50:38 AM
Sheesh...and we wonder why this board is becoming a ghost town... ::)
I personally don't understand the animosity towards Wagner's music --- the man was a brilliant composer despite what Karlo and Gurn say.
Quote from: jlspinks on October 07, 2017, 07:37:49 AM
Wagner -- Overtures -- George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra
I purchased it for the Flying Dutchman Overture. A case of luck to hit on such an excellent orchestra and conductor the first time.
I've got this recording (somewhere) and it's excellent the best I can remember. Anyone who's a fan of Wagner is a friend of mine. 8) Welcome aboard! We hope to see you around more in the future.
LP: Works by Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music, Towards the Unknown Region, Wasps Overture & Greensleeves Fantasia - London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. A bargain price disc that cost me 10/9d. The CD reissue also has the Tallis Fantasia with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
CD: Berlioz - Te Deum - European Community Youth Orchestra and assorted choruses conducted by Claudio Abbado
Hard question. I just remember when a close friend lent me some CD's with the Vivaldi's Four Seasons and some waltzes by J. Strauss II. Another friend lent me a CD with some Beethoven's highlights (including the I mov. from the 5th Symphony, the I mov. from the 6th Symphony, the I mov. from Moonlight Sonata, the III mov. from the Tempest Sonata op. 31-2 and Für Elise). That was my introduction to classical music. I have to thank them, I'm very glad since they opened my mind and ears to this always fantastic and inexhaustible world.
Never owned any classical music on LP. In those days I was all about the rock'n'roll (then, toward the end of the LP era in the mid-1980s, mixed increasingly with jazz).
My dad had lots of classical LPs, though, and I did listen to them occasionally. I remember that he had Beethoven 5 (Lenny/NYPO) and Stravinsky conducting the Rite, but I particularly remember that he had a set of LPs featuring "samplers" or "highlights" of famous classical pieces - published by Time/Life or someone like that. I literally wore those out. :)
I've only been giving serious attention to classical music for about 4-5 years, so my first purchase was on CD. Initially I did a lot of online reading to find the recordings I "should" own - only to find that, surprise surprise, there's almost no consensus on anything. :D But I did see a lot of people speaking very favorably of Kleiber's recording of Beethoven 5 & 7, and I was already somewhat familiar with 5, so I bought that one.
From my wallet's perspective, it's all been downhill from there ...
(https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0003/492/MI0003492544.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
this LP, early 70's.
I was in college and asked the store owner what would be a good introduction to classical. He gave me this, then, new release.
Okay - don't laugh, but...
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51La3NrwlyL._SX466_.jpg)
:laugh:
Well, it wasn't really *my* album, it was my parents' - but definitely the first I remember hearing of "classical" which was around the time I started school (and also piano lessons).
The first classical CDs I remember buying consciously with my own money were before I even owned a CD player, I was probably about 12, had to play the CDs via PC!
This right here, I picked up in the bargain bin and my gosh, I have fond memories of listening to this disc while playing Minesweeper - the Rite of Spring excerpt alone was enough to hook me on Stravinsky for good:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/819IIfglPUL._SX522_.jpg)
https://www.amazon.com/Telarc-Collection-Vol-6/dp/B000003D6D
And on that same visit to Best Buy, picked up this box set, which really was my gateway - 10 CDs, each highlights a different composer, these were all so well-loved and played, but especially the Wagner. If you could wear a CD out it would be that one!
(https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/162590332210_/MASTERS-OF-CLASSICAL-MUSIC-1-10-CD-SEALED-Box.jpg)
https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Classical-Music-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B000001VU5
A little later, with a real CD player, I finally graduated to "real" albums as I encountered various pieces through band and such - the next CDs I purchased were on the CBS Great Performances label, also bargains:
Wagner: Great Orchestral Music from "The Ring" (Szell/Cleveland)
Holst: The Planets (Bernstein/NY Phil)
That next year, as a freshman, we played a wind version of Carmina Burana, so I set out to buy a recording - this was the first time I consciously remember being in search of "the best recording" as I was starting to grasp how different in quality and interpretation various recordings could be.
