Box Blather

Started by Ken B, April 19, 2014, 07:07:51 PM

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Brian



Here are my notes on the DG Boston Symphony box set so far...

CD 1 - Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin / Abbado
Basically flawless, one of the highlights of Abbado's career. My favorite Debussy "Nocturnes," razor-sharp, glorious playing.

CD 2 - Tchaikovsky Symphony 1 / Tilson Thomas
It's interesting that they started recording MTT so young, he was only 25 at this session. This is almost a great recording of a not-so-famous symphony; the finale's fugue section is a little too slow and stodgy. But apart from those 2 minutes, everything else measures up to the finest recordings of Tchaikovsky 1. (Reference: Jurowski/LPO)

CD 3 - Strauss Zarathustra, Holst Planets / Steinberg
A classic. One of the greats.

CD 4 - Ruggles Sun Treader, Schuman Violin Concerto, Piston Symphony 2 / Tilson Thomas
I like them in that order: the Ruggles weirds me out, the Schuman is thorny but interesting, the Piston is REALLY good.

CD 7 - Stravinsky Rite, Le roi des etoiles / Tilson Thomas / Hindemith Mathis der Maler Symphony / Steinberg
I didn't listen to Rite yet, but the short Stravinsky piece with chorus is spooky and fun. The Hindemith is blazing (like 7 minutes faster than Salonen), virtuosic, passionate, amazing.

CD 8 - Mozart 41, Schubert Unfinished / Jochum
It's Jochum. It's really solid.

CD 9 - Symphonie fantastique / Ozawa
Relatively fast, relatively well played, but relatively uninteresting.

CD 13-15 - Ravel complete orchestral music / Ozawa
So far I've only listened to Bolero here. Good Bolero. Hurwitz says this is the best Ravel cycle recorded outside France.

CD 16 - Bartok Concerto for Orchestra + Miraculous Mandarin / Kubelik
Really good, but don't take my word for it; in the extensive booklet, there are a series of quotes from BSO members about their experiences in the recording sessions, and one musician singles this out as the best Bartok CfO interpretation she ever played for in her tenure with the orchestra. Hurwitz points out rightly that this is one of the few where you can hear slithering snarling horns in the first 45 seconds or so of the finale.

CD 17 - Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 (Rostropovich) / Falla El Sombrero de Tres Picos (Berganza) / Ozawa
Rostropovich! Berganza! Like...of course this is great. Someone here on GMG told me this is their favorite recording of any Shostakovich work.

CD 21 - Tchaikovsky Symphony 5 / Ozawa
Good, but not special. Interpretation is average, orchestra is stellar, which seems to be the story with all the relative disappointments of the Ozawa years.

CD 23 - Respighi Pines, Fountains, Festivals / Ozawa
Special. Or at least, as good as these pieces get. That said, there are a few really great Roman trilogies...anyway, this is one.

CD 24 - Respighi Ancient Airs and Dances / Ozawa
There aren't so many great recordings of these pieces. This is one - and it's apparently the only one for full symphony rather than chamber orchestra.

CD 25 - Liszt Faust Symphony / Bernstein
Lenny!! A crackling performance, super fun...I do think that the piece as a whole gets less interesting when people start singing, but you can't fault anything about this interpretation. Thriller. Listened yesterday.

CD 28 - Berg and Stravinsky violin concertos (Perlman) / Ozawa
I wished I liked this music enough to comment knowledgeably. Seems fine? Perlman is really good. Sorry, I am not one of the cool kids who is hip to Berg or most post-Petrushka Stravinsky. :(

CD 31 - Mozart clarinet and bassoon concertos, Takemitsu two pieces / Ozawa
The BSO's principals play the concertos. They are...fine. Nothing special. Clarinet tone is not as gorgeously soloistic as, say, Sabine Meyer or Martin Frost. The Takemitsu is good for Takemitsu fans, I guess? Not really my cup of tea. I preferred the shorter of the two works (13 minutes vs. 16). Quatrain features guest stars Tashi (Richard Stoltzman, Peter Serkin, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry).

CD 32 - Faure orchestral music / Ozawa
The Faure orchestral disc by which all others are judged. Period. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson cameo to make it extra-perfect.

