# What's the best you can do with $50?



## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Let's play a little game. What is the best collection of classical music recordings you can buy with a total budget of $50?

I thought this might be fun, and it might give others valuable tips for good bang-for-your-buck recordings.

For the purpose of uniformity and fairness, let's all use www.amazon.com and use the dollar as currency. EDIT: And CD's as medium.

Go!


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

If you are willing to go with mp3s, you could turn that $50 into a sizeable collection of core repertoire. There are 12 composers featured in the Rise of The Masters series and you could get them all for $24 (these are all 100 track sets with many complete works.) Then, there are the 99 Most Essential sets that pick up a couple of more that aren't featured in the Rise sets (Mendelssohn and Liszt, for example.). Those two would get you to $30. You could then add the Big Haydn Box and the Big Mahler Box for $4 total. That would leave you with $16 to find more bargains. Amazon is loaded with large sets for under $3. 

I haven't found any bargain sets of 20th century music, so you'd be lacking that, but for 18th and 19th you'd end up with a ton of music.


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2013)

Are you specifying a specific medium? DVD, CD, mp3? All fair game, or only CDs?


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## Guest (Aug 4, 2013)

Also, are we talking sheer size, or is quality the major factor?


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

*What's the best you can do with $50?*

Eighth of sour diesel or purple urkle.


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Yes, I should have specified I was thinking of CD's.


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

DrMike said:


> Also, are we talking sheer size, or is quality the major factor?


The best combination of both possible. So for instance, getting a very good CD for $50 or getting 50 cheap ones for $1 each would probably not be the most sensible use of the budget.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

With all of the budget boxes these days, you can do a lot with 50 bucks. For instance, I picked up the Ligeti Teldec box, and the Stravinsky Sony box for around that much. That's 27 CDs!

I also picked up several fine solo piano boxes for around the same total. Debussy, Prokofiev, and Scriabin.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

starthrower said:


> With all of the budget boxes these days, you can do a lot with 50 bucks. For instance, I picked up the Ligeti Teldec box, and the Stravinsky Sony box for around that much. That's 27 CDs!
> 
> I also picked up several fine solo piano boxes for around the same total. Debussy, Prokofiev, and Scriabin.


Would you care to share some extra info on the cd sets you would recommend?

On the basis of your tip, I did a quick search and came up with Gieseking's version of Debussy's complete solo piano music, which I'd unreservedly recommend for $10--I wish I'd paid so little!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Well, you could invest that $50 in exchange ETFs. Assuming a 6.1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 13 years you'd have $110.29. You can now purchase the Solti Wagner boxset: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008H29YVY

Save your money, and you can buy something really worthwhile in the future instead of wasting it on Debussy or Ligeti or some nonsense like that.


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Couchie said:


> Well, you could invest that $50 in exchange ETFs. Assuming a 6.1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 13 years you'd have $110.29. You can now purchase the Solti Wagner boxset: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008H29YVY
> 
> Save your money, and you can buy something really worthwhile in the future instead of wasting it on Debussy or Ligeti or some nonsense like that.


1) Fortunately, I have more than $50.
2) I despise Wagner.
3) What's that ETF thingy? Sounds interesting...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Well, you could invest that $50 in exchange ETFs. Assuming a 6.1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 13 years you'd have $110.29. You can now purchase the Solti Wagner boxset: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008H29YVY


Or you can avoid investing entirely and just wait a bit for the Big Wagner Box at 99 cents...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

GiulioCesare said:


> 1) Fortunately, I have more than $50.
> 2) I despise Wagner.
> 3) What's that ETF thingy? Sounds interesting...


1) $50 limit per original post
2) That's because you don't have the Solti Wagner Boxset
3) Exchange Traded Fund usually aimed to match a market index. For a faster albeit riskier investment, go to a casino roulette table and throw the $50 on red. Now you have slightly less than a 50/50 change of doubling it to $100. But even if you lose, the few seconds of thrill is more than you would have gotten out of the Ligeti boxset anyways.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

You should buy food for a starving orchestral musician then shoplift non Wagner CD's for the same value and if you get caught, argue in front of the judge that it was a political protest against the appalling conditions said musicians have to endure in your country! 

Simple, effective, fair!

/ptr


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

Goodness music is so cheap on amazonUS. Look at the UK site and compare


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Trumpet-Royal-Purcell-Handel/dp/B008ROH07W/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_1 *$14.99*
http://www.amazon.com/Telemann-Conc...elemann's+Trumpet+Concerto+TWV+51:D7,+Guttler - *$12.88*
http://www.amazon.com/Handel-Concer...1-16&keywords=Handel+Concerti+Grossi+Op+3+&+6 *$12.74*
http://www.amazon.com/Italian-Oboe-...-2&keywords=Marcello+Oboe+Concerto+in+D+minor *$8.99*

All for... $49.60... Hmmm...forgot the tax. DAMN!


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Bix said:


> Goodness music is so cheap on amazonUS. Look at the UK site and compare


Tell me about it... I'm regretting having started this thread now.


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## EllenBurgess (May 30, 2013)

you can create some music in it but the quality would definitly suffer a lot with its appearance


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Couchie said:


> Well, you could invest that $50 in exchange ETFs. Assuming a 6.1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 13 years you'd have $110.29. You can now purchase the Solti Wagner boxset: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008H29YVY
> 
> Save your money, and you can buy something really worthwhile in the future instead of wasting it on Debussy or Ligeti or some nonsense like that.


But I already own it... and got it when it dropped down to $80 US.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Just the other day this set was below $50 US. As of this moment it's jumped to $57 with the digital download going for $45.










I purchased it two years ago for approximately $35 and it remains quite likely the greatest recorded classical music value I have ever got for that amount of money. The set includes 22 discs of Bach's finest music: the B-Minor Mass, the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, and some 10 discs of Bach's finest cantatas all masterfully performed by John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir, and some of the most marvelous singers of the Baroque repertoire: Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Anne Sophie von Otter, Nancy Argenta, Barbara Bonney, etc...

Even at $100 this set would be an unrivaled collection of treasures.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Bix said:


> Goodness music is so cheap on amazonUS.


Not when you buy as much as I have over the past 5 years or so. Amazon and that "Buy with One Click" button have spelled my doom. But at least it comes with a great soundtrack.


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Just the other day this set was below $50 US. As of this moment it's jumped to $57 with the digital download going for $45.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've got the same one, 'twas a present fortunately


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

*Okay... Let Me Try:*

1) E Power Biggs- BACH- Four Great Toccatas/Fugues- c. $10.
2) Brendel-Marriner-St. Martin/Fields- MOZART- Piano Concertos volume 1- [2 CD set!]- c. $14.
3) Kleiber-Vienna- BEETHOVEN Symphonies 5 & 7- c. $10.
4) Milstein- BRAHMS-TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concertos- (Bargain of the 21st Century @) c. $4. 
5) Tennstedt-Berlin- WAGNER Orchestral Music- not exactly desert-island Wagner but 
another 2 CD set!, and thus well worth the c. $9. cost.

Five purchases, seven discs, $47... and a pretty good start, I think.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

At Amazon US, LvB Piano Sonatas and Piano Concerti (Complete) with Gulda, $30, LvB Symphonies (Complete), with BPO/HvK (1963), $20.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Tastes vary so much, that I would have a hard time recommending single discs totaling $50. If I lost my entire collection and only had $50 to replace what I could, I would buy the *EMI Icons - Steinberg boxed set*. Looking at the whole series of EMI Icons available, I would think quite a number of them would be good value for the money. Maybe not state-of-art recordings technically speaking, but a lot of good, solid performances.


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