Runicen: I want to break this tentative response down into two sections: (a) performance; (b) modular approach to collection. (a) Performance is somewhat of a personal preference. For instance, when it comes to HIP vs. modern approaches. I like the timbre of the fortepiano, for instance, but others think the lack of heft compared to the modern grand piano is limiting. There are undoubtedly also questions of recording quality, including age of recording, which are rather less subjective, but which are nevertheless debated fervently. (b) I think a modular approach to collection can work well unless you are an obsessive completist. If you wanted ALL Mozart's output, then that's going to get expensive with a modular approach. But let's say you want a complete opera collection, the symphonies, the piano and violin concertos, a good selection of the sonata works, as well as Mozart's main religious music. I think that would be doable with some time, patience and deal-following. I picked up Gardiner's complete opera set for $35 or so a complete of years ago. I also got the Pinnock symphony collection at a decent price. So, a solid collection for <$200 is certainly possible, but you're probably going to have to forgo the rarities that a completist would consider de rigueur. You also wouldn't get the big box and its hardcover books, but, as others have mentioned in recent days, a couple of well-regarded books on Mozart, purchased separately, would supersede what you could find in the box sets.
I said I would believe it when I had it in my hands, 37 GBP shipped. Thank you to whoever posted this, I saw the email notification on my phone at 6 am and ordered it ASAP. Packed with the factory box and double boxed in a larger box. I think Amazon UK are now the most consistent (at least for me) with packing things. Took Monday and Tuesday off and heading north, it will be a music filled weekend with a ton of snow. After selling the Suzuki box this will be only my second collection for a complete set of cantatas. I find Brilliant Classics composer boxes hit or miss with classical era and beyond. I had one of the Beethoven boxes with some bland, and sometimes poorly played performances on it. This box had piano sonatas that were dull, middle of the road and string quartets that sounded like they hadn't been rehearsed. Meanwhile another one of their Beethoven boxes had recordings by the very well reviewed Gulda (ClassicsToday's review linked, in another review for some other cycle Jed Distler said Gulda's is among his favorites). Since they reissue these boxes in so many different forms (presumably as licenses run out they need to rearrange things) with different performances I would look into the specifics of each one. So this post doesn't come across a bash against the entire label I really like some of the artist oriented boxes they've released, often quite hard to find Russian recordings at a very good price. I also enjoy their Italian Baroque box, so much that I gave it as a gift to a musician.
I've weighed my options over these last few months and there doesn't seem to be in terms of comprehensiveness, which is why I'm probably just going to order the US version at Musicvault. It never goes on sale and is OOP in most outlets at this point. The Brilliant set is apparently OK but I don't mind paying more when the overall package offered (superior performances, packaging/books) is more worthwhile in the 225 set. As others have said the Brilliant sets are good value (I have a number of them myself, the ROMANTIC PIANO CONCERTOS and CLASSICAL GUITAR sets are great) but often hit or miss (esp where the composer boxes are concerned), and if there's a particular composer you really like, you're often times going to find superior performances elsewhere.
Yes they are. I've had both, but gave away the Mahler box since the same masterings were used in the symphony box.
It does include the new(ish) remasterings of the Mahler cycle, but other than that it's mostly older remasterings coupled with a few new transfers where there hadn't been a previous digital issue. For the Sibelius Symphionies, for instance, it's the old masterings.
Off-topic for this thread, but I'd love to see that pic, having seen Zevon a couple of times at Rockefeller's in the 80s and 90s. Feel free to PM me.
When I was 30 or so I was a Mozart piano concerto freak. I tried to collect them all, discount cassette by discount cassette. Hard to do because of the invariable overlap and lack of early concertos. For $2.oo or so per cassette (CDs were in their infancy then), I would have sprung for a complete collection of them (despite my not so hefty wallet). Consider yourselves lucky, you under 40 crowd.
This is certainly a golden age for recorded music, however much some people might complain. I've just been reading on a Robert Shaw LP from the late 1970s (Firebird Suite, etc.) how digital is about to be available in all our homes but, for now, the best we can do is transfer these pristine digital recordings to good old LP.
