# Your First CD



## opus67

Do you remember the CD that started your collection? Classical, of course. 

Mine actually started with 4 CDs, all on the same day; I bought two, and the other two were gifts. But to me, my first CD was Beethoven's piano sonatas 8, 14, 21 and 23 with Wilhelm Kempff (DG).


----------



## ChamberNut

My 1st CD was a best of Beethoven compilation entitled "Ultimate Beethoven".

It was a good introduction to Beethoven, but only an intro. Many movements were only partially played, with 1 ridiculous example being that 1 track was an excerpt from the 1st movement of Beethoven's famous Violin Concerto, only the first 3 minutes (which happens to include zero solo violin ). From there, I went on to get a copy of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, then his complete symphonies...........From that point on, I surrended and became a "Classical Music Fan"!


----------



## opus67

Excerpt from a movement?! 

Btw, who's on the copy of the 9th? I know you have the complete cycle from Harnoncourt, but didn't know about 9th.


----------



## ChamberNut

I believe it was Bela Drahos conducting (Naxos recording). Since getting my complete set with Harnoncourt, I gave the Drahos CD to my girlfriend.


----------



## Topaz

My first CD (as far as I can recall) was a box set of Mozart's 6 String Quintets, by the Juilliard String Quartet Ensemble. In my opinion these are Mozart's finest chamber works. The recording and performance is first class.

Since then I have purchased several hundred CDs. But over the past 2-3 years most of my acquisitions have been from downloads (2-3 a week roughly), although I have largely packed up now as it was getting a bit ridiculous. In addition, I have box loads of radio recordings of all sorts of stuff. These days I usually wait for the Classic FM evening concert and record from a digital 160 kbps signal. Their selection of material is usually good. I can usually do any necessary editing required (eg adverts) by using Creative Labs Organiser software. 

So, music acquisition is getting cheaper. 

The main problem is in deciding what to play. I must admit only a tiny fraction ever gets played. I'm hooked on Schubert at the moment. He wrote so much there is always something I haven't got. It's odd that I have all this other material to play, and yet I'd throw a lot of it away just to get a few decent recordings of more Schubert. I simply do not know how he managed to write all that, and it never ceases to amaze me.


----------



## Hexameron

When I was a typical teenager who headbanged to Marilyn Manson and Nirvana, I had no idea that hearing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (on a video game of all things) would make such a profound impression upon me. As soon as I heard the music (and verified its identity in the credits) I ran out and grabbed the first CD I could find that had the piece. I bought this CD for $6 and it single-handedly confirmed that classical music was meant for me. Once I heard the Tempest and the adagio from the Emperor I knew that I didn't just have some unique affinity only for Beethoven's Moonlight; all of these works opened my eyes (or ears) to real music. I shoved the Marilyn Manson CD's in the closet and I've never looked back since.










*Listing of Works*
1. Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor "Moonlight": 1st movement
2. Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor "Tempest": 3rd movement
3. Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F major, Op. 50
4. "Für Elise"
5. Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor "Pathétique": 2nd movement
6. Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor": 2nd movement
7. Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5 "Spring": 1st movement
8. Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major, Op. 69: 1st movement
9. Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major, Op. 69: 2nd movement


----------



## ChamberNut

Wow Hex, that's amazing!

I was at Walmart yesterday, and just casually browsing through their so called "Classical Music" section (actually called Easy Listening section), I saw this exact CD you are referencing.


----------



## Topaz

*Hexameron:* That's a fantastic introduction to Beethoven CD, and I make no wonder you were impressed.

And yet, as we know, there are classical music lovers around who not only think Beethoven is over-rated but (dare I say it?) not very good. It's completely astonishing but it's true.

Talking about bargains, yesterday I picked up a fantastic CD download for £1 (1 GB pound) of Mendelssohn's Piano Cons 1 & 2, plus a couple of extra items (Ops 14 and 54), by Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig (Herbert Blomstedt conducting).

It's on the Tesco download centre. They have these give-aways now and then, so I just grabbed it quickly. The recording is brilliant. I have played so often I know every bar now. My opinion of Thibaudet is now pretty high.


