Friday, May 27, 2005

Down the Memory Hole and Back Again

Pliable from The Overgrown Path asked a question awhile back that set me to thinking: What was the first classical record you bought?

It was an album by Artur Rubinstein. I think it was titled "My Favourite Chopin" or something along those lines. I suppose I was 11 or so at the time.

But the first recording that I can remember listening to in childhood, and which I nearly wore out, was one of those "100 greatest piano works of all time" type of albums. What I remember loving on that record was the "Scherzo" from Litolff's fourth piano concerto. On the "B aide" was an excerpt from Richard Addinsell's "Warsaw Concerto". I think the pianist in the Addinsell was Leonard Pennario. But I'm probably wrong about that.

Wonder how all that warped my aesthetic sensibilities? Don't bother answering....

1 comment:

Pliable said...

I deliberately called that piece My First Classical Record as opposed to My First Record to avoid embarrassing revelations about my own early warped aesthetic sensibilities. Let's say I do have much earlier memories of listening many times to Maurice Jarre's soundtrack to David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia.
Which reminds me that William Walton and Sir Malcolm Arnold were offered the commission for the score first. They went to see an early cut of Lawrence after a boozy lunch, and turned it down because they didn't think the film was box office!
May not have been a bad decision though in view of what subsequently happened to Walton's music for the film Battle of Britain.