Wait till it hits 325.00$ a year into its release. I grabbed the huge DG Bernstein box when It was offered at $225.00 or thereabouts by Classical Center Stage before they put in back to north of $500. The Karajan Dg/Decca set was an open-box used purchase at a fraction of list.
Speaking of mega boxes: I am hoping to see an Ormandy stereo recordings box and a Leinsdorf box at some point. And I persist in the hope that Melodiya will honor Rozhdestvensky with a career comprehensive box.
Knowing Melodiya a comprehensive Rozhdestvensky box would probably cost as much as or more than the yearly budget of a small country...
Talking about possible price tags of the upcoming complete Abbado DG & Decca box, I might consider it if it would cost no more than, say, around 550 euros, but I'm afraid it could be (much) more. The Abbado box will be almost twice the size of the big Haitink box (due next month, although a definitive release date hasn't been set yet as far as I can see), so, with both coming from Universal, almost twice the price would be plausible I guess. Pure speculation, of course
Yes-that is always the problem when it comes to Melodiya. One must decide whether to make the financial sacrifice.
I regret missing out on the Karajan box and Mozart 225 so I’ll probably spring for this Abbado box. Not sure what to do with all the smaller boxes I have already….
My mini review on this box in case people were thinking of spending a not insignificant amount of money on it (I bought an Amazon Warehouse copy with a cracked spine for $90) - IMO Leslie Howard is a so-so interpreter (for a good amount of the music we can compare it to better pianists)/player of this music. The other reason is pianists generally tend to know Liszt's great music (Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, Annees de pelerinage, etc). I've listened to the box all the way through once, attentively listening with eyes closed paying attention and revisited other discs several times. Not saying there can exist no hidden gems from these major composers, like the recently uncovered Stravinsky Chant Funebre which I found exceptional. If Hyperion weren't so averse to streaming IMO this is the ideal type of set that favors streaming over ownership.
I received the Vienna and London sets two weeks ago What shall I say? Then again, I don't really need the complete one. Content-wise there may not be that much difference as at first sight. When you put away the DVDs and take into consideration that the jacket CDs may often have half the playing time of the disks in the earlier sets, the list of "missing" items may get much shorter. But yes, not really a nice way to treat your (remaining) customers. With Karajan and Bernstein you had at least the possibility to collect step-by-step - though we are still missing out on the DVDs and the few bonus tracks in the Bernstein set.
An Abbado misc. box would be great, but strangely organized I think (chamber orchestras, thus far uncollected modern music, CDs that never had an international release from orchestras they’ve already made “complete” boxes for, one offs). I’m not sure how it would be marketed, except as “here’s everything else.” Not that that’s a bad thing!
I just learned from this thread that there is now a separate release of the Boulez Ring on blu-ray. The new-ish Boulez The Comductor box was a tough sell for me, since I have most of it via the 20th Century box and his Mahler box. The Ring (on cd and blu), plus a handful of other stuff, was all I don’t already have. So this separate one is great. Has anyone watched/listened to it (either via the box or the standalone)? Any reviews?
I only bought the London Symphony box (more the berliner jacket one, the Symphony and opera edition). Recently I bought used the wiener box, (It seemed to be oop), but, having the carton box broken, I copied on amazon the CDs I didn't have (29)and returned the box ... I think my story with Abbado finishes here...
I'm looking for buying the casals philips legacy eloquence box. I think It is very beautiful and interesting. I missed it for 43 euros on amazon.it (it is very high price for my standards, but now it costs 63 euro). I love casals and at prades concertos.
That's a nice story, though. I have a similar which should be a warning for those who think of starting to collect these boxes I bought the Decca box when Abbado died and downloaded the Sony box from supraphonline. About a month ago I thought about getting the Rudolf Serkin DG box, but thought maybe there'd be a price drop some day. A few days later, I read the details of the box on amazon and noticed, that all but two or three disks were accompanied by Abbado and the LSO. Seeing what the LSO box goes for these days and realizing that I do not yet have a set dedicated to the LSO, I decided to go with the entire set rather than just buying the Serkin recordings. Then I realized that the London set, wouldn't do without the Viennese one. Ouch.
I bought the Boulez box mainly for the Blu Ray of the Ring so I'm a bit miffed that it is available as a stand alone. Never mind, there's other consolations in the box including having the cycle on CD (with Parsifal too). I have only watched part of Walkure and all of Gotterdammerung so far on Blu Ray. The sound seemed very good but there is a very obvious limitation on the visuals when the original was shot on video. They haven't done anything silly to reformat it and I imagined it looked a bit cleaner than before but (and my eyesight ain't perfect) it didn't look much different from the copy I had on DVD if I am honest. But it's still an incredible production if you can see past the shortcomings of 1980s technology.
I already had the abbado serkin Mozart concertos box in the collector's edition, so I found them all duplicated when I bought the LSO box. To tell you the truth I also had the box the Mozart Gulda tapes, so other duplicates with the wiener box In the serkin box you could have all jackets, I didn't buy it!
I can find the Boulex Ring blu ray for £105 in the UK and the Boulez complete DG and Philips for £148. So the complete box is still good value, if you want or need a chunk of the CDs in addition to the Ring.
If you like chamber music, expecially brahms chamber music, you can't miss this box, sold for 51 euro (16 cds) on amazon.it. The box is very neat, there is a substantial booklet, and the cd sleeves are very sturdy and easy to open, with the reinforced edge, in the sony style. https://www.amazon.it/gp/aw/d/B09MYYWBZJ
Ah, for some reason I can find the Boulez Ring blu-ray set for about $65 (Australian), whereas the complete DG box (The Conductor) is upwards of $300. So I’d be paying around $250 for those extra discs not in the 20th Century or Mahler boxes. (And I’ll just rip the audio from the blu-rays for the Ring audio.)
The gods must like me, as I just bought the Boulez Ring on blu ray for A$66 from Amazon Australia (that's about 40 pounds!) None left at that price. Edit - and just catching up with the rest of this thread, I now see that jsb! had already mentioned this bargain. I bought the DVDs of the Boulez Ring many years ago, and love this production. For the blu rays I'm not expecting much improvement in the picture quality (though it should be a little better), but I'm hoping the audio is a big improvement. And I finally succumbed and ordered the Goebel box from Amazon UK via Amazon Australia. That was A$210.77 which is about 127 UK pounds.
Yeah, between me spotting that price and my message above, stock went from 3 to 1 on the Boulez Ring, so I grabbed the last and it’s now at $180. Glad at least one of the other two was a fellow forum member…
While the contents of the forthcoming Gieseking box has been posted here already, I think there would be some interest in seeing it in more detail as printed on the actual box:
Recently I was listening again the beautiful recordings in this box, one of the best produced by Warner. Highly recommended! https://www.amazon.it/Complete-Erato-Hmv-Recorordings-Box/dp/B08HG7TYFF/
I've been making a start on this little gem of a box. The Pablo Casals disc transferred from 78s is nice. Sound quality could be better, as with a lot of such transfers, but his Dvorak concerto is a great addition to my collection.
