Deutsche Grammophon.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course, the young person discovering classical music today would simply stream the entire catalogue.

Going off-topic, it occurs to me that belonging to the Record dept of the local Libraries in my teens was like a sort-of "proto streaming service": you'd pay your 50p, take the record away, then bring it back the next week having sampled, but not owned what you listened to.

[cloughie]

Going off-topic, it occurs to me that belonging to the Record dept of the local Libraries in my teens was like a sort-of "proto streaming service": you'd pay your 50p, take the record away, then bring it back the next week having sampled, but not owned what you listened to.

...and possibly sampled it connected to a machine with a tape in it!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

...and possibly sampled it connected to a machine with a tape in it!

Eee! Tha's posh!

(I literally had to stick a microphone with masking tape to one of the speakers. I got the Bernstein Mahler #6 onto a C90 tape, but it only fit if you recorded the Andante after the first Movement: I got to know the work in what has become the fashionable order of the middle two movements by "default"!)

[Cockney Sparrow]

And nowadays some agonise over Hi-Res over CD quality!

[pastoralguy]

Eee! Tha's posh!

(I literally had to stick a microphone with masking tape to one of the speakers. I got the Bernstein Mahler #6 onto a C90 tape, but it only fit if you recorded the Andante after the first Movement: I got to know the work in what has become the fashionable order of the middle two movements by "default"!)

Gosh! I remember recording Martha Argerich's Prokofiev 3rd piano concerto with Abbado on to a C60 Memorex tape but having to turn the tape over before the end of the 1st movement. I also remember borrowing Mozart's 17th piano concerto played by Tamas Vasary on Deutsche Grammophon. It had been borrowed ONCE and was completely unplayable! A very sad experience!

[Ein Heldenleben]

At the risk of going off thread and noticing that ( surprisingly given the enthusiasm forumites rightly have for the composer) there is no Bruckner COTW thread , can I just say that the finale of Bruckner 8 by HvK and the BPO just played on R3 was absolutely tremendous ? Presumably it is in on DG ? I think Ive got it somewhere in a once -loved but -rarely -played -stack....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

At the risk of going off thread and noticing that ( surprisingly given the enthusiasm forumites rightly have for the composer) there is no Bruckner COTW thread , can I just say that the finale of Bruckner 8 by HvK and the BPO just played on R3 was absolutely tremendous ? Presumably it is in on DG ? I think Ive got it somewhere in a once -loved but -rarely -played -stack....

I listened to the Mon and Weds CotW, but really don't like the "First Movement of the First Symphony, followed by the Kyrie of the e minr Mass",follwed by the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony" format - it's just so ... wrong!

Karajan recorded the 8th with the BPO twice - the first time (on EMI) in the '50s when he had just become their Music Director, then later in the '70s for DGG (and again for DGG with the VPO over a decade later). The earlier one is, IIRC, the slowest of the conductor's three recordings of the work - and the least successful for me.

[Joseph K]

A few times we rented CDs from the library and made a copy of them... I remember that was how I first got to know Liszt's B minor sonata, played by Pletnev.

As far as record labels are concerned, and back when you needed something on CD to listen to it, I was fond of the HMV label's cheap classical CDs - they were what was most available at my local HMV branch. Then when I started being old enough to go to Birmingham, it was Naxos...

Off-topic, sorry.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Off-topic, sorry.

I suppose pasto's OP invites comments from "down memory lane" (and across "Whowasit" Avenue, and "Didn'tsomeoneoncesay Crescent" into "Wellactually Drive" [a cul-de-sac ]) - and it's good to read that others have similar experiences to our own.

But to return to the OP's final paragraph - No: the big labels of the '60s & '70s are now essentially owned by two or three mega-companies, mostly interesting to me for producing cheap boxes of their back catalogues. The frisson I used to get in my teens and twenties are now supplied by smaller, specialist labels.

[cloughie]

A few times we rented CDs from the library and made a copy of them... I remember that was how I first got to know Liszt's B minor sonata, played by Pletnev.

As far as record labels are concerned, and back when you needed something on CD to listen to it, I was fond of the HMV label's cheap classical CDs - they were what was most available at my local HMV branch. Then when I started being old enough to go to Birmingham, it was Naxos...

Off-topic, sorry.

...and that HMV store was brilliant with its haven at the top of 5he store! And a guy who really knew his classical stuff! In addition we had Dillons, Tower and the shop in Symphony Hall - oh and also Borders in the Bull Ring.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I listened to the Mon and Weds CotW, but really don't like the "First Movement of the First Symphony, followed by the Kyrie of the e minr Mass",follwed by the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony" format - it's just so ... wrong!

Karajan recorded the 8th with the BPO twice - the first time (on EMI) in the '50s when he had just become their Music Director, then later in the '70s for DGG (and again for DGG with the VPO over a decade later). The earlier one is, IIRC, the slowest of the conductor's three recordings of the work - and the least successful for me.

Yep it is a bit bleeding chunk inevitably. Thanks for the provenance info . I'm guessing today's was the 70's BPO - ever so slightly dodgy trumpets in the coda if your exemplary recall stretches that far ..

[vinteuil]

I listened to the Mon and Weds CotW, but really don't like the "First Movement of the First Symphony, followed by the Kyrie of the e minor Mass",followed by the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony" format - it's just so ... wrong!
.

.

Yep it is a bit bleeding chunk inevitably...

.

... if you think of it as a 'substantially illustrated lecture' rather than as a concert, then I think it's all right. I have been enjoying it (and learning from it).

.

[John Wright]

.

... if you think of it as a 'substantially illustrated lecture' rather than as a concert, then I think it's all right. I have been enjoying it (and learning from it).

.

Yes, I agree Vinteuil, exactly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... if you think of it as a 'substantially illustrated lecture' rather than as a concert, then I think it's all right. I have been enjoying it (and learning from it).

Hmm - I s'pose. But what are the "substantial illustrations" actually "illustrating"? They seemed somewhat randomly chosen - the three excerpts in Monday's programme, for example: a retrospective link in the composer's development from the First Symphony to the Third Mass, perhaps - but then a leap to the Fifth Symphony ... ? And the "lecture" seemed more interested in biographical "gossip" (the composer's OCD and his preference for what were described as "young girls" - which makes me think of eight-year-olds; not exactly what Bruckner was interested in) than in Musical exegesis - or even "description".

The same points could have more satisfactorily been illustrated by the composer's many shorter works for choir and/or for orchestra, I feel. (It seems that Tuesday's programme, which I had to miss, was more in this nature.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm guessing today's was the 70's BPO - ever so slightly dodgy trumpets in the coda if your exemplary recall stretches that far ..

Ah, by that description, I would say it was definitely the '70s recording.

(Oh, alright - I checked the CotW playlist on the website, and it gives the details! - Still, it got us neatly back to DGG!)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000yw5