"Hooked on Classics"

[Hornspieler]

As a youngster, in the prewar days of The Home Service and Radio Luxembourg, my family were the proud owners of a large Marconi Radiogram.

The family collection of Gramophone records were mostly of vocalists, ranging from Gracie Fields ("She fought like a tiger" or "Alice Blue Gown") to Dame Clara Butt ("God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes")

That's just a starter but duty calls and I will add to this repertoire tomorrow.

HS

[Ferretfancy]

As a youngster, in the prewar days of The Home Service and Radio Luxembourg, my family were the proud owners of a large Marconi Radiogram.

The family collection of Gramaphone records were of vocalist, ranging from Gracie Fields ("She fought like a tiger" or "Alice Blue Gown") to Dame Clara Butt ("God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes")

That's just a starter but duty calls and I will add to this repertoire tomorrow.

HS

My first classic, played on my neighbours wind up, was the Orpheus in the Underworld Overture. I couldn't understand why it was so cheerful, given its title.

[Pabmusic]

Ah, memories! My mother had a pile of 78s (including some of WW1 vintage, inherited from her father) and a portable player. As a very small boy I went through them all, writing MF ('my favourite') on the label of everything I really enjoyed. They included Regimental Marches of the British Army - all acoustic recordings by a 'Military Band'. I liked these particularly because they were 'folk' songs in the main - and especially because there were so many anomalies. Why was "The Hampshire" so obviously a Scottish tune? - just one of dozens. (This sort of thing was very important to me when I was 8).

There were 'proper' classical pieces, too. Moiseivitch playing Rach 2 (Mum & Dad had seen Brief Encounter at the Cinema); the 1812, Bolero; The Rite (yes! quite why I never knew, because Mum didn't like it); the New World (Talich/Czech PO). Also lots of ballet and many recordings by the Boston Promenade Orchestra and Arthur Fiedler. (More than once I've tried without success to convince people that the Boston Pops was first the Boston Promenade Orchestra). One very influential piece was Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on 10th Avenue.

My own very first records were the 1812, followed by Stanley Pope conducting Pomp & Circumstance 1, 2, 4 and 5 (I enjoyed 5 best). I guess I was 8 or 9.

When I was 10, I conducted (!!!) the entire New World - with a score (by this time Mum had an LP).

[Hornspieler]

As a youngster, in the prewar days of The Home Service and Radio Luxembourg, my family were the proud owners of a large Marconi Radiogram.

The family collection of Gramaphone records were of vocalist, ranging from Gracie Fields ("She fought like a tiger" or "Alice Blue Gown") to Dame Clara Butt ("God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes")

That's just a starter but duty calls and I will add to this repertoire tomorrow.

HS

Sorry about that. Here is a complete list of those that I remember:

Vocal

Heddle Nash: "Serenade from Fair Maid of Perth" *****
Webster Booth: "Flower Song from Carmen" ***
Norman Allin: "Asleep in the Deep" and "The Diver" *****
Mummery and Richardson: "Excelsior" and "The Battle Eve" ****
Clara Serena: "?" another Clara Butt.

Brass Band

Fodens Motor Works: (soloist Harry Mortimer)
"Titania" ***
"Post Horn Galop" ****** (An early preview of "The Lone Ranger?")
"Ida and Dot" (Cornet duet) ****

Other

Mascagni:"Intermezzo from Cavallaria Rusticana" **
Weber: Invitation to the Dance" **

So how about you, in the postwar, but pre-television years?

Housewives Choice?

Isobel Bailie singing Rutland Boughten's "The Fairies"
Litolff's "Concerto Sinfonique"
Resnicek's "Donna Diana"?
Wolf Ferrari's "Intermezzo from Jewels of the Madonna"

Or maybe just "Childrens Hour" with Helen Henschel telling you all about her father George's friendship with Brahms?
... and don't forget "Music in Miniature" on Thursday nights.
The first time that I heard Dennis Brain playing on air, together with Evelyn Rothwell, Frederick Thurston, Archie Camden et al.

Over to you! (Forgive the spelling)

HS

[Lat-Literal]

The "Warsaw Concerto" is associated with my mother because she was one of the 11 year olds who went to see "Dangerous Moonlight".

But it is also to me Spike Milligan who referred to it several times in his autobiography as "bloody awful" so there are big contrasts there.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have a converted commodefull of 78s mostly bought by my late father during WWII when he was convalescing in Cape Town from polio he'd contracted in Abadan. I bought one of those record players with a 78 rpm needle you get advertised in RT "supplements" to play them on, and it (rather than they) sounds terrible - tinny. There must be a couple of hundred and I haven't got the faintest what to do with them. I only keep them for sentimental reasons - they were probably more my introduction to "serious music" other than classical piano (which my mother played at home) than anything else, Third Programme included. There are a number of 10" 78s too, Stanley Holloway Albert & The Lion, George Formby, but mostly Victor Silvester and WWII patriotic songs (The Spitfire Song: Sam Browne with the Joe Loss Orchestra, anyone?) which possibly have some rarity value. It would take a vehicle with a strong floor to take them away.

[Lat-Literal]

I have a converted commodefull of 78s mostly bought by my late father during WWII when he was convalescing in Cape Town from polio he'd contracted in Abadan. I bought one of those record players with a 78 rpm needle you get advertised in RT "supplements" to play them on, and it (rather than they) sounds terrible - tinny. There must be a couple of hundred and I haven't got the faintest what to do with them. I only keep them for sentimental reasons - they were probably more my introduction to "serious music" other than classical piano (which my mother played at home) than anything else, Third Programme included. There are a number of 10" 78s too, Stanley Holloway Albert & The Lion, George Formby, but mostly Victor Silvester and WWII patriotic songs (The Spitfire Song: Sam Browne with the Joe Loss Orchestra, anyone?) which possibly have some rarity value. It would take a vehicle with a strong floor to take them away.

