Yes I listened to all of it earlier this year, and can recommend the box wholeheartedly. DHM is a solid (mainly HIP) company with a great rooster of artists. The box has a nice mixture of both well-known composers and those less so, including a strong series of (to me) previously unknown Spanish early works. The first 80 or so CDs are arranged alphabetically by composer with the remainder given to thematic compilations, such as music associated with particular courts. There are two earlier 50 CD DHM boxes, but the overlap is slight. However, there is a greater duplication with their series of 10 CD boxes dedicated to various composers or performers.
Hmm, might have to give it a go as its $105 which is a good deal...have a number of HM's France LP releases which have wonderful sonics so was curious about the CD offerings.... thanks!
As I'm sure you know, HM France is a separate company, if with similar early music emphasis and equally good reputation. According to Wikipedia, the founders were friends and had a distribution deal until the 1980s. They were founded in the same year, 1958, so the similar names are probably not a coincidence.
Ohh I quite like this repertoire list! A little dear for me right now, I can’t be spending much on box sets. But this is definitely On the post-windfall list now! Any other orchestra based or conductor based box sets with such a heavy 20th century component? (Obviously the Bernstein sets will have his own music, for example, but did he or other box-set having contemporaries do like Boulez?)
I have Zinman’s Mahler 1 and 8 on SACD and can definitely recommend them. They are reaaaallyyy well recorded, and are nicely paced and vibrant performances. And the Tonhalle string section especially sounds great on them. So I plan on getting the rest of those Mahler SACDs and I can see his big box being enjoyable like you said!
Yep, I knew that..got into the lst HM France when TAS had one on their top LP list...I really like the early music stuff so might spring for the set...
Firstly, I used the supplied link just to show the track listing, not because of price. I have no idea who might have the best deal on the Boulez box these days. I bought mine during a 3-for-2 sale from one of the European Amazons some time back. Another box for you to consider (which is also excellently recorded and contains many highly praised interpretations) is the Simon Rattle/City of Birmingham SO box: Simon Rattle - The CBSO Years - Warner Classics: 2564610055 - 52 CDs | Presto Classical (again, link is to show the material, not for price -- I got this one from Amazon Germany, I think, for about $50 last year) A multi-label box by Michael Tilson Thomas would also fit your needs, but, sadly, such a thing does not exist.
Grainger, Janacek, Henze! Nice, not names you see in a lot of orchestral boxes (unless I'm just missing out on a ton of good stuff)
Hello, I hope this question is not considered off-topic. I know some of you have gone through the process of making digital backup copies of your classical mega box-sets. Have you used the program EAC-Exact Audio Copy for ripping your CD´s into lossless FLAC files? Classical music demands specif tagging, so, would you mind please kindly sharing screenshots of your configuration on screen "Compression Options --> External Compresion" ? I would be specially interested in the string line to be used in field "Additional command-line options" (I do not want to end up with huge file names) and also the proper "Bit rate" to be used. Apologies but I do not have any experience at all with ripping. Really appreciate if someone who is saving your mega-box set CD´s by using EAC can help with that information. Thanks
Firstly, I think you will be better served to start a thread in Hardware with questions on EAC. Secondly, I long ago stopped using EAC and switched instead to CUETools/CUERipper, you may find it more intuitive: CUERipper - CUETools wiki
Melodiya's Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music volumes, these two boxes are still calling my name! Anyone know if the mastering on them is the same as the individual Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music series CDs?
Thank you so much for the information !!!! Also, I have PM the moderator asking his kind help to remove my post #5472 above. I posted here in an attempt to have a classical music oriented configuration (far more details than any other genre) rather than a pure technical tool information. But I realized the question was off-topic nevertheless and requested the removal I will check out CUERipper - CueTools, thanks for that hint
I don't think there is a need to remove your post, just that (a) this probably is not the place to answer such a question, and (b) you are likely to get better answers from readers of the Hardware forum. If you get a suitable answer via Hardware, you could always post a link to it here for others who may have the same issue with ripping and tagging classical CDs.
I just now received my Bernstein Vocal works box, and those who are awaiting their's can expect an extra little bonus. There's an additional two cd set attached to the outer shrinkwrap. One disc is Bernstein's recording of his own On The Town from 1960. The other disc is a 1958 Beethoven 7th with the NY Philharmonic.
And his Strauss! Solid. One more time, with feeling: Carlos Kleiber: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (12cd + Blu-Ray Audio, released 26 Oct 2018 at Amazon.de, haven't yet looked elsewhere) I am sorry I haven't figured out how to properly resize pictures yet without resorting to a third-party image-sharing service, which I would like to avoid. Must overcome laziness!