CD 35 - Liszt piano concertos and Totentanz (Krystian Zimerman) / Ozawa
Hell yeah. Pedal to the metal! As good as this music gets.

CD 37 - Poulenc Gloria and Stabat mater / Ozawa
Great playing and singing (Kathleen Battle!). More or less definitive for these pieces, though there are a lot of other good recordings (avoid Paavo Jarvi on DG).

CD 41 - Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream / Ozawa
I posted my thoughts in the listening thread a while ago, but the summary was that Judi Dench recites her first poem so quickly it's a blemish, and then she settles down and everything else about the CD is perfect. Best Dream suite on disc is still Szell/Cleveland imho, but this is the best complete edition. There is a lot of talking.

CD 44 - Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 1 and 2 (Krystian Zimerman) / Ozawa
The performance of No. 1 is really good. No. 2 Zimerman's intro was so painfully, stupidly slow that I turned it off in rage and put Hough on instead. Don't know how the remaining 30 minutes of it are because I doubt I will ever listen to it. On the other hand, since I only listened to 30 seconds, I can't call this an outright failure.

CD 50 - Shostakovich Symphony 6 / Nelsons
New recording from 2017 as part of Nelsons' ongoing cycle. This was recorded while they were making the box set and released on single CD after the box set was released, so CD 50 is just the 6th Symphony, only about 30 minutes long. The individual CD release includes a Seventh Symphony recorded after this box was put together, so the Seventh is technically not an omission. Really really good Sixth btw. Nelsons is good in Shostakovich. My girlfriend came in from a run during the scherzo and her comment was that she really liked it. I look forward to the other Shosty in here: 5, 8, 9, 10. Huh. Nelsons really went for the popular ones first.

CD 52 - "American Chamber Music" with Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Carter, Ives, Porter, Dvorak)
I've only listened to the Ives (a romantic miniature, not the crazy Ives many of us know and love/hate) and the Dvorak, which is the String Quintet Op. 77 with the optional intermezzo added. Seemed to be a really good recording until my CD started hopelessly skipping in the finale. I need to try it on a different player. There does appear to be a scratch on the outside edge. I'd be sad if I couldn't play this, as I love Op. 77 dearly. :(

CD 54 - Schoenberg, Berg and Webern arrangements of Johann Strauss waltzes + Stravinsky Octet, Pastorale, Ragtime, Concertino - all with Boston Symphony Chamber Players
On the way to get some takeout tacos, I played two Strauss waltzes (super great, and nice to hear the harmonium) and "Ragtime", which uhhhhhh does not sound like ragtime  ;D

CD 57 - a rediscovered session they forgot to release? Brahms Symphony 2 + Rossini Semiramide overture + Paganini Moto perpetuo (all Ozawa)
The Brahms is somewhat on the relaxed/pastoral side (21' first movement) but overall fine. Spirited finale and good Rossini. The Paganini is kind of an annoying piece of music but can't blame the performers.

MISSING FROM THE BOX: DG forgot two discs. They omitted Ozawa's Franck Symphony in D minor, and a Gidon Kremer violin CD coupling Schumann's cello concerto (re-orchestrated by Shostakovich and re-soloed by Kremer) and Shosty's VC 2. I have no idea why they did this. The 150 page booklet makes it clear that they hired a researcher and involved a number of BSO employees. They for sure knew about the Franck because the couplings are in the box, now on a different CD! Somehow everyone goofed badly. Ultimately, this is incredibly annoying to me but not a dealbreaker since it's still great value and full of classics. I have other good Franck Symphonies, notably in Martinon's Erato box. I could someday buy the complete Gidon Kremer box if I really wanted to. But like...come on, guys. Get your poop together.

BOX PRESENTATION: Elite level. The white tiled box depicted in online photos is actually a slipcover; the real box is a blue-green shade and has photos of every conductor, the orchestra, and the concert hall. The CD spines (just for you Mookafalakas) do NOT have content listings, but the back covers of each sleeve list tracks, timings, years recorded. The BSO Chamber Players discs have the names of every musician. The booklet is a beaut; English, German, and Japanese essays by Andris Nelsons, a longtime DG record producer, and the BSO publication manager, plus full recording provenance info, about a dozen BSO musician quotes about their favorite recording sessions, a billion photos, and a composer index. In summary, this box set is exactly how Big Boxes should all be done...except for the part where they forgot two CDs!!!

