Box Set Selections,
Boxed Set Selections - June 2018
This month's heavyweight highlights include an 11-disc celebration of Leonard Bernstein as pianist (courtesy of the RCA Victor and Columbia Records archives), Wagner’s three early operas in fine modern performances under Sebastian Weigle from Frankfurt, Tchaikovsky’s complete operas in vintage live recordings from the Bolshoi, and a mammoth collection of albums from one of the most prolific pianists in recording history.
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Gounod’s birth later this month, Warner mine the archives for vintage recordings of Faust (a complete version with Plácido Domingo, Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov, plus highlights in German with Nicolai Gedda, Edda Moser and Kurt Moll), Mireille and Roméo et Juliette, the two symphonies, Mors et Vita, the Messe solennelle de Sainte Cécile and more.
Available Format: 15 CDs
Wagner: The Early Operas
Frankfurter Opern-und Museumorchester & Chor der Opern Frankfurt, Sebastian Weigle
Made in Frankfurt in the early 2010s, these live recordings of Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi make a superb case for the non-Bayreuth operas, featuring singers such as Falk Struckmann, Peter Bronder and Anna Gabler who’ve won considerable acclaim in mainstream Wagner and (in Die Feen) some outstanding lyric voices including Christiane Karg, Brenda Rae and Julian Prégardien.
Available Format: 9 CDs
The Quartetto di Cremona’s Beethoven cycle (which they embarked upon in 2012) has been praised for its ‘visceral excitement and pulsating energy’ (BBC Music Magazine), ‘Italianate grace’ (The Guardian) and ‘blisteringly detailed playing’ (The Herald), with Vol. 7 winning an ECHO Klassik Award in 2017; this 8-CD collection also includes the String Quintet Op. 29.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Herreweghe’s Beethoven cycle has been described as ‘rhythmically alive and exciting’ (International Record Review on No. 9), ‘quietly convincing’ (Gramophone on Nos. 4 and 7) and ‘characteristically muscular and gritty’ (BBC Music Magazine on Nos. 5 & 8); soloists for the Ninth are Christiane Oelze, Ingeborg Danz, Christoph Strehl and David Wilson-Johnson.
Available Format: 5 SACDs
Recorded at the Bolshoi between 1936 and 1963, this set includes complete performances of the well-known Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades as well as the less frequently-recorded Mazeppa, Cherevichki, Oprichnik, Iolanta, and The Maid of Orleans, plus the incidental music for Snegurochka and Hamlet, and the operatic fragments Romeo and Juliet and Mandragora.
Available Formats: 22 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