So, faced with 4 or 5 different Carmina Buranas staring at me, what did I do as a 14 year old?
Bought the most expensive, fanciest looking, yellow labeled disc, boasting "4D" sound ;D
(Though certainly the fact that it was a live recording with the Vienna Philharmonic was a factor too!)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/716YgJnpBEL._SX522_.jpg)
And it's still a wonderful recording I really enjoy - in fact, I've never gotten around to buying another Carmina ;)
Quote from: Senta on October 11, 2017, 08:25:32 PM
Okay - don't laugh, but...
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51La3NrwlyL._SX466_.jpg)
:laugh:
I was working at Tower Records as classical clerk and part-time buyer when that was released. If l was working and someone asked for that recording, l had to take my time responding because the immediate impulse would have been something like:
" Are you f___ing kidding me??? You expect me to sell you this disco-fied atrocity as opposed to a valid recording featuring the intended version of one of the pieces misrepresented on this commercially-inspired drivel? "
Or words to that effect. :D
In actuality,
Hooked on Classics probably did lead at least a few folks into the world of serious music, who otherwise might not have ever been attracted to it. So I'm glad, looking back on that time, that l was always able to take a deep breath, hold my tongue and present my customer with the requested recording.
But it really did take a lot out of me...
Chuckling,
LKB
Quote from: Senta on October 11, 2017, 08:25:32 PM
Okay - don't laugh, but...
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51La3NrwlyL._SX466_.jpg)
:laugh:
Someone gave me that for my birthday. It was useful as I ended up tracking down every piece represented in that recording and purchase a proper recording.
The first classical purchase I made was the complete Beethoven symphonies. Philadelphia Orchestra/Muti on 6 discs.
Quote from: springrite on October 12, 2017, 12:44:27 AM
Someone gave me that for my birthday. It was useful as I ended up tracking down every piece represented in that recording and purchase a proper recording.
Good, makes me feel better even now, decades later. :laugh:
Cheers,
LKB
The first classical music album - or rather the first classical+other genres mix album, since it's electric/pop too - I've listened to was The Violin Player by Vanessa Mae. Not on CD, but on a casette tape played by my dad for little me. :) To this day I absolutely love electric versions of classical pieces, especially in metal style, they're always bangers!
The first CD, and proper classical music, I listened to was something from the budget Classical Collection/die Klassiksammlung by DeAgostini. Probably the Vivaldi album: https://www.discogs.com/master/529700-Vivaldi-H%C3%B6hepunkt-Des-Barock
I also loved Tschaikovsky from this series as a child ( https://www.discogs.com/release/1105042-Tschaikowsky-Die-Meisterwerke ), and Strauss II ( https://www.discogs.com/master/529703-J-Strauss-Der-Wiener-Walzerk%C3%B6nig ). I adored the bright colors of them, I'd search my favorites not really by names but more by colors, like "the green one" or "the yellow one". :D
And finally, the first 2 classical CDs I personally bought for myself (both at once) were:
Virtuoso by Leonidas Kavakos ( https://www.discogs.com/release/8792231-Kavakos-Virtuoso ), still one of the CDs I listen to the most. Absolutely love the choice of contents there.
Polskie dzieła wielkich mistrzów, a 4 CD set with works of Polish composers, ed. Soliton ( https://sklep.dalmafon.pl/polskie-dziela-wielkich-mistrzow ). Unfortunately, I ended up listening to it less often than I had hoped for. I remember not caring too much about its selection of Chopin pieces for example, I need to refresh my memory.
Not sure if I posted my first classical CD, but here it is:
(https://i.discogs.com/VZ2hicArvOWlZxHrRUtIxKn6uKJUp8MSlzc5v0LDn_E/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:450/w:450/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTYzNjE4/NDgtMTQxNzM2Mjg5/NC01NzI1LmpwZWc.jpeg)
I've been hooked on classical music ever since. My first classical listening memory, however, was when I was in my early teens and I heard Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie with Karajan and the Berliners. This was certainly what got that ball rolling without a doubt.
