Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - March 2023
This month's heavyweights include Bernard Haitink's complete studio recordings with the Concertgebouworkest, an anthology shedding 'New Light on French Romantic Women Composers' from the Palazzetto Bru Zane, a Bruckner cycle from the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Herbert Blomstedt, and the Belcea Quartet's collected recordings on Warner Classics.
Subtitled 'New Light on French Romantic Women Composers', this set presents music by twenty-one composers, from relatively well-known figures such as Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Pauline Viardot and Mel Bonis to virtually unknown ones including Marthe Grumbach, Jeanne Danglas, Hedwige Chrétien and Madeleine Lemariey. The repertoire encompasses chamber music, orchestral works, piano pieces and songs.
Available Formats: 8 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of Prokofiev's death, this collection includes Rostropovich's recording of the Cello Sonata (composed for him in 1949), the Violin Concertos with Itzhak Perlman and David Oistrakh, Peter and the Wolf narrated by Peter Ustinov, and a 1986 studio recording of War and Peace (conducted by Rostropovich and featuring Galina Vishnevskaya as Natasha and Nicolai Gedda as Anatol).
Available Format: 36 CDs
Recorded at the Gewandhaus Leipzig between 2005 and 2012, Blomstedt's first complete Bruckner cycle was originally issued on the Querstand label in 2012, and is now available digitally for the first time. The Swedish conductor's approach to Bruckner with this orchestra was described by The Guardian in 2017 as 'above all, organic and forward flowing, with the score coming alive from the inside rather from any attempt by the conductor to impose his ego on it'.
Available Formats: 10 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Formed at the Royal College of Music in London in 1994, the Belcea Quartet signed to EMI Classics in 2000 and remained with them for almost a decade; highlights of this set include their Gramophone Award-winning debut recording of Debussy, Ravel and Dutilleux, the complete Bartók quartets from 2007 (described as 'supremely accomplished by BBC Music Magazine), Schubert's Trout Quintet with Thomas Adès, and Fauré's La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge.
Available Formats: 11 CDs, MP3, FLAC
As well as substantial selections of Schubert and Brahms, this original-jacket collection also features the quartet's Radcliffe Award-winning recording of works by Sebastian Forbes, Elizabeth Maconchy, Robert Sherlaw-Johnson and Peter Sculthorpe. The Allegri's guests include Jack Brymer (in the Adagio from Baermann's Clarinet Quintet No. 3), Christopher Hyde-Smith and Marisa Robles (in Ravel and Roussel), and Moray Welsh in Schubert's String Quintet.
Available Format: 13 CDs
Released individually between 2016 and 2022, the Armida's Mozart has been praised by BBC Music Magazine for its ' sparkling corporate intonation and textural litheness', whilst Gramophone described it as 'a cycle well worth revisiting' when the final instalment appeared last year. Volume Four of the series won both the Chamber Category and a 'Classical Without Borders' prize at last year's Opus Klassik Awards.
Available Format: 7 CDs
Pierné: Complete Piano Works & Chamber, Orchestral & Vocal Music
Diane Anderson (piano), Jean-Baptiste Mari, Pierre Dervaux
2023 sees the 160th anniversary of Pierné's birth, and this collection includes recordings made between 1926 and 1948 which feature him as both pianist and conductor; other highlights include the complete piano works from Diane Anderson, the Sérénade with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the Marche des petits soldats de plomb ('March of the Little Lead Soldiers'), the Ramuntcho Overture, and Paysages franciscains.
Available Format: 10 CDs
This collection draws together the recordings which the Austrian violinist made for American Decca, Westminster and Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s and 1960s, including Beethoven's Violin Sonatas Nos. 3, 5, 7 & 8 and the Franck sonata with Rudolf Firkušný, Tartini and Vivaldi sonatas with Leon Pommers, the Brahms and Tchaikovsky concertos with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Artur Rodziński, and Bruch and Glazunov concertos with the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Ferenc Fricsay.
Available Format: 13 CDs
To mark the fortieth anniversary of the German pianist's death, Orfeo present his collected live and studio recordings for the label, many of which were only rediscovered twenty-five years after his passing; repertoire includes Bach's Six Partitas (recorded for German radio in 1965), Berg's Chamber Concerto (conducted by Paul Hindemith), and a 1964 recital of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Released to mark the American pianist's 95th birthday this week, this set brings together the recordings which Janis made for Mercury Living Presence between 1960 and 1964, including concertos by Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and David Guion's The Harmonica Player. A bonus CD captures a recital given during a historic visit to Leningrad in 1960 (and secretly recorded by Janis's hosts), featuring Copland's Piano Sonata and works by Chopin, Falla, Liszt, Mozart and Schumann.
All tracks apart from the Leningrad recital are also provided in Blu-ray audio.
Available Format: 9 CDs + Blu-ray Audio
Loreggian embarked on a mission to record Frescobaldi's complete published works for keyboard in 2007, and a sequel encompassing all of the unpublished works (rediscovered and assembled by musicologists Étienne Darbellay and Costanze Frey) followed last year, with Early Music Review declaring that 'Loreggian has a real gift for making the music sound as if he is improvising it – it is easy to imagine Frescobaldi himself in the room with the listener'. This edition brings the two sets together for the first time.
Available Formats: 15 CDs, MP3, FLAC
These recordings of the St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, Magnificat, Christmas Oratorio and the Mass in B Minor were originally released separately between 2007 and 2011, and were warmly received: International Record Review described the St Matthew Passion as 'an absolute must-have...in a league of its own', whilst BBC Music Magazine applauded the 'lithe and well-sprung' playing in the Mass and Gramophone noted that 'there's much to admire in the fruity and vibrant choral and instrumental ensemble of the Netherlands Bach Society' in the Magnificat.
Available Format: 10 CDs
This set makes four acclaimed documentaries available on Blu-ray for the first time: Carlos Kleiber - I Am Lost To The World, Sir Georg Solti - The Journey Of A Lifetime, Leonard Bernstein - Larger Than Life, and Herbert von Karajan - Maestro For The Screen. Bonus features include a concert of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Mussorgsky from Solti and the Chicago Symphony, and performances of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Orchestral Suites No. 3 from Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Available Format: 4 Blu-rays
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
