Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - May 2023
May heavyweights include Herbert Blomstedt's collected recordings on Decca, a comprehensive Smetana anthology anticipating the composer's bicentenary next year, Lorin Maazel's complete recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, and Jacob van Eyck's marathon Der Fluyten Lust-hof ('The Flute's Garden of Delights') from German recorder-player Simon Borutzki.
Released to mark the centenary of the American conductor's birth and produced in collaboration with the Robert Craft/Igor Stravinsky Foundation, this 44-CD collection features recordings of numerous late Stravinsky works which were premiered by Craft (including The Flood, the Variations in Memoriam Aldous Huxley, and the Requiem Canticles), plus substantial selections of works by Webern, Schoenberg and Gesualdo, and music by JS Bach, Berg, Hindemith, Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz.
Available Format: 44 CDs
All of the recordings of this set were restored and remastered in 2012 by Guthrie Luke, a student of Cortot who was present at many of the recording-sessions; the earliest recordings here date from 1919, and include works by Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Chopin, Debussy and Albéniz. In addition to the solo repertoire, the set also includes piano trios by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann (with Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals).
Available Format: 40 CDs
Bedrich Smetana Collection
Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar, Antonín Kubálek, Roberto Plano, Staatskapelle Dresden/Otmar Suitner et al
In anticipation of the Czech composer's bicentenary next year, Brilliant Classics release this anthology bringing together his complete orchestral works (opening with Má Vlast and also including the symphonic poems Hakon Jarl and Wallenstein's Camp), the two string quartets, a generous selection of piano music (including the complete Czech Dances) and a German-language version of his most popular opera The Bartered Bride.
Available Format: 8 CDs
Maazel's relationship with the Yellow Label began in 1957 (with an album of works inspired by Romeo & Juliet), and this limited-edition set comprises all of the recordings which he made with them over the next few decades with orchestras including the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker and Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion-Television Française. Repertoire includes the Rachmaninoff symphonies, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges & L'heure espagnole, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.
Available Format: 39 CDs
With the exception of Der Schauspieldirektor (captured at the Würzburg Mozart Festival in 1989), all of the recordings here were made at the Redoutensaal in Vienna in the summer of 1955; Erich Kleiber conducts Le nozze di Figaro, Josef Krips Don Giovanni, and Karl Böhm Così fan tutte & Die Zauberflöte. Singers include Lisa della Casa as Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi & the Countess, Hilde Gueden as Zerlina, Susanna & Pamina, and Cesare Siepi as Don Giovanni & Figaro.
Available Format: 10 CDs
The largest collection of works for a single wind instrument by one composer, Der Fluyten Lust-hof ('The Flute's Garden of Delights') was first published in 1644, and includes variations on folk-tunes, hymns, psalms and popular songs & dances, as well as arrangements of van Eyck's own pieces for carillon - alongside his expertise on the recorder, the composer spent much of his career as a carillonneur in Utrecht. Simon Borutzki uses 26 recorders on this recording, ranging from sopranino to low tenor.
Available Format: 7 CDs
A decade on from his all-Einaudi anthology Waves, Dutch pianist Jeroen van Veen presents a new anthology focusing on the composer's recent compositions including Stanze, Elements, Seven Days Walking and Underwater. A champion (and also a composer) of minimalist music, van Veen's discography also includes collections of music by Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Terry Riley, Ten Holt, and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
