Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - August 2017
Great pianists feature prominently this month, with the second of the summer's major collections celebrating Daniel Barenboim's 75th birthday (this time from Deutsche Grammophon, focusing on his six-decade relationship with them as a pianist), as well as a comprehensive Rudolf Serkin retrospective on Sony and a super-budget reissue of Stephen Kovacevich's critically acclaimed recordings of the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Bagatelles on Warner Classics.
And it's not actually released until next month, but you might like to get in early when it comes to the new Maria Callas Live box that's due out on Warner Classics - we're giving away a free canvas tote-bag emblazoned with La Divina's iconic image to the first fifty customers who place an order!
20 complete operas, from Gluck’s Alceste and Ifigenia in Tauride to an Italian-language Parsifal, including a dozen works which Callas never recorded in the studio and eight live performances which contributed to La Divina's reputation as a stage-animal par excellence. Free Callas canvas tote-bag for the first fifty customers!
Available Formats: 42 CDs + 3 Blu-rays, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Made between 1935-1939 (the quartet's projected complete Haydn cycle was abandoned with the outbreak of World War II), these mono recordings were originally issued in five volumes on HMV and have been remastered in 24BIT-96kHz digital sound. Reviewing one of the original records in 1936, Gramophone opined that ‘the variety of expression is wonderful and the recording as perfect as one could wish’.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
23 discs covering Symphonies 00-9, the Masses, Te Deum and Missa Solemnis and a generous selection of motets as well as lesser-known corners of Bruckner's output such as his solo piano and chamber works; conductors include Christian Thielemann, Klaus Tennstedt, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert von Karajan and Helmuth Rilling.
Available Formats: 23 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Reviewing the original recordings (made between 1991 and 2003), the Sunday Times wrote that ‘nobody plays this music more authoritatively and eloquently’ than Kovacevich; more recently, The Guardian’s Andrew Clements observed that ‘there is an expressive truthfulness and a straightforward musicality about his playing that is totally convincing’. Nine discs reissued at super-budget price.
Available Formats: 9 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Handel In Italy: Cantatas, Arias & Serenata
Artists include Contrasto Armonico, Musica ad Rhenum, Stefanie True, Mária Zádori and Jochen Kowalski
Focusing on the secular cantatas such as Armida abbandonata, Il delirio amoroso, Apollo e Dafne and Agrippina condotta a morire, this 14-CD set also includes the virtuosic serenata Aci, Galatea & Polifemo (which predates Handel's better-known English-language setting of the same story by a decade), Italian vocal duets, and the incidental music which Handel wrote for Ben Jonson's The Alchemist.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Mahler: The Complete Symphonies
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle
This cycle features Rattle in collaboration with two of the orchestras with which he is most closely associated: the Berliner Philharmoniker (in Symphonies Nos. 5, 9 and 10), and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the remaining symphonies and Blumine. The Tenth (in Deryck Cooke's completion) and the legendary Resurrection Symphony with Arleen Auger and Janet Baker were Gramophone Records of the Year, in 2000 and 1988 respectively.)
Available Formats: 12 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
