Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - March 2022
March heavyweights include two Hans Knappertsbusch anthologies on Decca Eloquence, Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy's complete recordings for Columbia Graphophone. a celebration of the Ballets Russes on Warner Classics, and a collection of solo piano works by female composers from the eighteenth century to the present day on Grand Piano.
As well as complete live recordings of Parsifal from 1951 and 1962, the Vienna studio recording of Die Meistersinger from 1950/51 and a 1961 Fidelio, this set includes Wagner recitals with George London and Kirsten Flagstad, excerpts from Tristan und Isolde with Birgit Nilsson and Grace Hoffmann, and Act One of Die Walküre with Flagstad, Set Svanholm and Arnold van Mill.
Available Format: 19 CDs
Bringing together the German conductor's recordings for Decca, Polydor and Westminster, this 18-CD collection includes landmark accounts of Beethoven and Brahms concertos with Clifford Curzon, newly remastered selections of Wagner overtures and preludes from the 1940s, Brahms's Alto Rhapsody with Lucretia West, and Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 3-5 with the Wiener Philharmoniker from the mid-1950s.
Available Format: 18 CDs
It was only after her early death in 1979 that the Hungarian violinist's legacy on disc began to receive the acclaim it deserved; these recordings from the mid-1950s (remastered in high definition from the original tapes) include Schubert's complete works for violin and piano, the Bach solo sonatas and partitas, the Brahms & Mendelssohn concertos and Beethoven Romances with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Paul Kletzki, and a second recording of the Mendelssohn with Wolfgang Sawallisch.
Available Format: 9 CDs
John Eliot Gardiner conducts Purcell
English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
It was in the mid-1970s that Gardiner's Monteverdi Orchestra transitioned to period instruments and rebranded as the English Baroque Soloists, and the recordings here were made between 1976 and 1987; the set includes King Arthur, The Indian Queen, The Tempest, Timon of Athens, Dioclesian, Hail! Bright Cecilia and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, plus music from the soundtrack for Tony Palmer's film England, my England.
Available Formats: 9 CDs, MP3, FLAC
The Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev founded the Ballet Russes in Paris in 1909, and over the next twenty years commissioned new works from composers including Debussy, Prokofiev, Satie and Stravinsky (perhaps most notably the latter's Rite of Spring, which they premiered in 1913). This 22-CD set comprises almost every Ballet russes score that has ever been recorded, including works by Milhaud, Poulenc, Balakirev, Liadov, Tcherepnin, Rimsky Korsakov, and Schmitt.
Available Format: 22 CDs
Recorded between 2011 and 2020, this 10-disc collection from the Belgium ensemble includes their recent Gramophone Award-nominated St John Passion with Maximilian Schmitt as the Evangelist and Krešimir Stražanac as Jesus, a set of the motets which was one of our Recordings of the Week when it first appeared in 2011, a selection of the Leipzig cantatas, and the Mass in B minor (with soloists including Hana Blažiková, Dorothee Mields, and Damien Guillon.
Available Format: 10 CDs
Made between 1958 and 1983, these recordings with the Ensemble Instrumental Jean-Marie Leclair (later renamed 'Orchestre de Chambre Jean-François') boast a distinguished array of soloists, including Marie-Claire Alain, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Anne Queffélec; the repertoire includes the complete Brandenburg Concertos, keyboard concertos and orchestral suites, and cantatas BWV 53. 54 and 169.
Available Formats: 15 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Originally issued in the early 1990s, these discs were recorded on the Cavaillé-Coll organs of the Église Saint-François-de-Sales de Lyon & Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts (Paris) and the Ernest M. Skinner Organ of the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel in Chicago; Classics Today declared that 'these lovely performances memorably showcase Rübsam’s sensitive and poetic side'.
Available Formats: 8 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Three Centuries of Female Composers
Nicolas Horvath, Alexander Kostritsa, Sara Aimee Smiseth, Alexandra Oehler, Giorgio Koukl, Tanya Ekanayaka, Ishimoto Hiroko
Ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day, this collection of works by women composers includes the complete solo piano music of Vítězslava Kaprálová, the complete piano sonatas of Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy and Hélène de Montgeroult, Maria Szymanowska’s complete dances for piano, a selection of works by Agathe Backer Grøndahl and Teresa Carreño, and Tanya Ekanayaka's The Planets and Humanity and Piano Reflections (performed by the composer herself).
Available Format: 10 CDs
Remastered from the original tapes and issued at budget price, this set includes Barbirolli's landmark recordings of the Cello Concerto with Jacqueline du Pré and Sea Pictures with Janet Baker, plus The Dream of Gerontius with Baker, Richard Lewis and Kim Borg, Falstaff, the Introduction and Allegro, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, the Enigma Variations, and the Froissart and Cockaigne Overtures.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
