Back in 2008 EMI Icon brought out a complete edition of pianist Sviatoslav Richter’s recordings for the label on 14 CDs. Fast forward to 2016: Warner Classics controls the EMI and Teldec back catalogs, and repackages everything as Richter’s “Complete Warner Recordings”, which contains all of the EMI material plus Richter’s three Teldec releases. Warner […]
↧
Big Boxes/Richter Redux: The Complete Warner Recordings
↧
Reference Recording: Kocsis Offers The Bartók Solo Piano Bible
To those who’ve despaired of piecing together Zoltán Kocsis’ unprecedented solo Bartók cycle from various deleted single-disc releases, take heart. Here it is, all eight discs, housed in a slim-line, budget-priced boxed set, with terrific annotations to boot. From the simplest Mikrokosmos to the most taxing moments in the Etudes, Sonata, and Out of Doors […]
↧
↧
Big Boxes: Zuzana Ružičková’s Legendary Bach Cycle
Zuzana Ružičková is a remarkable artist with an extraordinary life story. As a teenager she was interned in multiple concentration camps during World War II and forced to perform slave labor. Her health hung by a thread at the time of her liberation from Bergen-Belsen in 1945, but she miraculously rallied, married the composer Viktor […]
↧
Munch Complete: At Last!
I’ve been enjoying this set so much that it was hard to find time to write about it. Charles Munch was a very great conductor, and in ways that you might not expect. Yes, he gave us reference recordings of Ravel, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, anything by Berlioz, and French music generally; but it’s also important to […]
↧
Big Boxes: Pollini’s [Almost] Complete DG Recordings
Among prominent pianists of our time, Maurizio Pollini represented the modern ideal to which the more serious-minded younger generations of pianists aspired. One didn’t attend a Pollini concert for entertainment, provocation or daredevil artistry. Instead, the takeaway was staggering yet mindful virtuosity, intellectual rigor and uncompromising musicianship. This holds true as well about Pollini’s recordings. […]
↧
↧
Big Boxes: DG’s Complete Chopin Goes Deluxe
Deutsche Grammophon’s Complete Chopin Deluxe Edition is basically the label’s 2009 Complete Chopin Edition with additional bells and whistles. It retains most of the 2009 set’s performances while tossing in three bonus discs and a DVD for good measure. A new full-size 108-page book contains three separate essays in English, French, and German, a well-curated […]
↧
Big Boxes: Kertesz’s Reference Complete LSO Dvorák, Blu-Ray Edition
I can’t help but think that you’re still better off buying the budget box containing exactly this repertoire, at about half the price. Is the remastered CD sound better? Perhaps marginally, but the original recordings themselves were not demonstration quality, and so nothing the engineers do is going to make that much difference. As for […]
↧
Big Boxes: Late, But Not Decrepit, Böhm
Most conductors stay active way past their expiration dates, but Karl Böhm did better than most. Yes, he slowed down a bit and became a tad stiff and crotchety, but then, he was always a tad stiff and crotchety, so his age showed less than it otherwise might have. Also, some of these recordings aren’t […]
↧
Big Boxes: DG’s Michelangeli Edition, Reissued & Expanded
This collection is basically an “original jacket” repackaging of Deutsche Grammophon’s 2003 slim-line boxed set containing Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s complete recordings for the label, but with two additional discs. One is a 2009 release preserving a live 1984 Schumann concerto with Daniel Barenboim conducting. The other is Michelangeli’s 1964 recital for Decca, with works by […]
↧
↧
Big Boxes: Maria João Pires’ Complete DG Chamber Music Recordings
It’s interesting how certain world-class pianists with strong personalities as soloists are able to bring a true team spirit to their chamber music collaborations while leaving a personal stamp that draws attention to the music rather to themselves. Examples include the veteran Arthur Rubinstein in tandem with the youthful Guarneri Quartet, the joyful Emanuel Ax […]
↧
CD From Hell: Barenboim Blows It In Bruckner
“Barenboim” is a corruption of “Birnenbaum,” German for pear tree. The Spanish word is “peral.” This is also the name of the production company from which DG licensed this set. Barenboim comes from Argentina, hence “Peral Music.” Get it? Actually, this isn’t as clever as it sounds. Bernstein did the same thing decades ago. “Bernstein” […]
↧
Paavo Järvi’s Beethoven In A Box
These performances have enjoyed only very spotty availability domestically, and at crazy prices. This box is no exception. I saw it listed on US Amazon.com for $168, which is patently insane, but you can get it on the international sites–both Amazon and everyone else–for around $30, which of course makes sense. Some of the interpretations […]
↧
Big Boxes: Reger’s Complete Piano Music Reissued
So far as I know, Markus Becker is the only pianist to have recorded Max Reger’s complete piano music. His 12-CD series first appeared as individual volumes on Thorofon (several of which I reviewed for Classicstoday.com), and later as a boxed set. The Hamburg-based New Classical Adventure label now reissues the cycle at budget price. […]
↧
↧
Big Boxes: Duchâble’s Chopin Re-Examined
François-René Duchâble made headlines in 2003 by announcing his retreat from the international concert limelight, a gesture that he symbolized by hiring a helicopter to drop a piano into Lake La Colmiane, near Nice. Since then the pianist has maintained a low public profile, and his Erato and EMI output continues to revolve in and […]
↧
THE BIGGEST BOX EVER: NAXOS’ A-Z OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
Never let it be said that the folks at Naxos aren’t ambitious. True to their promise, they have released the world’s largest classical sampler: 67,481 CDs, each containing 25-30 tracks and more than 75 minutes of music, with excerpts of 15-25 works on every conveniently indexed track. It’s all here. All of it. No kidding. […]
↧
CD From Hell: Karajan’s Choral Music Box
If you think that songs like “Dropkick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life” represent sincere expressions of religious sentiment, then you’ll surely respond to Karajan’s handling of the choral music in this set. Indeed, calling it “choral music” may be technically correct, but what this really is, of course, is “religious” or “sacred music,” […]
↧
Big Boxes: András Schiff’s Beethoven Sonata Cycle
Recorded mostly live in concert at Zürich’s Tonhalle between 2004 and 2007, András Schiff’s Beethoven sonata cycle for ECM finally gets the boxed set treatment. Schiff is similar to pianists as disparate as Schnabel, Kempff, Arrau, and Gulda in that he brings a distinctively individual (and sometimes quirky) voice to his interpretations. He cultivates a […]
↧
↧
Big Boxes: Abbado’s Frustrating Mahler
Abbado’s best Mahler recordings were his earliest, made in Chicago, of Symphonies Nos. 2, 5, 6 and 7. The Chicago First was wrecked by bad early digital sonics: this Berlin remake is demonstrably better. Other fine performances in this set, relatively speaking, include symphonies Nos. 8 and 9. Truth be told, none of them are […]
↧
Big Boxes: DG’s Random Vienna Philharmonic 175th Anniversary Edition
This 45-disc random assortment of material does a singular disservice to the Vienna Philharmonic, but it reveals some interesting facts about the corporate catastrophe that is Universal Music. You would think that because Decca, Philips, and DG effectively constitute a single company, it should be possible to put together a truly outstanding Vienna Philharmonic box, […]
↧
Big Boxes: The Vienna Philharmonic Symphony Edition
Back in 2012 DG released this 50-CD box of symphonies. A limited edition, like most such projects, it may or may not still be available at time of writing, but in order to understand why the more recent 175th Anniversary Box is such a failure, relatively speaking, we need to examine the contents of this […]
↧