What's your earliest memory of R3/Third Programme

[Petrushka]

I’m talking mid 60s now - In 1964 a pop LP was £1/12/0and a classical one around £1/15 to £1/17/6but cheaper labels like Ace of Clubs and HMV Cincert Classics were 21/-and 22/6 - the appearance of Music for Pleasure in 1965 at 12/6 was when the real bargains started, Supraphon were 17/6. These prices were however from time to time subject to changes in purchase tax!

Incredibly, I still have the price stickers on a few of my LPs. A full price Decca classical LP purchased in October 1970 was 45/11 (45 shillings and 11 pence, that is two pounds, five shillings and eleven pence) In today's money, according to the National Archives currency converter, this is the equivalent of a staggering £32.33!! A Decca Eclipse LP set of Keilberth's 1955 Bayreuth Flying Dutchman (on three separate LPs) purchased in June 1974 has a sticker on saying £2.94 but not sure if this relates to one disc or the set of three, though I suspect the latter.

A 1971, post-decimalisation, full price Decca classical LP was £2.39, while another one, also purchased in 1971, carries a sticker saying £2.27.

These are staggering amounts for a single LP, especially when you consider that you can get the entire Ring Cycle on CD today for little more than £20. It's little wonder that my mother grumbled at the expense every Christmas and birthday!

[Bryn]

Saga were 10/- in 1965, then they went up to 12/6 - can't remember precisely when. That was how I was able to afford the three LPs of the Bartok Quartets played by the Fine Arts Qt, and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire coupled with Stravinsky's Dunbarton Oaks, which rendered me an instant convert to mature Schoenberg, but not to Stravinskyan neo-classicism, at that particular time at any rate. I got 'em all at WH Smiths in Earls Court Road. Most British-made LPs, classical or jazz, seemed to go at 38/- at that time.

Did you not also get the Harry Newstone Brandenburgs? They were outstanding for their time in that price bracket and complemented Dunbarton Oaks well.

[Rjw]

I'm pretty sure that one of the first classical albums I bought was a full price EMI of Barenboim playing the Waldstein in about 1973 - It was £3 (I think ) the equivalent of £36 now - but there was lot of inflation in the early 70's so price comparisons are tricky. It might have even been more than £3 . LP's were phenomenally expensive - a good 3 course mea with winel for 2 would be about £10 in the mid seventies. My first wage in 1976 (for a junior accounts clerk job - one that would now be done with a flick of a computer key ) was £60.

And if you tell that t'young folks today ...they just don't believe yer....

Is that a weekly wage?

[Alison]

I understand Harry Newstone’s repertoire included Havergal Brian.

On pricing I’m not sure what a full price Decca issue would cost today, £17.99?

Does the ‘list price’ even exist now?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Is that a weekly wage?

Yes weekly - the equivalent of £435 per week now which seems a lot but it was a FTSE 100 company and in London. It took a month and involved adding the annual increment to the cardboard pension cards of thousands of workers - a job that could be done on an excel spreadsheet now in seconds.

[Serial_Apologist]

Did you not also get the Harry Newstone Brandenburgs? They were outstanding for their time in that price bracket and complemented Dunbarton Oaks well.

No I had tunnel vision, or rather tunnel listening, back then in my early 20s. Music-wise, anything prior to about 1895, apart from the late Beethoven quartets which I'd "heard" about, was of no interest whatsoever.

[rauschwerk]

Interesting to reflect on the cost of concert going compared with recorded music 55 years ago and today. When I went to hear Stravinsky conduct in London in 1965 the tickets were very pricey - one guinea for the cheapest and six for the most expensive That was about three times the cost of normal RFH concerts. So for the price of two budget LPs I could take my gf as well. Recorded music is relatively much cheaper nowadays, I think.

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting to reflect on the cost of concert going compared with recorded music 55 years ago and today. When I went to hear Stravinsky conduct in London in 1965 the tickets were very pricey - one guinea for the cheapest and six for the most expensive That was about three times the cost of normal RFH concerts. So for the price of two budget LPs I could take my gf as well. Recorded music is relatively much cheaper nowadays, I think.

Yes - either way, one pays for the privilege of really getting to know the recorded work in question, whereas a concert only permits one bite of the cherry, unless a recording is subsequently released of it.

[cloughie]

Interesting to reflect on the cost of concert going compared with recorded music 55 years ago and today. When I went to hear Stravinsky conduct in London in 1965 the tickets were very pricey - one guinea for the cheapest and six for the most expensive That was about three times the cost of normal RFH concerts. So for the price of two budget LPs I could take my gf as well. Recorded music is relatively much cheaper nowadays, I think.

No contest - Halle concerts for a bob!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Interesting to reflect on the cost of concert going compared with recorded music 55 years ago and today. When I went to hear Stravinsky conduct in London in 1965 the tickets were very pricey - one guinea for the cheapest and six for the most expensive That was about three times the cost of normal RFH concerts. So for the price of two budget LPs I could take my gf as well. Recorded music is relatively much cheaper nowadays, I think.

Tickets at ROH and ENO have definitely gone up by more than RPI - in the case of the stalls substantially so. Not so sure about the RFH - I think the London orchestras have pretty much tracked the RPI - maybe a bit cheaper and much more so if you go for the subscription offers. I sat in the stalls at Covent Garden for a fiver in the early seventies - that's about £45 now rpi adjusted ...

[LMcD]

Interesting to reflect on the cost of concert going compared with recorded music 55 years ago and today. When I went to hear Stravinsky conduct in London in 1965 the tickets were very pricey - one guinea for the cheapest and six for the most expensive That was about three times the cost of normal RFH concerts. So for the price of two budget LPs I could take my gf as well. Recorded music is relatively much cheaper nowadays, I think.

We paid 17/- (85p) each for seats in the Red Side Annex(e) in November 1969. In January 2020 we paid £12 each for seats in the balcony.

[Wychwood]

A late-comer to this thread, but to answer the question in the OP:

The announcer Joy Worth saying: "The next programme follows in one minute..."

Then closing her mic for 60 seconds of dead air!

Early 1960s ?