YET TO LISTEN: I know from a sample clip that Ozawa's Mahler 1 will be fun (CD 27). His Ravel is supposed to be great. Later today I will dive back into the Nelsons Shostakovich (CD 47, a Tenth with rather slow track timings). Kubelik's Smetana (CD 6) is obviously gonna be good. (Man, they had some good guest conductors.) There is a very long Sofia Gubaidulina piece called Offertorium (CD 40) and I don't know if it will be interesting or intolerable. I heard John Williams' TreeSong on the radio at age like 16 and thought it was a weird sweet-sour combo of crowd pleasing and crowd antagonizing; but I'm twice as old now so maybe I'll appreciate it better (CD 45). Most of the BSO Chamber Players albums are Schoenberg, of whose work I really like the first Chamber Symphony (which is here), but I am excited for the highly regarded Debussy sonatas album (rounded out with a chamber arrangement of "Afternoon of a Faune" for string quintet, flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, harmonium, and TWO "antique cymbals" players!! That is a lot of antique cymbal crashing!). I've never heard Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale and a John Gielgud narrated version looks like a posh place to start.

QUESTION: If CD 52 really is scratched, who do I contact? Someone at DG? I don't want a whole new box. Just like a replacement of that CD. And uhh maybe if they could mail me the Franck and Kremer...

André

No Hindemith Music for Strings and Brass ? It was on the B side of the Steinberg/Hindemith LP.

Jo498

What about Faust and Romeo and Juliet with Ozawa, weren't these Boston recordings as well?

Which ones contained in the box have never been available internationally or at all on CD? The Brahms 2nd, and probably some of the chamber players? (I might have bought a small box with all of the BSO chamber players DG recording.)
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Mookalafalas

#1063
Wow! Quite the review! Thanks, Brian.  I have spent a big chunk of this evening going through my collection to see how many of these disks I have so I don't have to buy the box.  I don't want to buy another...
(I've sold almost 30 box sets on Ebay, generally at a modest profit. I was excited and figured I'd parted with most, but I counted and it turns out I've still got 102 left. How did that happen?)
It's all good...

Brian

Quote from: André on May 12, 2020, 08:14:34 AM
No Hindemith Music for Strings and Brass ? It was on the B side of the Steinberg/Hindemith LP.
Sorry, yes, it's there and it's great!

Quote from: Jo498 on May 12, 2020, 08:21:21 AM
What about Faust and Romeo and Juliet with Ozawa, weren't these Boston recordings as well?

Which ones contained in the box have never been available internationally or at all on CD? The Brahms 2nd, and probably some of the chamber players? (I might have bought a small box with all of the BSO chamber players DG recording.)
I don't know the answer to your CD availability question, but the answer to Faust and R&J is that they are there, they are not listed there only because I have not yet listened to them.

Mookalafalas - you have 102 big boxes?! Wow. How many CDs does a box have to contain in order to count as a big box? Maybe I'll count mine  ;D

MusicTurner

Quote from: Mookalafalas on May 12, 2020, 08:25:54 AM
Wow! Quite the review! Thanks, Brian.  I have spent a big chunk of this evening going through my collection to see how many of these disks I have so I don't have to buy the box.  I don't want to buy another...
(I've sold almost 30 box sets on Ebay, generally at a modest profit. I was excited and figured I'd parted with most, but I counted and it turns out I've still got 102 left. How didthat[happen?)

Interesting, but why not. How do you define those boxes then?

Mookalafalas

Most are 50-60. I didn't count the little clam-shell guys at all, but a lot are smaller, 20-30. "The Secret Labyrinth" is only 15, but I have 4 Membran boxes and a Harmonia Mundi that are 100 each, and a couple Brilliant sets and the Paillard that are well over a hundred.  I've got about 10 that I've never opened, that I'm just waiting to go OOP and then sell. (I just did that with the big Brendel box yesterday. Actually, I didn't even own that one. It's OOP, but my local shop still had it on the shelf for $250. I listed it on EBay for $625, and someone bought it. I had to run down to the shop and buy it before it disappeared.)
It's all good...