This LP:
(https://i.discogs.com/ngBv7ilvzMdpCdHrGJ2Dqo8qOnx5uuO_UKMUnLqmuRA/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:597/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQ3NzEy/MDgtMTM3NTAwNTg2/Ni00NjExLmpwZWc.jpeg)
.. by which I was completely gobsmacked. A rather battered copy, I have no idea where it came from, my parents had no LP's and weren't in the habit of getting us any. Perhaps from a jumble sale or a distant elderly relative who liked to chew LP covers. The truth alas is now unlikely ever to be known.
I'm pretty certain that mine was Schubert's Death and the Maiden, in this 1988 Naxos performance by the Mandelring Quartet. I played this a lot while doing night time feeds with my firstborn in 1991-2. It's a lot of years since I last listened to it, to be honest.
Quote from: foxandpeng on March 23, 2022, 03:22:50 PM
I'm pretty certain that mine was Schubert's Death and the Maiden, in this 1988 Naxos performance by the Mandelring Quartet. I played this a lot while doing night time feeds with my firstborn in 1991-2. It's a lot of years since I last listened to it, to be honest.
That's a fond memory, I'm sure! I have memories of playing
Clair de Lune for my infant daughter when she needed to sleep... it always did the trick! (she's now 16)
As for my first classical music purchase, it was Schubert for me too! A cassette tape, bought with $3.50 of my own money when I was ten years old! I was taking piano lessons at the time and somehow drawn to classical while other kids were listening to Michael Jackson and Madonna. ;D Despite the cringeworthy title, the tape had some really good performance. A complete
Unfinished with Bernstein and New York - good stuff!
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51957359806_047205758d_c.jpg)
I collected tapes for about three years before I finally bought a CD player (again with my own money - that took a while to save up for!) By then, I was a Mahler-obsessed teenager ;D, and my first CD was Mahler 4 with Ozawa (as I lived in New Hampshire at the time, the BSO was sort of my 'hometown' orchestra.)
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vcqJY22aL._SX425_.jpg)
My first purchases were on audio cassette, but I'm sure the OP won't mind. I purchased them at the same time in a music store (remember those?) oh I guess it was 1995.
(https://www.music-bazaar.com/album-images/vol18/849/849556/2706686-big/The-Best-Of-Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Excelsior-Classic-Gold-cover.jpg)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bL0AAOSwpLNYA59k/s-l500.jpg)
My mother's record. I was a lead guitarist in a band playing Zeppelin, Stones, etc., in junior-high school. So I hid that I was listening to classical music.
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on March 23, 2022, 06:16:04 PM
My mother's record. I was a lead guitarist in a band playing Zeppelin, Stones, etc., in junior-high school. So I hid that I was listening to classical music.
A good idea as kids can be cruel. ;D Don't worry, no one knew what I actually listened to either. ;)
Quote from: Mirror Image on March 23, 2022, 06:18:12 PM
A good idea as kids can be cruel. ;D Don't worry, no one knew what I actually listened to either. ;)
Tchaikovsky piano concerto as well around the same time. We were even playing Sex Pistols. How could I tell other kids?
;D ;D
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on March 23, 2022, 06:22:47 PM
Tchaikovsky piano concerto as well around the same time. We were even playing Sex Pistols. How could I tell other kids?
;D ;D
Yeah, your bandmates wouldn't have appreciated your tastes in music that's for sure. All of my friends were into alternative rock or electronic music (but not the
good kind of electronic music a la Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre). I doubt they would've been interested in classical music.
Quote from: classicalgeek on March 23, 2022, 04:30:05 PM
That's a fond memory, I'm sure! I have memories of playing Clair de Lune for my infant daughter when she needed to sleep... it always did the trick! (she's now 16)
As for my first classical music purchase, it was Schubert for me too!
;D ;D
The first record I ever purchased I did not get to hear! A 45 of Chris Montez "Let's Dance" from a record shop in Chiswick High Road. I then went on to a chippie nearby for some fish and chips and made the mistake of placing both purchases in a plastic bag hanging from the handlebars of my bicycle. Time I got home "Let's Dance" was good as a fruit bowl.