No doubt, I have been saying this for a while. We have the best sounding digital we have ever had (my DAC is literally the consumer version of the one the classical labels use to convert), we're getting the majors dumping their catalogs for cheap and they are generally mastered very well, smaller classical labels seem to be doing alright and flourishing. Large full range playback systems can now more than any other time in recorded history realistically reproduce concert hall type sound with some time, effort, money and space. And if you want whole house audio you can do it with networked playback that has perfect timing (ie Roon's RAAT) that will out perform even the best clocks in disc spinners. It's truly an incredible time to be a music lover.
I got a Mozart cancellation notice, too, but only ordered one and received it. Hope I don’t get a notice to send it bach. Sorry to those who didn’t receive theirs. If there is any lesson here it’s: if there’s a crazy deal it probably won’t come through, but order quickly cause if it does it’s first come first serve and there may be limited rather than none quantities.
Around the same time I was recording on cassette broadcasts off the HJCK radio station and LPs from my grandfather's classical record collection; later on, video clips from the ARTS cable channel on VHS. I remember walking out of the local Tower Records with five or six single CDs in exchange of my monthly savings and thinking myself lucky. Now we can order box sets comprising dozens or hundreds of CDs from the most prestigious labels. It is truly a golden age for those of us who experienced the pleasure of extracting the utmost enjoyment from precious few quantities of recordings. How wonderful it all is will be lost on those unlucky to grow up in an age of unrestricted abundance.
About six months back, from a Craigslisting, I purchased a classical CD collection from an elementary school principal. He had taken all of the CD booklets and CDs out of the cases. All totaled there were 700 CD titles - booklets and CDs. Over the following months I acquired blank cases and back insets and labeled them all. For $400 ($300 for cases and inserts, $75 for CDs and booklets), I got a kick ass classical collection. The crazy part is that many of the booklets have the Tower and Amoeba receipts for $10 to $20 a pop for each title. To think of the time and money to acquire such a collection and to sell it en masse for Spotify. I remember hurrying away with those CDs in a giant moving box. It’s a good time for CD aficianados.
Some of that is a byproduct of "unrestricted abundance," but there's also a line that gets crossed between, "My only cash flow is an allowance from my parents" and "I'm an adult and I do what I want." I remember being able to (maybe) score 2-4 CDs a month. Got a dud? Well, better find something to like. You've got to live with that clunker for a few weeks before you can check out something new. Compare that to having the budgetary flexibility to load up and the bottom line is that you have to really work to "live with" a recording in the same way. Also, the day-to-day routine has changed dramatically. Another venue where I feel this acutely is in video gaming. I still enjoy gaming, but while I have the freedom to dedicate a 48 hour period to playing games, I just get bored and want to engage something else at this point. It's not universal, but it's far more common than it would have been for me, say, when I was 17. Priorities shift, routines shift, freedoms shift. Our interests and hobbies have to sort of ride those waves. Now, all of that said, I try never to take for granted the intense abundance that's laid out in front of me in terms of being a CD fan starting to explore classical. It's the proverbial house on the street for Halloween that lets you take a few handfuls of candy.
I still think this has a higher chance of working out than the Mozart 225 set. This set was a simple pricing error on a new release that may be out of stock but is readily available. If they were going to cancel it, I think they would've done so by now. The Mozart 225 set is like a few other things I've ordered from Amazon UK where the set itself was being sold, and here in big numbers, but in reality was either unavailable or in very small quantities, and was being constantly driven down in price based on preset algorithms despite it never really being "available" to satisfy the bulk of those sales. Here's hoping anyway, I don't mind being 1 for 2 on these
I ordered the Szeryng box, too, from American Amazon, as well as the French Mozart box from British Amazon. I don't think either will be delivered. Interestingly, Amazon is still suggesting it will find a date to deliver my Mott the Hoople Mental Train box which has been on order since early last month. I have no doubt whatsoever that this order will be cancelled, too. Probably a good thing, really, as I have far too much stuff and not enough space.