----------



## ChamberNut

Hexameron said:


> *Listing of Works*
> 1. Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor "Moonlight": 1st movement
> 2. Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor "Tempest": 3rd movement
> 3. Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F major, Op. 50
> 4. "Für Elise"
> 5. Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor "Pathétique": 2nd movement
> 6. Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor": 2nd movement
> 7. Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5 "Spring": 1st movement
> 8. Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major, Op. 69: 1st movement
> 9. Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major, Op. 69: 2nd movement


Some great Beethoven on this disc, to be sure.

However, it is a little odd for a best of Beethoven, not to include any symphonic movements. In addition, to include 2 movements of the Cello Sonata # 3.


----------



## Topaz

*ChamberNut:* I think the reason is that this collection gells together best as a package. It gives the Beethoven flavour without jolting the listener around too much, as the inclusion of symphonic and other major orchestral works might do. The Cello & Piano Sonata No 3 is generally considered to be one of Beethoven's finest ever works.


----------



## johnnyx

My first Classical CD was:

Pierre Fournier (cello)
Josef Contra, Orchestre National de l'Opera de Monte Carlo

Saint Saens - Cello Concerto No. 1
Lalo - Cello Concerto in D minor

With "encores" by 
Gounod, Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint Saens, Martini & Chopin

on the Priceless label

I've been in love with the Cello ever since!


----------



## G e o r g e

George Szell: Beethoven Symphonies 1 and 6


----------



## hlolli

The first one thad I bought with my money were 3 cd's on a cheap price One was best of Tchaikovsky(1812 ouverture, Swan Lake, Capricco Italien, Romeo Juliet) Best of Vivaldi(four seasons plus violin concertos) and Best of Bach(Toccata and Fugue, Suite no.3, Brandenburg no.3 and some little more). Before thad I listen to Beethoven symohnies thad I downloadad plus Mozart symphonies, and my intrest in Rock music almost reached zero and stared ironically to get annoying. My last rock band music intrest were the Beatles and Coldplay, bad times!


----------



## robert newman

My first CD was Schubert's late (and wonderful) String Quintet D.960 played by the Alban Berg Quartet with Heinrich Schiff.


----------



## chronosfirex2000

My first CD I checked out from the library.

It was a mix of the famous Aaron Copland stuff.

Rodeo
Billy The Kid (Which was my favorite on the CD)
Quiet City
Appalachian Spring



This CD still may be my favorite classical CD of all time. I believe it was done by the St Louis symphony and the cover has green grassy hills with a blue lightly clouded sky.

I never bought it but I ripped it to my computer. I do not buy musical CD's though so I hope this one counts.


----------



## Edward Elgar

My first two CD's were Bach and Vaughn Williams higlights. Those two CD's set me up with classical for life!


----------



## Lark Ascending

After a lifetime spent listening to pop my first classical CDs were a box set of Vaughan Williams's nine symphonies and other orchestral works. Nearly two years, and one ever expanding CD collection later, I listen to classical music virtually all of the time and the pop CDs are relegated to the wardrobe.


----------



## gottachatter

Hilary Hahn Plays Bach 
My violin teacher let me borrow it when I was 14.
It remembered being so inspired by that CD.
I also remember crying because she sounded so amazing and she was 18 when she recorded them.

Now almost 3 years later all my itunes library (2340 songs in total and counting) is composed of classical pieces. 

Funny, I'm actually listening to it right now. What a coincidence!


----------



## Lisztfreak

My father used to play his old disks on the grammophone since when I was about 4, so up to the time I started school I already enjoyed Bach and Vivaldi. But the first CD I personally ever bought was 'Schumann: Symphonies nos. 1 & 3', performed by the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. I liked it, but not very much, since I was at the time in a 'baroque mood' implied by my parents' personal tastes. 
I got to know and love romantism about three years ago, and now I have a somewhat modest collection - though I can say that, because of it's small size, I love and listen to every disk of it.