There is a new Abbado Deutsch Grammophone complete box on Amazon. Has anybody heard it our have any thoughts? Thanks
Jed Distler's review on the ClassicsToday site was rather mixed, and, having heard many of Abbado's recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic (that's what the box is limited to) on individual releases, I tend to agree with him. Here's the review: https://www.classicstoday.com/review/big-boxes-abbados-complete-dg-berlin-recordings/?search=1 Deutsche Grammophon’s umpteenth Claudio Abbado boxed set gathers under one roof the conductor’s complete Berlin Philharmonic recordings for both this label and Philips. Actually, it’s not quite complete, if you count the absence of Abbado’s 2000 Beethoven symphony cycle, subsequently withdrawn from the market and replaced by the audio soundtracks from his live 2001 cycle first issued on home video, together with a newly edited version of the 2000 Ninth. The discs are ordered alphabetically by composer in original-jacket facsimiles, accompanied by a 126-page booklet containing recording dates and venues, track listings, and a puff piece in the form of an essay about Abbado’s 1989-2002 tenure as the orchestra’s music director. My Classicstoday.com colleagues reviewed many of these performances in their original incarnations. Since the reviews address in detail the frustrating unevenness of Abbado’s Berlin output, an overall summary seems appropriate. For example, the conductor’s “revised” Beethoven cycle is markedly superior to its Berlin and Vienna predecessors, save for the late-’90s Ninth issued by Sony, but the Piano Concertos with Maurizio Pollini don’t match the color and the expressive variety distinguishing the pianist’s earlier Vienna versions. Brahms’ music occupies 15 of the collection’s discs, including what is arguably the Berliners’ finest-played and -interpreted cycle of the four symphonies on disc. Pollini scores over Brendel in the Brahms piano concertos. Out of Abbado’s three Berlin Brahms Violin Concerto recordings, Gil Shaham’s fleeter, more incisive reading edges out those by Shlomo Mintz and Viktoria Mullova; it’s coupled with an equally stunning Double Concerto, joined by cellist Jian Wang. Continuing alphabetically, unevenness truly comes into play, with a lousy, underplayed Dvorák “New World” symphony, and a Debussy disc that ranges from vibrant to enervated, sometimes in the same work (in Nocturnes, compare the low-energy Fêtes alongside the ravishing Sirenes: no match for Abbado’s radiant earlier Boston Symphony version). If you believe in Stockhausen’s Gruppen for three orchestras (read David Hurwitz’s punishingly perceptive assessment), you won’t find a better recording, and it’s coupled with Kurtag’s impossibly dour Grabstein für Stephan and Stele. Hurwitz also has discussed Abbado’s Mahler at length, accurately pointing out the conductor’s tendency to micromanage certain details while gliding over others, all at the expense of the big picture. This particularly applies to Symphonies 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 (although 1, 8, and 9 are far better in this regard), while Das Knaben Wunderhorn represents the nadir of Abbado’s Mahlerian legacy, with the singers (Anne Sophie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff) almost in your ear, zilch dynamic contrast, and percussion parts in “Der Schildwache Nachtlied” that are conspicuous by their absence. Absence of life characterizes limp performances of Tchaikovsky’s March Slave, Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Overture; Abbado’s early Chicago Symphony versions were far better played and engineered. On the other hand, Hurwitz’s enthusiastic praise of an inspired Wagner program featuring a well-arranged suite of highlights from Parsifal Act 3 is spot-on, as well as Robert Levine’s generally positive evaluation of Abbado’s fleet, chamber-like approach to Verdi’s Falstaff (with Bryn Terfel in the title role–sound clip). The three “Berlin Gala” discs are good examples of effective semi-pops program building, mixing arias, overtures, sure-fire encores, and popular concerto fare, such as Mikhail Pletnev’s deliciously over-the-top Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody. Another memorable Rachmaninov collaboration can be found in Lilya Zilberstein’s live early-1990s recordings of the Second and Third concertos, an “under the radar” contender for sure. And what more can one say about the sizzling reference versions of the endlessly reissued Tchaikovsky First, Prokofiev Third, and Ravel G major concertos with Martha Argerich? Except that they’ll be reissued again when an even bigger boxed set appears, this time devoted to all of Abbado’s DG recordings. Hypothetical, true, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
That’s really helpful. I already have the Martha Argerich box so I’ll hold off. Now it’s down to Solti or Szell or maybe Karajan. Thanks again
