What was your first classical LP or CD?

[mc ukrneal]

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.

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:

[The new erato]

Chagall?

[mc ukrneal]

Chagall?

Yes - and both use the same cover for the same piece! It is a nice cover though.

[Cato]

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!

[Lisztianwagner]

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

[westknife]

Mine was this old warhorse:



And it's still one of my favorites.

[zmic]

still love it 

[71 dB]

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. 

[Cato]

Mine was this old warhorse:



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!   

[karlhenning]

Talk about yer brand loyalty!

[Mirror Image]

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!   

Just think of all the music he's missed by sticking to one label, what a shame.

[val]

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.

[Cato]

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:



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]

[North Star]

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

[Sergeant Rock]

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.




Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

Oh!  And that tune? The first track on this CD:

[asin]Deutsche Grammophon
ASIN: B000001GQT[/asin]

Too easy! 

Sarge

[Cato]

Too easy! 

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.

[Jay F]

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.

[Cato]

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:)

[Daverz]

Certainly the first CD I ever heard is more significant


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.