----------



## Saturnus

My first had Stravinsky's Firebird suite on it, played by The Granada Orchestra. I saw the ballet along with Bartók's Mandarin at the age of 13 in the Bastille Opera house in Paris, and I was so completely amazed during the performance that I barely blinked my eyes. I bought the first CD with the Firebird I saw. I was really lucky, this is a flawless recording published by Harmonia Mundi. Too bad that the booklet was all in french, so I couldn't read about the influence of Rhimsky-Korsakov on the music or about who he was (that would have led me to "The Five" and Tchaikovsky and would have been wonderful). The next CD I bought contained some horrible late Stravinsky works, I became disappointed and turned to other composers.


----------



## captaintim

Heinrich Schiff playing the Bach cello suites. Good place to start I think but then I am a cellist so I would think that


----------



## Azathoth

I'm not completely sure, but I know it was one of those butchered recordings that make you want to cry once you've heard the real thing. Probably Beethoven, maybe Mozart, maybe Bach.


----------



## Mark Harwood

In my late teens, late 1970s, I worked part-time in a supermarket. We were paid, in cash, on Fridays. I used to go straight to the record stand where there were LPs in the Camden Classics series. They cost 79 pence. Deutsche Grammophon they were not. I found some that I liked and much that I didn't understand. Over the years I was given some other LPs but only bothered with one, Narciso Yepes playing Bach on the 10-string guitar, plus some assorted baroque music occasionally.
A quarter-century later my wife Carol gave me my first classical CD: John Williams with the ECO, Daniel Barenboim and Sir Charles Groves playing Joaquin Rodrigo's "Invocation y Danza" and "Concierto de Aranjuez", the "Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra" by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco's "Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra". Now I heard the magic in this genre and began to buy and to listen properly. Soon I was selling a bicycle to buy more recordings. Many are in the Naxos series. We are lucky to have a wide choice of top-class music, well-recorded and affordable; some say it's too easy now to build a collection, but we've moved on from the grim Camden Classics pressings.
That said, I'd like to see the charming covers again, for nostalgia's sake.
Thanks to Carol for opening a door to beautiful music.


----------



## Kurkikohtaus

CD? My first CD was actually an LP...

But my first *CD* was "Best of the Classics" CD that I got for free at a bookstore after a purchase... and I received it even before I got a CD player!


----------



## opus67

Kurkikohtaus said:


> CD? My first CD was actually an LP...


Sorry... I was born in the post-LP era, and it didn't strike me to add those. Please do tell us what your first Classial LP was. 

A revision: What was your first classical music purchase in any media (audio/video tapes, LP's, CD's, DVD's, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and in case you come across this thread 20 years from now, whatever medium is prevalent then. )


----------



## Kurkikohtaus

opus67 said:


> A revision: What was your first classical music purchase in any media...


The first album that I bought with my own allowance money was excerpts from various Mozart operas, with a variety of performers and orchestras. I bought it because I loved the opera scenes in Amadeus.


----------



## Gatton

opus67 said:


> A revision: What was your first classical music purchase in any media (audio/video tapes, LP's, CD's, DVD's, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and in case you come across this thread 20 years from now, whatever medium is prevalent then. )


Yes future readers. What was your first holo-recording? Perhaps it was Mozart's little G minor symphony in Octophonic sound 

My first cd was a 2 cd set called "The Best of Mozart." I remember the performances were adequate and the sound was just so-so. I loved it though. I remember buying it with my allowance money as a teenager. I was probably 14 or 15. The "Jupiter" symphony had me transfixed.

This set was so cheap it didn't list any of the ensembles or performers. Also the listing on CD1 had the pieces reversed. They listed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik but it was really Symphony No 29 and vice versa.

Ahhh I see you can still buy this set on Amazon. AND if you listen to the sound samples the track listing is still wrong! Hilarious!










http://www.amazon.com/Best-Mozart-B...1046553?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1173479057&sr=1-8


----------



## Krummhorn

First LP: Georges Bizet at the Pipe Organ ... a 10" platter, red in color - still have it

First CD's: The Best of Mozart - 200th Bicentennial Edition - 4 Volumes (disks)
I think I have the older version of what member Gatton has (see above) - except it's on Cd#2 and doesn't list performers or who played these either


----------



## Morigan

Mine was one of those infamous Naxos "Best of" CDs on which the music is performed by obscure East-European orchestras. Best of Mozart I think! God, how can they narrow Mozart's "Greatest hits" to 10 tracks? I hate these.