MusicTurner

#1067
Quote from: Mookalafalas on May 12, 2020, 10:21:30 AM
Most are 50-60. I didn't count the little clam-shell guys at all, but a lot are smaller, 20-30. "The Secret Labyrinth" is only 15, but I have 4 Membran boxes and a Harmonia Mundi that are 100 each, and a couple Brilliant sets and the Paillard that are well over a hundred.  I've got about 10 that I've never opened, that I'm just waiting to go OOP and then sell. (I just did that with the big Brendel box yesterday. Actually, I didn't even own that one. It's OOP, but my local shop still had it on the shelf for $250. I listed it on EBay for $625, and someone bought it. I had to run down to the shop and buy it before it disappeared.)

That's a lot. Do you partly concentrate on boxes, or are single-double CDs just as plentiful? It's difficult selling stuff in Europe these days, possibly unless you wait for the items to be rare. They are worth very little, if I go to a shop here in Denmark, trying to sell them.

Mookalafalas

I have about 3 classical CDs that weren't part of a box (lots of old jazz and rock, though). If I tried to sell anything at a second-hand shop, it wouldn't be worth it, I think. Ebay is pretty good, but they take a pretty big cut (about 13%), and then paypal gets some, too. And as I live in Taiwan, shipping cost a lot.

   Surprisingly, mega-boxes and ebay are what really got me into classical music. The first big box I saw was Miles Davis. I bought that, and then a Jazz set and couldn't believe I was getting great CDs for $2 a piece. I started looking on ebay to buy more, and saw some classical boxes going for really high prices (The big Heiffetz box, and the Red Mercury box). I saw them at my local store and bought them and sold them on ebay without opening them. I had no idea what kind of music was inside, but was curious. At about that time, my store got the Phillips box in. It was $100 for 55 CDs. I bought it as an impulse buy, started playing the music and...you know the rest ;D.
It's all good...

MusicTurner

#1069
Quote from: Mookalafalas on May 12, 2020, 10:55:02 AM
I have about 3 classical CDs that weren't part of a box (lots of old jazz and rock, though). If I tried to sell anything at a second-hand shop, it wouldn't be worth it, I think. Ebay is pretty good, but they take a pretty big cut (about 13%), and then paypal gets some, too. And as I live in Taiwan, shipping cost a lot.

   Surprisingly, mega-boxes and ebay are what really got me into classical music. The first big box I saw was Miles Davis. I bought that, and then a Jazz set and couldn't believe I was getting great CDs for $2 a piece. I started looking on ebay to buy more, and saw some classical boxes going for really high prices (The big Heiffetz box, and the Red Mercury box). I saw them at my local store and bought them and sold them on ebay without opening them. I had no idea what kind of music was inside, but was curious. At about that time, my store got the Phillips box in. It was $100 for 55 CDs. I bought it as an impulse buy, started playing the music and...you know the rest ;D.

OK, so customers for the bigger boxes - is there a geographical pattern? I've sold some smaller stuff and LPs via Ebay.co.uk to many parts of world, Japanese and Korean collectors being among the best ... but postage and customs can be a hindrance when selling abroad ... guess the customer group in the US is large enough ...

Mookalafalas

Quote from: MusicTurner on May 12, 2020, 10:59:57 AM
OK, so customers for the bigger boxes - is there a geographical pattern? I've sold some smaller stuff and LPs via Ebay.co.uk to many parts of world, Japanese and Korean collectors being among the best ... but postage and customs can be a hindrance when selling abroad ... guess the customer group in the US is large enough ...

   Amazon UK ships incredibly cheaply, but apparently comparable rates aren't available to citizens, so yeah, that will hit you pretty hard {at least mailing to Taiwan. I have no idea about in the EU}.  The stuff I've sold has mostly been to the US, but some in Japan, one each in Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, The UK, and Finland. I sold to a guy in England, but he said he got hit with a brutal import tax.
It's all good...

Mookalafalas

Got these two cheaply from Am UK.  Am Veeeery happy. Gorgeous sound and playing.

[asin]B07XGSC351[/asin]

Am US says this won't be released til August 7!! Weird.
[asin]B083XVDXXD[/asin]

  It's teaching me to be a chamber lover.  I keep replaying disk 2, WAM's "Spring" and "The Hunt". I've never been able to get very excited about string quartets, except for LvB. I don't really understand them very much, and tend to find them rather homogeneous.  Same is kind of true for this, and yet I keep playing it and don't get tired of it ???  Weird.  Recorded in 1976.  If I close my eyes I can almost believe they are in my room...
   Set comes with 8 DVDs. 7 are LvB cycle from 1989, which is also included on CD, which is a tad unfortunate (I initially assumed it was another cycle).
It's all good...

