Is that Geza Anda box complete? There is another budget version that collects all his Mozart piano concertos and it is complete. There was some discussion on it in the classical discussion thread recently and Anda would be my choice for a single complete cycle. edit: Grumiaux is wonderful with the Mozart violin sonatas. And for the complete piano sonatas my desert island set, second recording by Ingrid Haebler: (followed by Lili Kraus)
I just broke the sanity ceiling (what I paid for The Beatles In Mono in 2009) with a private purchase of a gently used L’Oiseau-Lyre Medieval & Renaissance box from a seller in the UK. I tried to fool myself by adjusting for US inflation, but still not close - £250 including shipping . That purchase, together with the near-sanity ceiling price paid for a used Archiv silver box, pretty much exhausts my music budget for the year, with exceptions for the next Bowie box and R.E.M.’s upcoming Monster 25th anniversary 2CD set.
Mozart 225 (English) still seems available on Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-225...EPDMRED5F8T&psc=1&refRID=5CZVWV8DGEPDMRED5F8T
Just wait until Bezos' divorce proceedings are done. He'll probably start selling back inventory for 50c a piece. Box or not.
I've been looking at 2 Harmonia Mundi retrospective boxes, one covering their first 30 years (16 discs), the other its second 30 years (18 discs). Harmonia Mundi is a French label, not to be confused with Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (how could that be confusing?). I already have HM's "Lumières" and "Sacred Music" boxes. Both are very good. Any opinions here about these two recently released boxes? Generation harmonia mundi - The Age of Revolutions by Various Artists $23.14 Generation harmonia mundi - The Spirit of Family by Various Artists $24.41 This is one of the rare times I have found Amazon US cheaper for US delivery than one of the European Amazons. That's a win-win. There is much less risk of shipping damage when Amazon US sends me a megabox. Interestingly, Amazon Germany is a couple of dollars more than its US counterpart, but Amazon France only has the boxes available from private sellers, who do not remove the VAT for a US purchase, making the price significantly greater. Speaking of Amazon, 2 reviewers dinged the second box because they had to enter the track data themselves on iTunes! One even said it was a five-star box, but this "oversight" by HM was inexcusable. The other reviewer thought the music was lovely, but that HM was very neglectful because iTunes did not have the track data!!!
Wow. That’s plain ignorance on the part of those reviewers, as iTunes uses CDDB, which is a user-generated database. Although, who can blame them? The system is not a very clever one, and had I been a small label, I would have made sure to submit that CDDB data before anyone else did it.
To a certain extent, it looks like a repackaging of their now out-of-print Century 1 & 2 sets (though with some new stuff added). Those were an attempt to set forth a history of classical music. I have both, but have only listened to the first 12 (of 20) discs. I think the selections, performances and sound quality are first rate.
I'll work on it. For a cover of my own recording of Zevon live at a place called Rockefeller's, I created a pretty good picture of Zevon standing with John D.
Many thanks for the Martha A. alert -- I've been wanting this box and I grabbed it because of this post. Looking forward to it!
Not a mega box, but Monique Haas' Debussy and Ravel 6CD box is currently only $8.99 at Arkiv Music: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=174957
My order for Mozart 225 on Amazon.co.uk was cancelled as well as the Hanssler Bach boxset on Amazon.es
I'm curious about something concerning Leonard Bernsteins Mahler cycle with the NY Philharmonic. Would it be safe to presume the Mahler recordings in the Bernstein Symphony Edition box set (2013) are the same masters as The Carnegie Hall Presents masters (2009, 2012 reissue) by Andreas K. Meyer? Thanks in advance.
I asked above, but as part of a longer post, so the question seems to have gotten lost. With this wave of Mozart 225 cancellations, are there any other "one stop" shops that allow the entire body of work to be snapped up in one go for a relatively low price? I was curious about the Brilliant Classics "Edition" box set, but had no idea if that one was uniformly good as a way to deep dive. Beyond that, are there several smaller, more specialized sets that would allow for the same thing if picked up all together (but with better performances/recordings) - say again with a roughly $200 (US) limit for the lot?
Isn't the only other 'complete' Mozart collection the legendary Philips Classics one? The Complete Mozart Edition - Wikipedia That will cost you far more than $200, unless you find someone who does not know what they have.
