It’s been a while since I’ve found this many discs at a thrift. While I’ve had bigger hauls, this one was decent and quite satisfying. Better be, since I’m not a fan of thrift stores. But I keep going to them.
Hilary Hahn: Paris: A rare time that I buy an album new; Hahn is maybe my favorite violinist (there are so many!) but definitely one of the very few I buy new, especially pre-ordered.
Bax: Tintagel: Very much something of a stab-in-the-dark in trying something new.
Shostakovich: I’m all about Shostakovich, and have been trying to collect all of the Emerson Quartet’s recordings, but there are so many! This is one of those albums where I had to triple-check to see if I had it as I’ve seen the cover on Amazon many times, which confuses my memory as to whether it is one of those albums I have but haven’t listened to yet. Often, they turn out to be already in my collection and boom! Another double!
Bruckner: Messe No. 3 Te Deum: Another cover that is so familiar, I had to spend a lot of time cross-checking… didn’t have it. I recently heard a mass, something I have a lot of but never listen to. One of those unexplored trails…
Boulez Conducts Shoenberg II: This was a really neat find, six discs of music for two bucks! And in perfect condition! However, I’m not sure if Shoenberg is my kind of composer. Ideally I’d listen to all of this quite a bit to thoroughly try and understand it better, but my plate is pretty full of things to listen to.
Chopin: Piano Concerto 2: Can’t have enough of the Chopin Concertos. I have at least two other discs with this same cover art by the same artists, so I had to check this carefully.
Debussy: Fantaisie: The alto saxophone aspect of this is something I like, and don’t see a lot of.
King’s College Choir: O Come, All Ye Faithful: Over the years, especially the last few years, I’ve learned to separate the commercial side of Christmas from the Traditional side of Christmas. The commercial side, it’s music is silly and fun, but the traditional side is so much better. I’m not into Christmas music, but thanks to this new way of looking at the holiday I’m really liking the traditional music more and more, while the commercial Christmas music I never really need to hear ever again.
Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: This one, I was very lucky to get; There was an older couple going through the discs at Colfax ARC, and there is only side-by-side room for three people at a time there in front of the shelves, and of course they have to inspect every disc there is, and there were a lot of them, and they had to make a lot of comments on many of them. When I heard the lady mention what this one was, I was a little upset. She didn’t seem too excited about it. But she had it in her hands. I have two of them, and other than those two, I haven’t seen any other Cliburn Competition discs at a thrift. So, I just waited, and waited… and finally she left, although her husband was still there. I scanned the piles of discs… it was there! Got it! It’s in great shape, too! What a shame though, they were talking about all of these common bands and popular artists when they had real music right there and put it back. Apparently, someone by the name of Kelly Clarkson, or something like that, has gained weight. The things you learn when there are slow, chatty people looking through the discs at the thrift store.
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto 3 – Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto 1: Mercury Living Presence: I decided not to buy these anymore quite a while back, as I was taking them out of their cases and storing the discs on spools to save space, along with Laserlight and other low-quality recordings; not that Mercury Living Presence were low-quality, but rather they were older recordings that had been touched up a bit and re-released. But the big reasons is that there are sets of them just as cheap, but new, on Amazon. But, Prokofiev-Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos? Never mind, take my money!
Classic Library: Schubert: Symphony 9: I first heard this symphony when at a Colorado Symphony concert, it was the second half of the concert, a piece that usually isn’t the feature. I really liked it. And I’ve recently picked up another Classic Library release, so that is two more in my set! This is my fourteenth out of who-knows how many!
Discs I actually passed up: I have three or four of these already, but I haven’t seen this many at one time before. I passed them up because a good friend tipped me off that the sound quality isn’t that great. Also, I saw that the complete set of these is brand-new on Amazon, remastered, go for $150 bucks, but they are 30+ discs, remastered with extras and brand-new. Per disc, that isn’t bad. Hurt to pass these up anyway.
Randy Rydberg 