Brian

#1072
META DISCUSSION

I thought it might be useful to discuss the presentation of the big box sets by the various different labels, and to air compliments and complaints about each label's general style.

Sony Classical/RCA/Columbia. Probably the most comprehensive label out there in terms of mining its catalogue and presenting rarities in new boxes? There's a difference between their Super Big Boxes and the smaller ones - the big ones are made of sturdier material and have sturdier sleeves, including spines with tiny text telling you what's on the CD, so you can look at all the spines and find what you want. (They did this with Szell, Rubinstein, Munch, etc. but oddly not Salonen.) With LP-era materials, Sony not only does a charming "fake LP" look to the physical CD itself, but adds the original back cover of the album to the back cover of the CD sleeve. I've got good prescription glasses so I can read that stuff, but some of the older folks here have mentioned pulling out magnifying glasses. The CD-era stuff, by contrast, has less helpful sleeves: track numbers, work, that's about it, no full track listings/timings.

There seems to be a sincere attempt to really dig through the archives and find all sorts of stuff, and a nerdy completism I really enjoy. Like it's rare for a Sony box to come out and people to say things like, "It says it's the complete Szell, but they forgot the 1939 LP of Liszt's Preludes" or whatever. Whereas Decca and DG are remarkably bad at that. (In fact one time Sony forgot a Lenny recording and literally taped an extra CD to the outside of the boxes for shipment in order to avoid the embarrassment of being "incomplete.") Usually the booklet has a full discography section, too. I especially appreciate the series of smaller boxes dedicated to just about every pianist who ever recorded for Columbia or RCA, ranging from famous names like Freire and Watts to now-obscure folks like Brailowsky and Masselos. It feels like they're being very purposeful about reviving historical material.

Wishlist: I look forward to buying the eventual giant Ormandy box, and I'm also hoping for Slatkin/RCA and Fiedler/Boston Pops boxes. Conversely, I'm sad I missed buying the Reiner megabox. There are probably many more soloists to come, as well. Sony feels like the only label where there are whole chunks of back catalogue that I don't know about at all that they might spring on us as a total surprise. Hurwitz also interestingly lobbies for a reissue of Dick Hyman's Scott Joplin series, which apparently included a discussion disc with Eubie Blake talking you through how to do ragtime properly. Heck yeah.

Warner/Erato. My favorite presentation style of the major labels. I love the outrageous OCD level of detail printed on the back of each CD sleeve: tracks, timings, artists, recording dates, licensing info, it's all there on each one. And I really enjoy the attention to high-quality artwork which has been shown in the complete Berlioz (all Turner!) and complete Debussy, and probably soon the complete Ravel. Unlike Sony, Warner combines the "original jacket" mentality with a desire to shove more stuff on there - I love how the Roussel Edition has the original album artworks on the sleeves, but then adds a bunch of filler to the ends of each. (They did forget Le marchand de sable qui passe, but whatever...) So for presentation and style points, these are tops. Even the new generic budget line is handsome, even though many of the boxes are rehashes of the same catalogue staples that they've already published in 4 previous box sets.

Erato especially has been enterprising in republishing historic out-of-print stuff, but EMI has already reissued its back recordings about 8092357508935 times over the last 20 years, which means they've basically run out. Still, given the neatness of the presentation, I like to have the new versions.

Wishlist: Ideally, instead of doing shit like "Previn: The LSO Years" with 10 random discs excerpted from the whole, they'll do the complete Previn LSO years. (Decca is even worse about this.) I will buy the complete Leif Ove Andsnes box, for sure.

Deutsche Grammophon. I've noticed serious differences between the DG boxes in terms of presentation. Glossy or matte finish, regular side opening or flip-top opening, lots of detail on the CD sleeves or no detail at all, paper slipcover over the whole thing or none, DG does it all. It makes it really hard to predict how desirable an edition will be before you buy it. The Boston Symphony box is probably the handsomest and loveliest in design in my whole collection: paper slipcover, nicely designed box featuring photos of the orchestra and its conductors, full detailed listings of tracks and recording dates on each sleeve, a great booklet full of reminiscences by orchestra members...and then they forgot two whole albums!! Inconsistency. I wish I knew more about DG boxes before buying them.

