I need a short idiot's guide to buying classical music

the_?

Not that I'm a short idiot. I'm a tall idiot. What I need is some brief rules of thumb for buying classical music.

Next week, I will be at a thrift store that sells vinyl by the pound. I've been there before and they have a fair bit of classical. My problem is that I know enough about buying classical music to know that I don't know enough about buying it. I understand that labels really matter as do conductors and symphonies. But I don't know enough about them to distinguish what is worth buying and what isn't.

Honestly, I'm not much of a classical listener but it is the one type of music I can put on when my sister is visiting without her asking me to turn it off. And she isn't an avid listener herself.

And I'm not too worried about buying stuff that ends up being of poor quality. But if there are maybe a few rules of thumb I could use to make smarter purchases, they would definitely come in handy.

choiceweb0pen0

I got a lot of milage early on in my classical listening with some classical hand me down albums from Reader's Digest. Those would probably be fine and imagine they would be at a thrift store. Deutsche Grammophon is decent, too.

Nereffid

One rule of thumb is that it doesn't matter a damn who the conductor, orchestra, soloist, or label is if you don't like the music. So the first order of business is to either know in advance which composers/works you might like, or be prepared to get a few duds. After that, unless you're an audiophile or are intimately familiar with the music and demand certain things from a performance, or you're not worried about "sophisticated" classical listeners coming into your home and sneering at your purchases, I'd say for practical purposes one thing is as good as another.

Germanprof

What a refreshing paragraph, Nereffid. (As compared to the world at large, not to yourself).

the_?

Point taken, Nereffid.

I do have some composers who I enjoy. Handel (though I'm not even sure I've just spelled that right), Mozart and i am indeed willing to accept a few duds (especially at $0.25 a pop). And I guess your right. Perhaps this thread is a bit like a coca-cola drinker asking for advice on the best highlands single malt. I'll probably just take a carpet fire approach and see what shakes out.

Nereffid

Ah, now if you like Handel the question becomes more interesting, because the issue of performance practice comes up. Whereas these days pretty much all new recordings of Baroque music will make an attempt at "authentic" performance in terms of, for example, instruments and voice types, in the heyday of the LP you'd often have a somewhat scaled-down modern symphony orchestra. The two styles are very different; personally I much prefer the "historically informed" style, but YMMV (or you might not care!). Some of the LP-era labels that would have the "authentic" style are L'Oiseau-Lyre, Archiv, Das Alte Werk (Teldec), and Harmonia Mundi.

kargatron

Heh, Nereffid, Handel is exactly who I thought of as a counter-example to your rule of thumb above. I was thinking about posting on that, and thanks for doing it for me. I never liked Handel's music at all until I heard it performed "historically informed". The more modern style just sounds soggy (pun intended).

the_?

Interesting info. I just looked at the Handel I have and it sure seems to be of the soggy variety (nice pun, BTW).

So on with the carpet-fire approach. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Katrina

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MrV

Katrina; Brava for the library advice. I'm a retired librarian, and it did not even occur to me to post that the library is the best means of finding out what you do & don't like in classical music.

PaulR

Sites like rdio have quite a good collection, for example Harmonia Mundi, and LSO Live. Though the quality of the tags leaves a lot to be desired - something that is all too common with classical music.

kargatron

PaulR has it - streaming sites are wildly more convenient than going to the library, and extremely cheap - tailor-made for investigation.

Bad Thoughts

Wrong thread

the_?

Well here's what I found (found some others as well but they are well outside the classical realm). Cost was about 31 cents each. Most look to be in decent shape as far as the vinyl goes -- though the sleeves are another story.

Chopin's Greatest HIts!! (Reader's Digest Classics Collection) --- I really like the idea of Chopin having hits.
Beethoven The Pastoral - Sixth Symphony (Funk and Wagnall's Family Library of Great Music Album)6
Beethoven "Pastoral" Symphony No. 6, Vienna Symphony Orchestra with Otto Klemperer conducting (Yorkshire Records)
A Chopin Recital, Alberto Mozzati (Audio Fidelity Records)
Dvorka "New World" Symphony, Rafael Kubelik conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Mercury Records)
Brahms Symphony No. 2, Boston Symphony Orchestra/Erich Leinsdorf(RCA)
The Vienna of Johann Strauss, Vienna Philharmonic with Herbert Von Karajan (RCA)
Mendelssohn "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra

Nereffid

Looks good... I've never heard of Alberto Mozzati, though I learned from Google that he was a "great Italian blind pianist". And surely for a classical album, Funk might have bowed out and left the job to Wagnall? Not much funk in Beethoven.

ScissorMan

I was gonna say, a good rule of thumb for those just getting into classical musique is to avoid the even-numbered Beethoven symphonies at first and start with the odd-numbered ones, and probably best to get into the concertos (esp. the five piano concertos, IMO) before the even-numbered symphonies. Otherwise, you may suffer from unwanted side-effects like nausea, stomach pain, fatigue, and urinary incontinence.

Wait a minute, I was thinking of the side effects of triazolam, not Beethoven's even-numbered symphonies... now, where's the edit butto

the_?

Well, I made another visit to the 'vinyl by the pound' outlet. Not as much classical, but a pretty good haul for $8.00 total: Actually got some CDs this time, too.

CDs:
Dashboard Confessional: The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most
The Orange Peels: Square
The Cranberries: To the Faithful Departed
The Cranberries: No Need to Argue

Vinyl
Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66
Willie Nelson: Stardust
Van Cliburn: My Favorite Chopin
Harry Belafonte: An Evening with Belefonte
Saturday Night Fever: Original Movie Soundtrack
John Denver: John Denver's Greatest Hits (actually got two of these)
Johnny Cash: Hi...I'm Johnny Cash
Mahalia Jackson: You'll Never Walk Alone
Willie Nelson and David Allen Coe: Willie and David
Willie Nelson: Columbus Stockade Blues
Elvis Presley: His Hand in Mine
The Outlaws: Wanted (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Coulter, Tompall Glaser)
George Harrison: George Harrison
Journey: Raised on Radio
Carpenters: Carpenters
George Gershwin: ..Plays Rhapsody in Blue and Other Favorites
Erich Leinsdorf: The Sound of Wagner
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto NO. 2 in C Minor Op. 18 Three Preludes (performed by Gina Bachauer, Strasbourg Philharmonic conducted by Alain Lombard) Published by The Musical Heritage Society
W.A. Mozart: Eine Lkeine Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major, K 525, Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, K 449 (Maria Michaela Cuvay, Piano) ??What do those Ks mean?
John Field: Piano Concerti, Concerto No.1 in E-Flat Major, Concerto No. 2 in A-Flat Major (Marjorie Mitchell, piano with Stuttgart Radio Orchestra. William Stirckland conducting)
Barbra Streisand: People
Barbra Streisand: Color Me Barbra

Not sure I'm super excited about the last two (lol). But the rest I thought were pretty good deals at less than 40 cents each.

PaulR

The K numbers are the works Köchel number (also seen as KV), and is a chronological catalogue of Mozart's compositions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köchel_catalogue.

the_?

^^^
Thank you.