Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - March 2019
This month’s heavyweights include a 100th-birthday collection of recordings from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mahler and Bruckner cycles on Blu-ray Audio and CD from Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, an Albert Roussel Edition from Erato, and Robert Casadesus’s complete Columbia recordings, dating from 1940 to 1969.
Released for the first time on Blu-ray Audio to mark both Haitink’s and Decca’s ninetieth birthdays, this Mahler cycle was originally issued on Philips in the 1970s and 80s, and praised by Gramophone for its ‘appealing natural simplicity’ and circumspection. Soloists include Dame Janet Baker and James King in Das Lied von der Erde, Jessye Norman and John Shirley-Quirk in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Hermann Prey in Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded between 1963 and 1972, Haitink’s Amsterdam Bruckner cycle also receives its first outing in this format for the double anniversary, and prompted critic and musicologist Deryck Cooke (perhaps best known for his completion of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony) to describe the conductor as ‘the answer to a Brucknerian’s prayers’.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
An 11-CD set comprising all of the French composer’s major works (including the four symphonies, the ballet-suites Le Festin de l'araignée and Bacchus et Ariane, and the opera Pâdmavatî), a substantial helping of his songs and chamber music, and a disc of historical rarities including several CD premieres and appearances by the composer as pianist and conductor.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Spanning almost three decades, these 67 recordings have been newly transferred, mixed and mastered from the original analogue tapes and discs, and include three discs each of Debussy and Ravel, the Beethoven and Brahms violin sonatas with Zino Francescatti, concertos with Leonard Bernstein, Charles Munch and others, and four CDs of performances by Casadesus’s wife Gaby and son Jean.
Available Format: 65 CDs
Berlioz Anniversary Edition
Susan Graham (mezzo), Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Colin Davis, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Munch, Jean-Louis Barrault
A 10-CD collection marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death, including Charles Munch’s L’enfance du Christ and La damnation de Faust with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Roméo et Juliette and the Te Deum from Daniel Barenboim and the Orchestre de Paris, and Pierre Boulez conducting Lélio, Symphonie fantastique and excerpts from Les Troyens.
Available Format: 10 CDs
Prepared in association with the Tchaikovsky Society in Tübingen, this is the first-ever absolutely complete collection of a neglected corner of Tchaikovsky’s output and includes two hours of premiere international recordings, such as the composer’s own transcription of his 1812 Overture and Festival Coronation March, and his earliest surviving work, the Anastasie-Valse, written during a family holiday in 1854.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beginning with Jacob van Eyck’s Der Fluyten Lusthof, this anthology brings together a wealth of recorder repertoire from across three centuries and several countries, including music by Handel, Telemann, Giovanni Gabrieli, Frescobaldi, William Byrd, Christopher Tye and Giovanni Bassano, as well as a final CD featuring music by contemporary composers.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
