Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - April 2024
April heavyweights include Neville Marriner's Handel recordings on Decca, a celebration of Simon Rattle's long relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, a collection of Haydn symphonies from L'Estro Armonico & Derek Solomons (which features as Archive Issue of the Month in the May edition of Gramophone), a second cycle of Shostakovich's complete string quartets from Quatuor Danel, and JS Bach's complete vocal works from Bach Collegium Japan & Masaaki Suzuki.
Released to mark the centenary of Marriner's birth this month, this original-cover collection of L'Oiseau-Lyre, Argo, Decca and Philips albums (recorded between between 1961 and 1997) includes complete recordings of Messiah, Acis and Galatea, Messiah, Jephtha and the Coronation Anthems, plus Music for the Royal Fireworks, the Water Music Suites, the Concerti Grossi Opp. 3 & 6, ballet music from Ariodante, Il pastor fido & Berenice, and the organ concertos with George Malcolm.
Available Format: 19 CDs
Rattle first conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1987, and served as its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director from 2002 until 2018. The recordings in this 45-CD box span the years from 1994 to 2012, and include complete accounts of Beethoven's Fidelio, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Dvořák tone-poems, Bizet's Carmen, the complete Brahms symphonies, a selection of Haydn symphonies, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, and works by Thomas Adès, Kaija Saariaho, Brett Dean and Matthias Pintscher.
Available Format: 45 CDs
The only complete set of these works in SACD format, Suzuki's outstanding Bach survey is supplemented here by all the sung texts (in German and English translation) and four booklets of essays about the music (in English, German and French). Highlights include a BBC Music Magazine Award-winning account of the motets, a recording of the Mass in B minor which received a Diapason d’Or de l’Année in 2008, and a set of the secular cantatas which was Building A Library's top recommendation in 2021.
Available Format: 78 SACDs
Including several previously-unreleased recordings, this newly-remastered set comprises the 49 symphonies which London-based violinist-conductor Derek Solomons recorded with his period-instrument ensemble between 1980 and 1986. The collection was named Archive Issue of the Month in the latest edition of Gramophone, with David Threasher opining: 'The sense of adventure and discovery remains palpable in so many of the recordings here, and despite the occasional misfire, nearly all of these performances stand up well to comparison with a number of period-instrument recordings that succeeded them'.
Available Format: 18 CDs
Recorded live during the Franco-Belgian quartet's 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, this set of the complete Shostakovich quartets was described in the May edition of Gramophone as 'a challenging listen, but one bringing abundant rewards'. This is the quartet's second Shostakovich cycle on disc; their first (made by Bavarian Radio between 2001 & 2005 and released on Fuga Libera) featured in the Gramophone Classical Music Guide in 2010, when David Gutman applauded their 'consistently sweet sounds, pronounced yet carefully matched vibrato and lithe, intimately drawn interpretations'.
Available Formats: 6 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