----------



## Eric

I had been exposed somewhat to classical music throughout my early years such as beethoven, vivaldi, tchaikovsky, stravinsky, etc.

But the first classical cd i bought myself was a Best Of Mozart. Back then it was not nearly heavy enough for my taste, but a few weeks later i bought a cd of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Nutcracker, which led to an obsession with Tchaikovsky's music. I listened to that cd more than one hundred times in the first few weeks i owned it!


----------



## Steele

ChamberNut said:


> My 1st CD was a best of Beethoven compilation entitled "Ultimate Beethoven".
> 
> It was a good introduction to Beethoven, but only an intro. Many movements were only partially played, with 1 ridiculous example being that 1 track was an excerpt from the 1st movement of Beethoven's famous Violin Concerto, only the first 3 minutes (which happens to include zero solo violin ). From there, I went on to get a copy of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, then his complete symphonies...........From that point on, I surrended and became a "Classical Music Fan"!


Pretty much the same for me.


----------



## Handel

My first classical recording was about ten years ago when I received a stereo chain with CD reader. Without knowing many works (Clarke's Trumpet voluntary, Bach's toccata and fugue, Vivaldi Four seasons), I knew baroque music was my main musical interest. So I bought a CD with the usual beginner's musical works. This CD had a deep impact on my musical taste. I discovered Handel (through Messiah ouverture, Music for Royal Fireworks ouverture, etc.).


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

My first CD... Berlin/Karajan The Planets. Still have it, too. That was back in the days of digital recording infancy, and one can clearly hear wind-stops closing, musicians exhaling, etc. It still seems so front-row-real to me. For me, though, collection started back in the age of vinyl. My first vinyl classic was a budget offering 5 LP set, very Tchaikovsky-heavy (Piano Concerto 1, Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake excerpts, and 1812 Overture) along with Rimsky-Korsakov _Scheherazade_ and Offenbach's _Gaite Parisienne_. This was a gift acquisition. The first LP I bought with my own money, I believe, was Boston/Steinberg/R. Strauss _Also Sprach Zarathustra_.


----------



## mahlerfan

Hmmm, my first CD was a recording of Mahler 9, Bruno Walter conducting, that was recorded in the thirties. Although the sound quality was really bad, I cherished and listened to it for a long time until I got the Bernstein Mahler 9 for Christmas. But I bought the old recording for only $5, at a used CD shop, so it was a pretty good deal in my opinion. On that same day I bought a CD with some music of Wagner on it, as well as a CD of Lorin Maazel conducting Sibelius 4&5.


----------



## tzadik

The first classical cd i bought myself was von Karajan's execution of Mozart's Requiem.


----------



## billeames

Mine was Mahler 5 Sinopoli on DG full price of course, $13 on sale at Tower Records. My 2nd was Ring Solti/London which was $160 plus tax; all in 1986. Even on the radio back in 1982 or 1983 I noted how clean they sound. Not realistic, just clean. First CD player Denon DCD-1500. 

Bill


----------



## SixFootScowl

It was around August 2011. I had been into classical many, many years before so had some familiarity. I had been listening to my 100+ CD Johnny Winter collection incessantly for the past couple of years. Thinking about a co-worker who likes classical and a trip to the dollar store where I saw a cheezy $1 Cd in a cardboard case that had Bach's Toccata and Fugue, so I bought it, played it on the way home from the dollar store and then was on a roll. I reverted back to non classical a couple times but have been heavily classical for the most part since then. The trigger CD? This:


----------



## Heliogabo

My first cd was a tape indeed. Chopin polonaises w/ Pollini (DG)
and I begun...


----------



## Albert7

I don't remember what my first classical CD honestly . I think that it was some budget label Symphony cycle of Beethoven.


----------



## PetrB

Ooooh, you must be relatively young.

My first 'CD' was an LP vinyl record, still of the variety which were a bit heavy, and did not flex when bent but instead broke easily

There were three, all at once, given along with the gift of a small record player -- I was about four and a half or five years old, and these were my first intro to music, of any genre.

