My FNAC order is still there and they say they'll ship on the 17th. On the other hand, the Orpheus Chamber box makes me doubtful. I already have 14 CDs (the Tchaikovsky and Dvorak serenades, a little Mozart and almost all their Haydn) which is 1/4 of the contents. Amazon Italy still lists the release date for June 18, but DGG site says August 20 for about the same price (83€ in preorder vs 90€).
This is just my personal preference, of course, but I'm not a big fan of Walcha. His playing is too heavy, "too loud" for my ears. When it comes to Bach organ music, I much prefer Simon Preston set. I do not think it's worth buying the set just for the discs you mentioned but of course it's your money and your decision I can understand that someone may want the set just for the original jackets, for example
I am in a similar situation and contemplating canceling my AmFR order as well. However, I know with AmFR I will get the item (what condition it will arrive in is still unknown). I have never ordered from FNAC and I'm not sure that they will actually ship to the US for that price. Which leads me to this question: has anyone in the US ordered from FNAC over the last year and did you get your item?
Amazon usually packs poorly but no, they do not send items in such a way. Are you sure it wasn't opened and repacked by the customs, etc?
Jaime Laredo enters the fray. 23 CDs. Apologize if this has already been linked but I don't recall seeing it. Jaime Laredo - The Complete RCA & Columbia Album Collection - Amazon.com Music
Too many duplicates for me. Gould box, yo yo ma outside the box, living stereo 3, and something in munch complete. I realized 12 /13 cds already in my possession... I pass, and the warner dvorak box too. I have all the symphonies directed by Pesek and much more. Very incomplete and partial edition. I'm not interested in it! Recently I bought used the three warner boxes dvorak anniversary edition...
Same here. The price would have to come down quite a bit and it may. Someone upthread mentioned that we were running out of superstars and were starting to hit the second-tier artists. Don't get me wrong, Laredo is a substative violinist and all but the worst snobs would love to see him show up on their local subscription series. But when people talk about the great violinists of their era, Jamie Laredo is not a name likely to pop up early in the conversation.
Here's the track list from Presto. I had forgotten how often Laredo appeared playing viola, especially in superstar, chamber-music settings. Jaime Laredo - The Complete RCA and Columbia Album Collection - Sony: 19439870202 - 23 CDs | Presto Classical (prestomusic.com)
I'm not familiar with Laredo's recordings, but noticed that most of them are chamber works; tempting Maybe Sony will also release a box with the recordings his former wife, Ruth Laredo, made for Columbia.
This resonated with me quite a lot. A sellers on eBay we shipped a vinyl album at the Beginning of December last year when the Post Office had MOUNTAINS of parcels backed up due to staff shortages and Covid, and the fact that all shops were shut so EVERYONE was ordering on line. Only to have the customer (or as we referred to him `*****`), complain when his package was not delivered in THREE DAYS! He sent us endless angry emails, called us `stupid` and said that it was `Unacceptable`, we pointed out to him that we had no authority over the UK postal services, and that as he had proof that his package had been dispatched, could he not be a little patient under the circumstances?........NO, he could not, after FIVE days he opened a NON DELIVERY case against us with eBay! We rang eBay and explained the situation and they told us to ignore him, as they had an extended time limit for non delivery cases, and he would have to wait. He continued his tirade of abuse every day, until finally his package was delivered after two weeks ......and thankfully we heard nothing more from him......we have placed him on our BANNED list.
More interesting, from my point of view, the Szigeti and Rodzinski boxes, but they are too expensive yet.
Ditto on the Rodzinski. Amazon has it priced at $99.99, for 16 CDs. Maybe I'm greedy but that's not really in line with what we've seen from Sony and numerous other labels in recent years for sets of that size.
I think this is superb advice. I have the three Sony album-sized boxes (symphonies, concertos & orchestral works, and vocal), the DG complete (in the two box format), and all of the individual boxes by composer as they have come out. I also have the Bernstein Remastered set. I much prefer his Sony output to what he recorded for DG. It may be because I am more familiar with it, but most of the Sony recordings were done with the NYPO when he was the musical director. The recordings are fresh and exciting and exuberant in ways his later recordings weren't. Bernstein was an advocate for American composers and Mahler and really took his teaching role seriously in that phase of his career. Any format you get them in will be fine. Bernstein's name on a box guarantees it will sell (much like that of Karajan and Gould), so I wouldn't worry about what you don't have as my guess is it will soon be available in some other form.
I didn't even hit "Order" at Amazon.fr after doing so at FNAC. I have the Sony Muti box which was probably the last "long" one that came with real CD cases vs. cardboard ones, making it much bigger than it would have been with the latter. Rodzinski is €62.99, Szigeti €49.99 Euro at JPC. Minus sales tax plus shipping = cheaper and better packed than at Amazon. Plus, you're supporting an independent seller.
so JPC is the way to go? Im looking st the Ormandy box and Amazon and JPC have it for pretty much same price
If it’s the same price, I’d always go for them, unless you need to absolutely hear the music two days later. I just posted the two prices above as a comparison vs. the Amazon prices for the mini sets from Sony. Everybody needs to make their own decision. Personally, I‘m still holding out for these, either price is still a bit high. $4 or so per CD …
From my limited experience, with Amazon you'll get it quicker but it probably won't be packed well and therefore may be damaged. With JPC you may have to wait a long time, but you'll eventually get it undamaged in superb packaging.
It depends on where you live. Within European Union, the packaging does not matter that much. I have never received a damaged box set. But I do confirm that independent sellers usually pack better. But Amazon is much faster than, say, Polish independent sellers.
Not a mega box set by any means but last saturday I bought the complete Dvorak Quartets played by Prague Quartet on LP. The vinyls are NM, the box itself is very good looking except for 2 split corners that I plan to fix if I can. 12 LPs at 2€ per disc for 25€ total. It was 50, but for the RSD the record store had a promo going, all the classical LPs were half off. I also bought two Scheherazade, Fricsay/RSO Berlin (mono) and Karajan/Berliner Phil (stereo). In the meantime, no Grumiaux replacement disc showed up after 2 weeks; the postal service probably lost it or took it, so I've wrote again to Ms Rampana.
I have an order in for this set on importcds.com (Eugene Ormandy, "The Columbia Legacy"); it's "backordered." Unfortunately it looks sold out all over the world. Anybody know if this will become available again? This would be the fastest sell-out in classical megabox history.
It is still available at Amazon Germany. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Eugene-O...hild=1&keywords=ormandy&qid=1623679631&sr=8-1
