Albie Cabrera wrote:

>David Cozy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>Indeed the sort of random buying Albie mentions is certainly what most
>>beginners do,
>
>You don't think that complete newcomers to the classical department of the
>record store don't go "*Schoen-who*?...  Oh...  ok...  here's one...
>*Beethoven*...  now at least I've *heard* of him..."

I should think most people buy their first recordings based upon something
they heard, seeking either a recording of what they heard or a recording of
something like it.  My first purchases were works I had not heard before
but which I assumed would be something like works I'd previously heard.
I'd heard Prokoffiev's First Violin Concerto and bought his Second; I'd
heard Beethoven's String Quartet No. 7, Op. 59, No. 3 and bought Opus
59, No. 1; and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 and bought No. 25.  Later
on listeners may purchase something they have only heard *of* even if it
isn't necessarily similar to anything they'd previously heard.

While classical musical may have been more available to the random listener
in the middle of the last century, when I started to listen, it's still
available here in most places, on at least one local radio station, if
nowhere else.

I suppose it is possible for a person who has heard no classical music
at all, to decide to explore it and to select recordings at random, but
I don't believe many people are motivated that way.  To draw a dangerous
analogy, most of us learn a language because we hear it spoken.  Very few
of us learn one well solely from textbooks and learning tapes.

Walter Meyer