*Sergei Prokofiev ~ Lieutenant Kijé Suite / Zoltán Kodály ~ Háry János suite*; Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the NY Philharmonic









*Rimsky-Korsakoff ~ Scheherazade*; San Francisco Symphony, Pierre Monteux
(with cover art probably inconceivable in current times)
Pierre Monteux / Rimsky-Korsakoff: Scheherazade / 1950 / RCA Victor (Red Seal)

*Wanda Landowska playing Bach on the Harpsichord*. All I can recall for certain is that the _Italian Concerto_ was one of those selections.

Memory may not have the truth, but the next I can recall purchasing with my own money was (still an LP) *Prokofiev ~ Piano Concerto No. 2*, Malcom Frager, Piano; René Leibowitz conducting the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. Even that may not be in the right sequence, because all in and around the same time there were *Stravinsky ~ Petrushka* and _*Le Sacre du Printemps*_, and *Schubert ~ Winterreisse.*

I cannot recall at all the first CD purchase, as it seems the world was near overnight press-ganged / railroaded / Shanghaied into buying recordings in the then new format (_as well as the equipment with which one could play them!_)... and whatever it was it was most likely a transferred to CD recording of something I had previously owned on vinyl


----------



## Pip

Wow!! does this thread make me feel old!
When I was born the 78 was still the only medium - by the time I was old enough to be allowed to handle the things, LPs had arrived. 
I still remember buying my first CDs however, I began before I had a CD player, because even then in 1983 as they were first being issued, we were being warned that many releases would quickly disappear (deletions) so I bought a few CDs from EMI and DG of Furtwängler. I had already 50 or 60 collected by the time I decided on which CD player to have.
Those early EMI Furtwängler CDs(some from Japan) still sound better than the more recent over processed releases.
The worst case of over processing was the Solti Rheingold issue.- the first in the 1980s is much more natural than every subsequent issue.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

My first was also an LP. I was 7 or 8 years old, and I do not remember exactly how I acquired it, although I think I might have bought it myself with money given to me for a birthday, at a local music shop which kept a small selection of budget LPs. My father used to play classical music LPs at home almost exclusively at the time, and I wasn't exposed to pop music much at all until I was 9 or 10.

This was in monophonic sound, for heaven's sake!










I don't remember what it sounded like but I must have liked it because I went on to acquire:










Ironically this is the only volume of the Brendel/Vox series I never acquired (it's now the only cover I can find on the internet). I think the first one I got had Op 101 on it: certainly I retain an abiding love for that particular sonata and would usually account it my favourite.

And at some early point I also acquired this, which led me on to the other piano concertos, the choral fantasia (boy, did I get a surprise when I finally heard the last movement of the 9th Symphony as a grown-up!) and some of the symphonies.










First CD?

I can't really remember. I bought some inexpensive discs just to get started with my first CD player in 1989. These two were amongst them, I think:


----------



## elgar's ghost

I can't actually remember the first CD I bought outright - the first one I owned was a Naxos recording of the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky violin concertos which was given to me by a colleague when I mentioned to her that I was thinking of dipping my toes into CM waters. This would have been c.1998. Then I joined the since-defunct Britannia music club and acquired the Solti Ring cycle for £10 which was on offer as an inducement to permanent membership, so I can't really consider that a proper purchase either.


----------



## Art Rock

Schubert's Unfinished (in the finished version, Marriner conducting).

View attachment 59852


Outside classical: Paul Simon's Graceland.


----------



## SixFootScowl

Well if we are going to include cassettes and vinyl then I go way back and my first classical LP was about the late 1970s and most likely was Beethoven's 5th symphony.


----------



## ptr

The first ever, was an LP (I am of the true vintage age) that my Mum revived from the music club she was a member of a few years in the early seventies...










I blush remembering! First LP I ever bought myself was:










I was late adapting to CD's in the early 90's, the first discs I bought (about 10) was the reissue of:










/ptr


----------



## elgar's ghost

Vinyl? A couple of Wagner Highlights albums on the cfp label, bought sometime during the early 80s, I think. As I was exclusively into rock music back then they were the only ones I ever had until the CD era apart from another Wagner Highlights album that came free with a monthly part-work magazine.