Not making a bid as I don't do that sort of thing.

But Holloway and Formby were, genuinely, fantastic and Victor Silvester was huge with my ballrooming grandparents.

[Ferretfancy]

Classical records were not an option for use with my first gramophone, because it could only play 8 inch records. It was wound up with the sort of key normally used for toys.
My mother and my aunts used to have tea together on Saturday afternoons, and I used to creep up outside their door and treat them to items like "I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you!" or "Lazybones"

8 inch records ? Yes, there were quite a few on the Eclipse label and others I no longer remember. Later on my parents bought a secondhand cabinet gramophone with the doors at the front to let the sound out, so I was able to play Stokey's famous record of Bach's Toccata and Fugue, and Solomon playing Chopin's Polonaise, I forget which one. There was much pleasure to be had when visiting a friends house to see what 78 treasures lurked in the storage space under the radiogram.

Lat-Literal remembers his grandparents enjoying Victor Sylvester. One of my first jobs at the BBC was to press the record button for the weekly programme on the World Service when he and his smaller ensemble played listeners requests. This was at Aeolian Hall in Bond Street, one of a number of studios which are now no more. The Jubilee Chapel in Hoxton, home of Sandy McPherson at the BBC Theatre Organ, is now a multi-storey car park. There really should be a plaque on the wall!

[richardfinegold]

I have a converted commodefull of 78s mostly bought by my late father during WWII when he was convalescing in Cape Town from polio he'd contracted in Abadan. I bought one of those record players with a 78 rpm needle you get advertised in RT "supplements" to play them on, and it (rather than they) sounds terrible - tinny. There must be a couple of hundred and I haven't got the faintest what to do with them. I only keep them for sentimental reasons - they were probably more my introduction to "serious music" other than classical piano (which my mother played at home) than anything else, Third Programme included. There are a number of 10" 78s too, Stanley Holloway Albert & The Lion, George Formby, but mostly Victor Silvester and WWII patriotic songs (The Spitfire Song: Sam Browne with the Joe Loss Orchestra, anyone?) which possibly have some rarity value. It would take a vehicle with a strong floor to take them away.

I also inherited a bunch from my Father. They looked promising--Toscanini and the NY Phil doing Ravel's Bolero and some Weingartner and Bronislaw Huberman were amongst them-- but when I finally got a chance to play them on a 78 rpm tt, they were completely un listenable.

[cloughie]

I remember birthday parties at the age of 4 or 5 playing musical chairs. My father used a 78 of Khachaturyan's Dance of the Flower Maidens from Gayaneh. The other side had the Sabre Dance. I guess it was probably NYPO Kurtz.

[Lat-Literal]

Classical records were not an option for use with my first gramophone, because it could only play 8 inch records. It was wound up with the sort of key normally used for toys.
My mother and my aunts used to have tea together on Saturday afternoons, and I used to creep up outside their door and treat them to items like "I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you!" or "Lazybones"

8 inch records ? Yes, there were quite a few on the Eclipse label and others I no longer remember. Later on my parents bought a secondhand cabinet gramophone with the doors at the front to let the sound out, so I was able to play Stokey's famous record of Bach's Toccata and Fugue, and Solomon playing Chopin's Polonaise, I forget which one. There was much pleasure to be had when visiting a friends house to see what 78 treasures lurked in the storage space under the radiogram.

Lat-Literal remembers his grandparents enjoying Victor Sylvester. One of my first jobs at the BBC was to press the record button for the weekly programme on the World Service when he and his smaller ensemble played listeners requests. This was at Aeolian Hall in Bond Street, one of a number of studios which are now no more. The Jubilee Chapel in Hoxton, home of Sandy McPherson at the BBC Theatre Organ, is now a multi-storey car park. There really should be a plaque on the wall!

An interesting memory re VS.

Many thanks for it.

[rauschwerk]

I heard a lot more live than reproduced music at first. My mother played the piano pretty well and possessed volumes of Classical sonatas, Mendelssohn (his Songs Without Words she loved especially) and Chopin. At 5 or 6 the 'Raindrop' prelude would move me to tears. My uncle played professionally (transatlantic liners) and I would have heard lighter stuff from him but can't recall what.

It was not until I was about 10 that we bought a Dansette and there suddenly appeared a sizeable collection of 78s which must have been tucked away for years. There were LPs as well. I recall particularly:-

Weber: Invitation to the Dance (BBCSO/Toscanini) - recently acquired this on CD and it sounds every bit as good as I remembered;
Liszt : Un sospiro (Egon Petri) - I forget what was on the other side but this remains a favourite piece of mine;
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours (New Light Symphony Orchestra - no conductor credited but I fancy it was Walter Goehr);
Caruso singing Vesti la giubba

There were some 78 sets such as Brahms Symphony 1 (VPO/ Walter), New World Symphony (LSO/Szell) which I didn't get into until I was a bit older. I remember one morning when my parents went and bought the Kleiber Beethoven Pastoral reissued on the new Ace of Clubs label. I think it must have been the first Beethoven symphony I heard in its entirety and I loved it.

[Hornspieler]

I'm glad that I started this thread and hope that many others will tell us of what attracted them to classical music and at what age.

Keep it coming!

HS