Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - September 2023
The recordings here were made between 1966 and 2016, with highlights including the complete Beethoven & Brahms violin sonatas with Itzhak Perlman, Schumann's Dichterliebe and Liederkreis with Matthias Goerne, Tchaikovsky & Rachmaninoff songs with Elisabeth Söderström, the Shostakovich Piano Quintet with the Fitzwilliam Quartet, and Russian & French piano duets with Ashkenazy's son Vovka.
Available Format: 51 CDs
Released in anticipation of the centenary of Callas's birth in December, this collection comprises her complete studio recordings (remastered in 2014), a generous selection of her finest live recordings, videos of concerts from Hamburg, Paris and London, previously unreleased alternate studio takes and working sessions, and three discs of the masterclasses which she gave at Juilliard in 1971. The limited-edition set includes a 148-page book containing archive photographs and an extensive essay on Callas's life and work by Michel Roubinet.
Available Format: 131 CD's + 3 Blu-ray Videos + 1 DVD Video
Released in advance of next year's Bruckner bicentenary, this set brings together some of the finest live performances from the orchestra's archives, with conductors including Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Eugen Jochum and Zubin Mehta. Reviewing the collection last month, The Guardian remarked that 'it goes without saying that the orchestral playing is uniformly superb - a reminder, if any were needed, that over the last half century the RCO has had few peers among the world’s orchestras.'
Available Format: 9 CDs
Issued to mark the great English mezzo's ninetieth birthday, this collection brings together her complete recitals on Philips, L'Oiseau-Lyre, Argo, Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon plus recordings of Schubert, Mahler and Fauré for Hyperion; three Philips recitals with Raymond Leppard (including Handel's La Lucrezia and Haydn's Arianna a Naxos and Scena di Berenice) appear complete for the first time on CD.
Available Format: 21 CDs
This anthology of recordings which Bernstein made for Columbia Masterworks between 1956 and 1979 includes his own Symphony No. 2 'The Age of Anxiety' and Serenade (after Plato's 'Symposium'), Mahler's Symphony No. 3, Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, and works by Ives, Honegger, Revueltas and Copland. The accompanying 224-page book features a host of photographs from the Bernstein archive, many of them previously unpublished.
Available Format: 12 CD + Book
Released to commemorate the centenary of the Dutch violinist's birth, this 15-CD collection includes concertos by Paganini, Vieuxtemps, Viotti, Dvořák, Beethoven and Brahms, Bartók's 44 Duos for Two Violins with his lifelong friend Theo Olof, Mozart's Oboe Quintet with Heinz Holliger, and the Bach 'Double' Concerto with Arthur Grumiaux. Krebbers's time as leader of the Concertgebouw Orchestra is also represented via excerpts from Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Bach's St Matthew Passion, and Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade.
Available Format: 15 CDs
Newly remastered from the best available sources by Mark Obert-Thorn, Ward Marston and Andrew Hallifax, this anthology of classic recordings from Decca's early years opens with the label's first major recording: an account of Delius's Sea Drift set down in 1929 by Anthony Bernard and the New English Symphony Orchestra. Other highlights include William Walton's own recording of Façade, Coates & Vaughan Williams from Henry Wood, Russian repertoire from Albert Coates, and Handel from Malcolm Sargent.
Available Format: 21 CDs
This tribute to the American pianist (who died in Paris last April at the age of just 51) comprises previously unreleased recordings of solo, chamber and concerto repertoire which were made in the concert-hall or for radio broadcast between 1999 and 2016. Stand-outs include the Franck Piano Quintet with Quatuor Ebène, Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion with Martha Argerich, Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, and a complete set of the Goldberg Variations.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC
This limited-edition set of eight DVDs includes Beethoven's late piano sonatas from Barenboim, Schubert's Impromptus and Moments musicaux from Schiff, a recital of Franck, Kreisler, Prokofiev and Schumann from Argerich and Guy Braunstein (former first concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker), and a 2014 concert from the Annecy Classical Festival with Denis Matsuev (including Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 and solo works by Shchedrin and Schubert).
Available Format: 8 DVD Videos
This collection of 48 of the Bach cantatas which Herreweghe recorded between 1987 and 2007 features soloists including Carolyn Sampson, Dorothee Mields, Sarah Connolly, Andreas Scholl, Mark Padmore and Collegium Vocale Gent stalwart Peter Kooy. The project has been praised for the 'eloquent phrasing, fervent declamation and appropriate gravitas' on display (BBC Music Magazine, 2009) and for Herreweghe's 'erudite and scrupulously prepared interpretations' (MusicWeb International, 2010).
Available Format: 17 CDs
Captured between 1958 and 1963, this collection of predominantly live recordings of complete operas includes a 1958 Traviata from Lisbon (with Maria Callas as Violetta), Bellini's I Puritani with Mirella Freni, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with the late Renata Scotto, Cherubini's Ali Baba with Teresa Stich-Randall, and a 1963 Don Pasquale from the Edinburgh Festival. The sole studio recording is a 1960 Rigoletto from Florence, with Scotto as Gilda and Ettore Bastianini in the title-role.
Available Formats: 20 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Explorer Set: Slavic Edition
Vincenzo Maltempo, Mark Viner, Pavel Gintov, Saskia Giorgini, Mattia Ometto, Tobias Borsboom, Dimitri Tchesnokov, Ekaterina Litvintseva, Nare Karoyan (piano)
This inaugural volume of Piano Classics's 'Explorer' series includes Lyapunov's 12 Études d'exécution transcendente from Vincenzo Maltempo, Igor Shamo's complete music from Dimitri Tchesnokov, Novák's Pan from Tobias Borsboom, Enescu's Suite Op. 18 and Piano Sonata from Saskia Giorgini, and Medtner's Vergessene Weisen ('Forgotten Melodies') from Mattia Ometto.
Available Format: 10 CDs
The Wiener Philharmoniker has marked the upcoming Bruckner bicentenary by recording its first-ever complete Bruckner cycle with a single conductor: as well as the nine canonical works, the set also includes the two earliest Bruckner symphonies in F minor and D minor, plus extensive conversations with Thielemann about each work. Reviewing the accounts of those early symphonies last year, Gramophone observed that 'Here, in performances of rare empathy and recreative skill, both works emerge as harbingers of miracles yet to come.'
Available Format: 5 Blu-rays
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