----------



## Morimur

First CD I ever purchased was Aerosmith's 'Big Ones', in 1994 -- I was 14 then and obviously had terrible taste in music.


----------



## Jos

First classical cd was something on brilliant classics from a supermarket or such. Think it was Mozartsonatas with Accardo.
First cd was probably David Bowie's hobbyproject Tinmachine.
Gave up on the damn things alltogether......


----------



## pianississimo

My first since I discovered classical music properly was only in 2010 and was a download of classical piano pieces.
Before that I'd watched a few youtube videos.
When I started discovering what I liked I downloaded an album of Rachmaninov played by Santiago Rodriguez. I loved this disk and it started me searching for more Rachmaninov. That's when I discovered the videos made by the Philharmonia orchestra and Nikolai Lugansky. 



 which made me want to study music further.
I downloaded his cd of Rachmaninov preludes and discovered one track had the first few notes chopped off.
Since then I only download music if I'm trying out something new and it's very cheap!

Many years before that I had a copy of Grieg's morning mood from Peer Gynt from somewhere, not sure where and Tchakovsky's 1812 overture which I've always loved.


----------



## omega

The first classical CD set I purchased:








I picked this set because it was among the cheapest, it was composed of recent recordings with good sound-quality, and because I was quite unexperimented. Because I doscovered Mahler with Sinopoli, I think I'm less disturbed by his specific interpretations...


----------



## DiesIraeCX

My first classical CD was Karajan's 1963 Beethoven symphony cycle.










Respectively, my 2nd and 3rd CD's were Brahms' 1s&t and Schumann's 1st (Karajan/Berlin) and Beethoven Symphonies 5 & 7 (Kleiber/Vienna)


----------



## rspader

We're all friends here, right? With that in mind, the first CD that I purchased (back in 1984) was:









In my defense, however, that same day I purchased:


----------



## elgar's ghost

First vinyl purchase ever: Status Quo - Live (1977)










First CD ever (I think...): Aerosmith - Get A Grip (1993)


----------



## TurnaboutVox

First rock LPs (acquired at the age of 15). Ours was not a pop- or rock- listening household so this came as a nasty shock to my parents!


----------



## TxllxT

1st CD:









I just noticed how expensive this CD has become (secondhand)!

2nd CD:









This one on the other hand is rather cheap...


----------



## kv466




----------



## Jeff W

The first CD I ever purchased with my own (birthday) money was:









First classical CD set that I owned was this:









I have no idea where my father bought it...


----------



## DonAlfonso

First vinyl: Bill Haley and the Comets, Rock Around the Clock 1956
First Classical: George Enescu, Romanian Rapsodies (about 1958)


----------



## Art Rock

First vinyl: Bridge over troubled water (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970).

For classical music, in which I became interested around 1986, I skipped the vinyl phase.


----------



## donnie a

Hi, everyone. New board member here. 

My first cd was some Michael Haydn symphonies by Harold Farberman and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. I remember being fascinated by the presence and the clear, clean sonics of that disk. Listening to it now in my iTunes library, it still sounds good to me—much better than many of the overly digital-sounding early cd's of the '80's. It also enlightened me to what a good composer Michael Haydn was.


----------



## jtbell

I bought my first CDs in spring 1985, in anticipation of buying my first CD player a short time later. I don't remember which one was the very first one, but it was probably one of the following:

Bach: Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould's second version
Sibelius: Symphony #1 or #2, conducted by Neeme Järvi, on BIS
Kroumata Percussion Ensemble recital disc, on BIS

I still have the BIS discs. I replaced the "Gouldberg" some years ago with a remastered two-disc set that contains both versions.


----------



## Fagotterdammerung

Something called *Bach Organ Blaster*. I was thirteen, what can I say. :lol:


----------



## QuietGuy

"Ballet's Greatest Hits" put out by Columbia (Sony) .... 20+ selections ... Everything from music from _Coppelia_ to the Shaker Variations from _Appalachian Spring_ to the _Lullaby and Finale_ from the Firebird....a good cross-section of works.


----------



## shadowdancer

IIRC, we are talking about this one. A long time ago....


----------



## campy

I remember mine: _Eine Alpensinfonie _by Richard Strauss, with Karajan leading the Berlin Philharmonic on DG.


