Bach 333 "The New Complete Edition": giant set is coming from DG & Decca

What's the best non-Amazon outlet to purchase this from?

 

I'm thinking Presto Classical might be who I try next. Their price is about $100 more, but it's the best I can find.

 

Amazon France is coming through on the very expensive return shipping for this, much to their credit, and unexpectedly to me. But, once I can confirm they ship in the original carton, I think I'll go with Presto Classical for my second try. Hopefully, Amazon means it when they say they will pass along the issue to their warehouse to avoid this for others. This is what they had to say:

"I'm sorry to hear that your item has arrived in an improper packaging. We make every effort to ensure that our items are packaged to avoid being damaged during transportation. Unfortunately it happens sometimes and we are sorry for that.

We are always happy to receive feedback from our customers because it allows us to continually improve our services.

I have transferred the remarks to the department concern so that this type of incident will not happen in future.

In order to resolve the problem, I have created a DHL return label with the help of which you can return us the article."

 

I passed on it when I realized that for all those discs it still didn't have any of his demos or live stuff.

 

It's a shame the single edit of Dies Irae couldn't properly be transferred from the original multitapes, making it unavailable for inclusion. Geez, what fan service...

 

Yes, and apparently this new Bach set doesn't have the mono mixes from the Brandenburg Sessions.

 

Maybe Professor Schickle has some masters stashed in his coat closet...
(thread title doesn't specify which Bach... )

 

OK, I sort of feel like I won the overseas shipping lottery. I just received my Bach 333 from Amazon.fr and after reading all of the posts in this thread and the Mega Box thread I was afraid of what I would find waiting for me when it arrived. Needless to say, the outer Amazon box was undamaged (thank you DHL) and inside was the undamaged original packaging box, which has a sticker on the top of it stating in English to "not to remove this outer packaging; it is designed to protect the product during shipping to the customer". I have not yet opened the inner box. That will have to wait until I get home from work....

 

The inner box is almost guaranteed to be safe with the sturdy original packaging protecting it. You won!

 

Seems the DHL people are fairing well.

tone deb freb, did you have UPS shipping?

 

No, it was DHL for me. And the outer box came with major damage and DHL company packing tape across the folds saying "DHL REPACKED". My box set wasn't even in its own plastic wrapping anymore, that was separate and loose in the outer box. Like it shed the wrapping at some point along the way. My box set molted in flight.

 

Sounds like yours had some major issues making it’s way to you.

 

Enough that I won't chance it with Amazon a second time and will go to someone more expensive who actually cares about this wonderful set getting to me the way it's supposed to.

 

Well this is interesting. I wrote a message and sent it both to Amazon and Deutsche Grammophon. Amazon responded by sending me another Bach set that will come tomorrow even though I didn’t ask to exchange the one I already have. This is what I sent:

Hello Deutsche Grammophon representative,

I am reaching out to you not for a return, but to make a request. On Friday I received my Bach 333 box set. Beautiful set by the way, just starting to dig in as it were. I bought the set because of how much I love the Mozart 225.

I bought the set from Amazon.com. For some reason, they inexplicably removed the foam protectors when shipping the box set and instead used very little bubble wrap to protect the set. The deliverer dropped the box set on my steps as I was inside and heard it drop. When I opened the box I noticed damage to the box itself. Pictures of the damage and the packing box (with bubble wrap just on the bottom so the box bounced around in the much larger box) are below. The damage is minimal, but considering the limited edition of the set this is rather frustrating.

There are reports online of other Amazon customers having similar experiences. I am wondering if there is a way to communicate with Amazon to make sure to use the foam protectors that you supply (as shown in your unboxing video) to make sure that damage does not happen for other customers? You have created an astounding piece of work. It would be just as astounding if it reached other customers’ homes fully intact.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

Well, the new set arrived. And lo and behold, it was wrapped in a box with a large sign stating in bold red lettering: ‘Please do not remove this outer packaging, it is designed to help protect the product during shipping to the customer.’ You actually have to cut through that sign to get to the set.

Oh and surprise - the set looks perfect.

 

"Not only do we package crappy, but we will repackage any securely well packaged package in our own special crappy packaging way to insure your product arrives damaged in the accustomed loose and jiggly way that youve grown use to!"

signed,

Amazons Crappy Packaging Team




Amazon at its best...geesh. Sorry that happened. Glad its resolved also!

 

Mine was taken out of its protective box and shipped in a flimsy cardboard box by amazon.co.uk. Incredibly, it was fine.

Now that these sets are out I wonder if people would like to use this thread to discuss interesting discs as they stumble across them. I don't think that anyone has the energy to go disc by disc, but I'd be interested to hear how people approach the set.

Personally I started with the ensemble & piano Art Of Fugue discs: both very good and especially the piano version by Jean-Laurent Aimard. I'll look forward to hearing the Kenneth Gilbert version on harpsichord and feel that the three recordings were definitely justified.

Then I strongly recommend Disc 200, which has alternative instrumentations and begins with a great version of the Toccata & Fugue in D minor for solo violin. That disc is nicely programmed for repeated listening and ends with two selections from the Emerson Quartet Art Of Fugue. The fourth disc I heard was the first of the organ Introduction discs: organ is a hard sell for me so I'm easing myself in, and that offers nice contrasts in voicing. And today I listened to the three recordings of the “Magnificat”.

I watched the DVD yesterday as well, which didn't interest me as much as I hoped.

 

This set is tempting.

 

DHL:



The package must have been left in water since that entire open end had water damage, that picture was taken before I touched it, I did not cut anything . The only thing protecting the box inside was the brown paper which didn't soak all the way up. This was for Vladimir Horowitz's Complete Unreleased Recordings box from one of the Amazon Europe sites. Frankly a miracle that there was only a small bit of corner wear to the box set. They also like to try and deliver packages to my house past 11 pm, so if I see the tracking saying something is arriving that day I am up until midnight since of course Amazon makes them sign for.

 

It will probably be postponed in favor of his new studio album.

 

That sounds like a good plan!

As always, one of the first things I do when getting a huge box set (or any box set for that matter) is rip all discs into lossless files. It is such a pain, but it does allow to verify that I have all of the discs and there are no issues with them. I just finished ripping all of the discs last night. When I first started last week, I started listening to the orchestral discs and then the ‘After Bach’ discs. During that time, the music was just serving as background music while the computer was humming away and I was typing in tracklists. Now that everything is in I can finally start to really listen.

Last night I watched the DVD. It was informative, but very low tech. It would have been interesting to have more on the disc instead of just the documentary. With that said, it would have been great if they would have given Mozart the same treatment.

At the moment, I am not ready to do any deep listening, so I have put the whole set on shuffle which keeps things fresh so it is not organ after organ piece, etc. I am looking forward to the ensemble Art of the Fugue (as well as many other pieces).

 

Woah! That looks crazy!

 

I was actually surprised that they didn't put the YouTube promos on the disc and maybe source some additional performances. Not that it matters: I think we can all think of tasty extras to put on a couple of Blu-Rays but it's really not what this set is about.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the depth of the documentation. I feel that if I've got the patience to undergo it there's quite an education there for me.

 

The same was done for Mozart 225. All in all, both sets are really well done. Now all they need to do is a Beethoven set.

I do wish that all of this documentation in both sets would be digitized but that is probably asking too much.

 

I listened to the first disc of the Carmignola Sonatas and Partitas today, which is of course a new recording though available separately from the box. Nice fluid performance, especially during the fugues, although he's noisier breathing than I would like.

On track 16 (the Allegro from the second Sonata) am I alone in hearing what sounds like a bad edit at 2:14?