first record

[calimac]

Every so often, somebody of roughly my generation, or perhaps a bit younger - but old enough to have been buying records in their youth - will name the first record they ever bought with their own money.

It's always some current pop record of whatever period it was, which makes me feel alienated, because mine wasn't.

But at last, someone after my own heart. Terry Teachout, who these days is mostly a theater and jazz critic, but who has classical music firmly in his background, names the first record that he ever bought, and it's Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony.

Well. I didn't buy a copy of the Pathétique until years later, because it was included in one of the box sets my parents had, but that's more my style. The first record I ever bought was of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. Collegium Aureum, original instruments, RCA 2-disc set. Found in a small record shop in a now totally-rebuilt shopping center near a cafeteria restaurant where we frequently went out to dinner.

I would probably have been 13 when I bought this. I had recently taken up listening to the heavy classics, and in those box sets and my parents' other records I found a lot of symphonies and other works with numbers on them, that demonstrated that they were parts of numbered sets. One of those works was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, and, while I liked it a good deal, the reason I fixed on the Brandenburgs as my first purchase was that, unlike other sets which required either multiple separate LPs or a large, clumsy box set, I could get all six Brandenburgs on two discs in a single gatefold slipcase. And so my collection of this set was complete. This was the foundation stone of decades spent accumulating many hundreds of classical recordings.

Want to hear that original recording of the Brandenburg set? Here it is, the whole thing:

"J. S. Bach - Die Brandenburgische Konzerte (Vinyl Rip)" (Watch on YouTube)

(Order: 1, 3, 4, 5, 2, 6.)

Comments

[cmcmck]

My fist classical album was Handel's 'Messiah' A three volume set done with a chamber orchestra which was an early 'authentic' performance, I suppose.

My first rock was Rod Stewart and the Faces 'Every Picture Tells a Story'

First folk was Fairport Convention's 'Angel Delight'

I'd have been about the same age as you were and had a 'Saturday job' which gave me the money.

And I still have all three in playable condition! :o)

[calimac]

My first rock record was The Beatles 1966-1970. I was already out of college by the time I bought this. To this day they're one of only two rock (as opposed to folk-rock) bands I have a serious collection of. Rod Stewart does absolutely zero for me; I once listened several times through a compilation tape a friend sent me, to confirm this.

I had a college roommate with a (then)-complete collection of Steeleye Span, so that's how I discovered folk (electric or otherwise). I don't remember what my own first purchase was, but Steeleye remains my favorite.

Fairport is good too, and Angel Delight may be my favorite of their albums.

[cmcmck]

That album was from the early days when he was a straight bluesman and I can still relate to that. His later stuff does nothing for me.

[ex_inklessej388]

Your first-time-I-bought-a-record-with-my-own-money story is certainly better than mine-- proving your point. My first record was a CD of the soundtrack for the movie Space Jam. Bahaha.

[sartorias]

My first bought record (I was either twelve or thirteen) was Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, with Beethoven'sFifth on the reverse side. I had to hide it because we kids were forbidden to play the stereo. (So of course we just played it when dad was at work)

[calimac]

Very good choice! Do you recall the performers?

[sartorias]

No--when I was a kid it was just "orchestra".

[bibliofile]

I don't remember what was the first classical album that I bought, though it may have been the Dvorak cello concerto (Lynn Harrell). Or maybe it was a dupe of a record my parents had (including the William Tell Overture, which the high school orchestra played in my time).

For non-pop music, I did take stuff out from our local library. My parents had a couple-few dozen LPs, including some symphonic classical things and a couple of operas.