----------



## TrueMiracle

I remember my first CD of classical music, and actually still have it. I was 5 when my mother got it for me and it ended up being a perfect introduction into the genre for me.

_"Top 10 of Classical Music - *Classical*"_ - 1990


----------



## geralmar

"Scheherazade," Dutoit/Montreal, ca. 1984. Paid $13, a frightening sum. The second was "Round-Up," a Telarc CD won in a classical radio station contest ("Name the actors who played 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960)"). This was my entire CD library for at least a year until I grew secure in my job.


----------



## Pugg

​Whilst I grew up with classical ,( my parents own a large collection), this was my first c.d ever.
Seeing her live in New York as a schoolboy singing Otello , I was deeply in love with this voice.:tiphat:


----------



## MoonlightSonata

A CD of Beethoven, featuring the 5th symphony, the Emperor concerto, and _Creatures of Prometheus_.


----------



## MagneticGhost

My first tape was I think Classics for Pleasure - Schubert Unfinished c/w Beethoven 8 (don't know the performers.)

My mum bought me my first classical vinyl - and it was Beethoven's 9th. Don't remember the performers or the label but it had an ear trumpet on the cover.

My first CD which I went out and bought the day my Mum bought a CD player in 1990 was Mahler's 2nd Symphony - Gilbert Kaplan.


----------



## starthrower

Shostakovich No. 5 on Telarc, purchased in October 1984.


----------



## maestro267

My first major classical purchase was the complete symphonies of Beethoven (Philadelphia/Muti), back in 2007.


----------



## Cosmos

The first I got was Feltsman's recording of Bach's WTC. It was a Christmas gift from mom


----------



## phlrdfd

I don't remember the first CD, but the first classical recording I purchased was Beethoven's 5th with the King Stephen Overture by Klemperer on an EMI cassette.


----------



## Antiquarian

My first CD (set) was Bach ' Brandenburg Concertos by the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard (on the Philips label), that I still play occasionally. My first LP that really started my personal collection was Bach: The Greatest Hits Album (Columbia Masterworks)


----------



## Vaneyes

I don't remember my first classical music CD, so it must not have been very good, and eventually culled.

I didn't jump into CDs right away. I was still enjoying LPs, and especially at close-out prices.

My first CD player was 3rd generation, a Philips. :tiphat:


----------



## Polyphemus

My first C D was Tchaikovsky Symphony 5 Berlin P O Karajan. Like Vaneyes I was a bit dubious about the new medium so I bought a cheapo C D player. I was soon convinced however and pretty soon converted completely to C D's replacing my favourite LP's with the new medium.
I still have the LP's and the turntable (rarely used) unlike the defunct cassette players.


----------



## WJM

Gould's Goldberg Variations, 1981


----------



## Taplow

I don't think I can recall what was my first ever recording. I started a small vinyl collection back in the late 70's or early 80's while in my teens. Didn't collect too many before CDs came along. It was mostly the orchestral works I had performed on stage myself, the proud centrepiece being Bernstein's 1959 recording of Shostakovich 5. I gave up buying classical music for quite some time until I met someone who was deeply into it. We amassed a tasty number of CDs between us over the 8-9 years we were together, until one day we were no longer together and he basically stole the lot! About 10 years ago I started all over again. What triggered it was my move to Norway.

I had been invited to attend a dinner the first night I arrived with some of my new colleagues. The theme of the dinner was "Italian". This is something this group did on a semi-regular basis. They'd choose a theme and then structure a dinner around it, each of them contributing something. I was asked to contribute the music (since, having just stepped off the plane that same day, I was unlikely to be able to contribute much else). I brought with me the following CDs of _Italian_ music:

Angelico Corelli - 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 9: Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert (Archiv: 474 907-2)
Antonio Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus etc.: Paul Dyer, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (Decca: 466 964-2)
Maria Callas - Voice of the Century (EMI: 5 66628-2) _the first CD of which is Italian opera arias_

I now have a collection about three times the size of what I lost, including much better recordings of many of my favourite works from that former collection. And it's growing rapidly.