The first classical acquisition I remember well, and a positive experience. The Harry Hayes record shop in North End Road, Fulham had a classical department in a basement. Being a complete "virgin" I had literally zero knowledge of the genre (slightly less then now!). A lucky dip in every sense of the word. Fortunately the choice was good, a CBS LP of Daniel Barenboim conducting Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. I wonder how things would have turned out if my random pick was something I didn't like. :-\
With regard to classical I am pretty sure it was this LP in 1972 or 73:
(https://img.discogs.com/sVMM5PesUpmmhZnPQHoDDbUGE_o=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-5793714-1402841105-9918.jpeg.jpg)
First major purchase was Beethoven's complete symphonies, Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti.
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. :-\
(https://i.discogs.com/IUgkH0ScLPUbwu_XRKTj4ftXSUVGl7nM_3Two-UZiVM/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:543/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQyNDE1/NTQtMTU4ODU4NjY4/My01NzE3LmpwZWc.jpeg)
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.
(https://i.imgur.com/dtPPGH6.png)
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:
(https://i.discogs.com/WBBNcqSTj5Oug8riKOLwu8U7ZgCLvLsC2XlkY2VanSI/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:525/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwMjky/NDEtMTMxMjU0NjE0/NC5qcGVn.jpeg)
(https://i.discogs.com/sm-5lKJAoVFXUimXrExKrvekbvvAqJP28ERI1dNXXvE/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwODg1/MTg1LTE1MDU5NDQ1/OTktNzM3MS5qcGVn.jpeg)
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.
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! ;)
My first Classical LP was Carlo Gesualdo on Candide a division of VOX.
My first CD was Olivier Messiaen: Turangalila symphony on Naxos.
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.
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.
Quote from: Rosalba on April 14, 2022, 02:25:54 AM
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. :)
Quote from: Olias on April 14, 2022, 03:39:59 AM
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!
Quote from: Olias on April 14, 2022, 03:39:59 AM
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... :laugh:
Quote from: LKB on April 14, 2022, 07:49:48 AM
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... :laugh:
:)
Stravinsky Rite of Spring CSO/Solti.
Quote from: Rosalba on April 14, 2022, 05:55:20 AM
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.
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.
Which one was the obscure mail order club recording? Or is this information lost in the fogs of history?
Quote from: Rosalba on April 14, 2022, 05:55:20 AM
Yes indeed! :) I recently turned ... a bit older than 50!
I feel your pain 😞
Quote from: geralmar on April 20, 2022, 07:37:46 AM
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! :)
Quote from: Jo498 on April 20, 2022, 09:26:54 AM
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.
(https://i.postimg.cc/HnRqS4cY/51-Fmo-Xu-E93-L-AC-SY350.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
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.
Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Istomin, Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra on a Columbia LP. I think I was 13 when I bought this.
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)
Quote from: Lisztianwagner on May 17, 2022, 12:36:38 PM
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 (https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1383.msg1096223.html#msg1096223) 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.
Quote from: ritter on May 17, 2022, 12:45:49 PM
Not bad entry points, Ilaria, not bad at all! :). Good evening to you!
By coincidence, my (https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1383.msg1096223.html#msg1096223) 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.
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.
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2022, 05:26:51 PM
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!
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2022, 05:26:51 PM
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.
(https://i.postimg.cc/7L07hVRW/R-6.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
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. :(
(https://i.postimg.cc/YCG0HkjX/R-7874885-1450664781-7256.jpg)
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:
(https://i.discogs.com/CvFVxuwSDrdT-4FMuFFGiyA-jhfG_WWMRDAP-72l8_I/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTcxNzAz/OTEtMTQzNTY5NjAz/My04NjE2LmpwZWc.jpeg)
There were three:
(https://discvinil.ro/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Schumann.jpg)
(https://anticariatfarasfarsit.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/tchaikovsky-sviatoslav-richter-herbert-von-karajan-concerto-no-1-front.jpg)
(https://discvinil.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/DOMENICO-SCARLATTI-768x735.jpg)
All of them bought for me by my late father, may God rest him in peace, along with this beauty:
(https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/fernmeldewerk/concert_2030_1266933.jpg)
It was back then in 1986 and I was 14. Oh, happy days, where are you? Oh, father, where art thou?...