Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - July 2022
July heavyweights include Vladimir Ashkenazy's complete solo recordings on Decca, Reinhard Goebel's complete recordings on Archiv Produktion, a celebration of Eugene Ormandy's five-year stint in Minneapolis in the 1930s (featuring world premiere recordings of numerous works which have since become cornerstones of the repertoire), and the collected works of John Adams on Nonesuch (supplemented by significant extras from the Deutsche Grammophon and San Francisco Symphony catalogues).
Released to mark Ashkenazy's 85th birthday on 6th July (and appropriately comprising 85 albums!), this set brings together his solo piano recordings in one edition for the very first time. Highlights include the complete solo piano works of Chopin and Rachmaninov, Grammy-winning accounts of Shostakovich’s Twenty-Four Preludes & Fugues and Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and Beethoven & Scriabin's complete piano sonatas. Five landmark albums of Chopin and Rachmaninov are also presented on Blu-ray Audio.
Available Format: 90 CDs
Directly before his four-decade stint at the helm of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Hungarian-born conductor spent an extremely fruitful five years as Music Director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, where significant achievements included the world premiere recordings of Kodály’s Háry János Suite and the string-orchestra version of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, plus the first US recordings of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2, Sibelius's Symphony No. 1, and Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 (all of which are included here). Many recordings on this collection receive their first CD release here, remastered from the original analogue discs and tapes using 24-bit / 96 kHz technology.
Available Format: 11 CDs
John Adams signed to Nonesuch in 1985, and the label has recordings of all his new works since: his discography there now totals forty-two first recordings and thirty-one all-Adams albums (including four Grammy winners). This set also includes key recordings leased from other labels, such as The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (with Yuja Wang) on Deutsche Grammophon, and the San Francisco Symphony’s recordings of Absolute Jest and Grand Pianola Music.
Available Formats: 40 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Highlights from this 10-CD collection include Landowska's 1933 Paris performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations, the complete Well-Tempered Clavier (recorded in New York and Lakeville between 1949 and 1954, and a final disc of Mozart recordings on modern piano, featuring the Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat and the Piano Sonata No. 5 in G. The conductors in concertos by Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart include Yehudi Menuhin and Artur Rodzinski.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Luigi Boccherini: 24 String Quartets
Sonare Quartett, Nomos-Quartett, The Revolutionary Drawing Room
Comprising 24 of Boccherini's 90 completed string quartets, this box brings together a set of recordings originally issued in the 1990s, which were described on FonoForum as 'welcome repertoire enrichment in exemplary performances' and praised by Fanfare for offering 'fresh sonority in perfect sound'. The Sonare Quartett contribute Op. 2 Nos. 1-6, the Nomos-Quartett Op. 34 Nos. 4-6, and The Revolutionary Drawing Room works from Opp. 33, 39 and 58.
Available Format: 6 CDs
Sándor Végh
Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg, Soloists of International Musicians Seminar, Sándor Végh
The music of the First and Second Viennese Schools accounts for the lion's share of this collection, which includes four Schubert symphonies, Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, Berg's Lyric Suite, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. Also features Bartók's Divertimento for Strings and Stravinsky's Apollon musagète.
Available Format: 6 CDs
A pupil of William Pleeth and a prize-winner at the 1990 International Tchaikovsky Competition, the Luxembourg cellist was in much demand as both soloist and chamber musician until her unexpected death in 2011, aged just 45. This tribute to her artistry includes concertos by Elgar, Shostakovich, Danzi, Haydn, Müllenbach, Martinů and Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, Bruch's Kol Nidrei, Fabregas's Colores Andaluces, and Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata.
Available Formats: 6 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