I'd go for the Szell, but that's my personal preference. Here's ClassicsToday's David Hurwitz's review of the big Solti/CSO set: https://www.classicstoday.com/revie...ete-chicago-recordings-theyre-worth/?search=1 Since this 108-CD set contains the complete Solti/Chicago recordings, there’s no need to discuss its contents disc by disc (thank God). It’s all in there, including the fine RCA Verdi Requiem. It does, however, raise some issues worth considering if you’re contemplating purchase and are not otherwise a rabid Solti fan. There is very little here that ranks as a first choice or reference recording. Solti was at his best when working with singers, whether in opera or oratorio. Accordingly, the outstanding items really worth having include his recordings of Mahler’s Eighth and Das Lied von der Erde, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, Haydn’s two oratorios The Creation and The Seasons (two versions of the former), Die Meistersinger, some big band but surprisingly fine Bach (St. Matthew Passion) and Handel (you know), and the aforementioned Verdi Requiem. Having the outstanding Chicago Symphony Chorus on hand certainly helps too. The only real dud in the lot is his final Chicago production, Verdi’s Otello with Luciano Pavarotti and Kiri Te Kanawa both nearing (if not past) retirement. On the whole, Solti did not improve with age. Early Solti tends to be better Solti, and none of these recordings are early. His London Symphony Bartók recordings, especially the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, tend to be finer than their Chicago remakes, even if the LSO was not the “great” orchestra that Chicago is. The same holds true for his versions of Mahler Symphonies 1, 2, 4, and 9 (his Third was always pretty awful). Solti’s early recordings were released as part of the Korean “Soltissimo” series, never offered in the USA, but if Universal devotes another box to Solti’s earlier non-operatic recordings, I’d consider it a strong contender. It would also necessarily include most of his English repertoire, such as the Elgar symphonies and Belshazzar’s Feast, which rank among his best work. As a Beethoven conductor Solti was always solid and reliable, and his was the first complete symphony cycle made in Chicago. It has the virtue of uniqueness in that respect. There are in fact two cycles here, one analogue, the other digital. The first, on the whole, is better than the second—grittier and more impactful–even with that curiously weak horn entrance in the fugue of the Eroica Symphony’s funeral march (sound clips for comparison). However, no one usually thinks of Beethoven when Solti’s name comes up, and his true strengths really did lie in later, romantic repertoire. The problem, and the irony, is that even here he was usually outmatched by other conductors, some of whom worked in Chicago. For example, Solti’s Brahms is excellent. He deserves special credit for doing full justice to the always tricky Third Symphony, but is it better than Levine’s cycle with this same orchestra for RCA? I don’t think so. Or consider Abbado’s Chicago Mahler recordings of Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7, and Giulini’s First and Ninth. Then there’s Bruckner. Solti’s is good, but not special, and he’s roundly outclassed by Barenboim’s first DG cycle, and Giulini again, in the Ninth. Even in orchestral blockbusters like The Rite of Spring and Pictures at an Exhibition, we have the sensational Ozawa in the former, and Kubelik, Ozawa, Reiner, Giulini, and even Neeme Järvi in the latter. In any case, you really don’t want to pit Solti against Reiner in any romantic or modern repertoire that both of them did (Bartók, Strauss, Debussy, and so forth), or against Boulez in Bartók and Mahler. So the bottom line is that fans of the Chicago Symphony can get most, if not all, of this music in better performances from other conductors. Many of those recordings even sound better too. Decca’s early digitals in Chicago could come off as downright nasty—harsh and glaring—while the Mahler Fourth had so much extraneous performance noise that I wrote an article about it on its initial release a few decades ago. The packaging, however, is deluxe and quite swanky, with an elegant hard cover book that still manages to omit all sung texts and translations. There is, in other words, a hollowness at the core of this production that somehow mirrors many of the interpretations themselves. If you feel like dropping a couple of hundred bucks on a huge box of mostly good, but only sporadically great performances, well, it’s your call.
Again that’s very helpful. Looks like I need to subscribe to classics today. I was unaware of this and have just been getting into classical music over the last couple of years
I would not recommend it to you. Better check MusicWeb International: Classical Music Reviews & Resources . Balanced reviews not made to polarize readers (not all reviewers at classicstoday are the same but their boss is).
For what it’s worth, I have the Szell and Solti boxes and I think they’re both excellent. My ears may not be as fine tuned as other classical music listeners’, but there’s a lot of great stuff in the Solti box. His music has real energy, which I find is slightly elevated from a lot of other conductors.
ClassicsToday is controversial because the reviewers are very critical at times (David Hurwitz can be a bit cynical), something MusicWeb International lacks in my opinion - I sometimes get the impression they (MusicWeb) like almost everything. If you want friendly reviews with hardly a critical tone, go for MusicWeb. If you prefer more critical notes, you'd be better off with ClassicsToday in my view. To each their own, of course In the end it's your own ears and preferences that count.
With Solti there's always energy and excitement, but to my ears his performances often lack depth. As far as I've heard them I agree with the review upthread that Solti's earlier performances are often better than his later ones. A case in point are his Mahler recordings; the ones he made with the London Symphony Orchestra (not in the box) outclass his later Chicago interpretations in my opinion.