----------



## jegreenwood

Started my collection in 1983 with 5 from the limited choices then available:

Schubert 9th Solti VPO
Bach violin concertos Hogwood AAM
Mozart piano concertos (don’t recall which) Serkin Abbado
Born to Run
Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits

I still have the first two. I have remastered versions of the last two. The Mozart has been replaced by better performances. When the budget box set of Serkin’s Mozart piano concertos on Sony is released I will likely pick it up.


----------



## Holden4th

Pink Floyd DSOTM - what else as I'd all but worn out the vinyl recording.


----------



## Manxfeeder

Beethoven's 7, Karajan.

I just bought my first CD player, and Radio Shack had a container full of bargain CDs, so I pulled that one out because I knew Beethoven's 7th. I remember being bewildered at this shiny round thing, wondering how to get it out of the jewel case, which side was up, and generally how to operate a CD player. Every time I see that disk I relive the thrill of discovery it brought.


----------



## Holden4th

Many of my initial CD purchases were me trying to replicate what I had on LP. Where the LP had not been transferred to CD at that time I had to look for alternatives. I don't know how many versions of the LvB 9th I auditioned before I found one that I was satisfied with. This also got me into the habit of looking for the best possible (to my ears) recording which I continue to do to this day.


----------



## Merl

I thought I'd already contributed to this thread but it must have been an older one. Tbh, this is really stretching my memory. 
Anyhoo, I didn't get into buying CDs for a long time (even though my job in the mid 80s was buying in the first wave of Supraphon CDs into the UK). Until the late 80s CD players were too expensive for me (I had an important job with a terrible wage) and I was still reasonably happy with LPs and cassettes (awful hissy things). However, once I got my first CD player (it was a Technics) the floodgates opened and I started by replacing stuff I had on scratchy LP and hissy tape so the first (I'm pretty sure) were these. The first one is definitely my first classical CD. I already had it on LP and it remains a reference recording for me.



















If you're talking classical vinyl it was definitely this:










and cassette it was possibly this:


----------



## cougarjuno

Horowitz playing Chopin


----------



## SixFootScowl

Did anyone receive their first CD as a baby and did your parents subsequently bronze it? Of course if it were a certain brand it would self bronze for those of you born in the late 80s to early 90s.:lol:


----------



## The Wolf

Rossini: La Cenerentola with Berganza, Alva, Montarsolo & Abbado (the live recording from Firenze, 1971).


----------



## Vasks

My first...circa 1984


----------



## jegreenwood

Vasks said:


> My first...circa 1984


An early purchase for me as well. But what I remember more distinctly - my first CD player, a Technics, came with a demo disc from Philips. There were several tracks that blew me away at the time, but the best was "The Great Gate at Kiev." I no longer have the disc and have no recollection whatsoever as to which recording it came from.


----------



## Becca

...and yes, he did look like that back then! Around the time of that CD he started being a regular guest of the Los Angeles Phlharmonic


----------



## Guest




----------



## Merl

Merl said:


> If you're talking classical vinyl it was definitely this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ]


My first Beethoven cycle on CD, however, was Szell's (individual discs) I think. Cost me a fortune. I replaced the Karajan 63 set next.


----------



## jegreenwood

Merl said:


> My first Beethoven cycle on CD, however, was Szell's (individual discs) I think. Cost me a fortune. I replaced the Karajan 63 set next.


Time for an SACD (remastered) upgrade on the Szell.









I bought this when it came out a year or two ago. Talk about costing a fortune. And as much as I like the Szell cycle (still), this was a sentimental purchase. I saw this, and I had to have it.


----------



## Oakey

Orff's Carmina Burana on Naxos (Stephen_Gunzenhauser), all I could afford when I was 20 or so (the time when CDs were considered a premium product with a price to match). Still have it, but now prefer Levine on DG.


----------



## JSBach85

This was my first cd several years ago:










I sold it and I miss this recording.


----------



## Pugg

JSBach85 said:


> This was my first cd several years ago:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I sold it and I miss this recording.


Lesson learned just stock it in the back of a cupboard, you never know and see ......now regret.


----------



## DavidA

I had a large collection of LPs but my first CD was Beethoven piano concertos played by Kovacevich


----------