You'd expect German precision with this label, but DG's complete editions forget stuff and their presentation is erratic. Still, they have an undisputable legacy of good old stuff. I mean, complete editions of Jochum, Fricsay, Kubelik, it's hard to say no to that. There is some duplication. They issued a series of Argerich boxes, then a giant box of all the Argerich; more recently, they issued solo, chamber, and concerto boxes for Maria Joao Pires, and this fall they're doing...the complete Maria Joao Pires. Surely that's time they could have wasted on something else?

Wishlist: Now that I've got the Boston Box, I want another collection of Deutschamerikana: the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. And how about a complete Igor Markevitch collection?

Decca. Ugh, I hate Decca boxes. The CD sleeves are what bothers me: They just list the works on the disc, the artists, and that's it. No timings, no track listings, if you want information, look in the damn booklet. Half the time it doesn't even say "CD 6" in the corner. And they wouldn't be caught dead doing spines with summaries, like Sony does. Decca has some tempting stuff - I bought the Ashkenazy Artist's Choice with the pianist's favorites from his own work, and I'm kinda eying the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. But the missing attention to detail bothers me. For some reason their HIP Haydn Symphonies cycle, collecting Bruggen and Hogwood and Dantone, is an exception - the one time someone in charge actually cared?

Even worse is Decca's tendency to do "The _ Years" or "The _ Legacy" box sets that aren't actually the complete recordings available from the group/era in question. Like, they have a Blomstedt box, and I could probably enjoy a Blomstedt box...but it's not complete. Ditto their Kertesz box - not complete. The new ASMF is a "highlights" box, but with some record exec choosing the highlights, which is why there's a bunch of stuff with Joshua Bell instead of a deep dive into Marriner's 20th century neoclassical repertoire. I'd love a 20th Century Hogwood box, but if they ever did a Hogwood box I bet it would be "here's 25 Mozart and Haydn albums and like 5 modern things selected at random." Occasionally something unusual and rare and cool will make it into production, like the complete Cecile Ousset.

Naxos. Naxos is another label that has way different approaches to their different boxes. My complete Grieg piano works and complete Haydn masses are cap-tops, where most of the box comes off and you have a bunch of CD sleeves in a little stand. The Grieg sleeves all have pretty, over-colorized pictures of fjords; the Haydn is just track listings on a gray background. There's usually a pretty decent booklet. I'm a little curious about the complete Beethoven, which uses pride-rainbow colors to distinguish the composer's different genres against an all-white background, and the collected Maggini Quartet British music recordings. Hey, what happened to the Maggini Quartet?

Alpha. If the lack of track details on Decca CD sleeves make me a grumpy cat, you can only imagine how I felt getting Alpha's "Splendeurs de Versailles" box and discovering the sleeves have...literally nothing written on them except the program title. Boo. Stylish design, of course, because everything Alpha makes looks kinda cool.

Dacapo. You can tell that when this label makes a box set, it's a source of cultural/national pride and they put effort into making it handsome, well-notated, and generally worth your time.

BIS and Supraphon. Good booklets, utilitarian cheap paper sleeves for the CDs.

Brian

Quote from: Brian on May 12, 2020, 08:02:13 AM
CD 52 - "American Chamber Music" with Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Carter, Ives, Porter, Dvorak)
I've only listened to the Ives (a romantic miniature, not the crazy Ives many of us know and love/hate) and the Dvorak, which is the String Quintet Op. 77 with the optional intermezzo added. Seemed to be a really good recording until my CD started hopelessly skipping in the finale. I need to try it on a different player. There does appear to be a scratch on the outside edge. I'd be sad if I couldn't play this, as I love Op. 77 dearly. :(
Also a quick update to this note on the Boston SO box. The problem was with the CD player - this disc is 82 minutes and my cheaper player goes on the fritz after 80. The better one played it just fine. And last week I listened to Ozawa's complete Daphnis and it is grreeeeeaaaat, 10/10, maybe my new favorite over Monteux?

André

Good stuff, Brian !  Very useful info  :).

JBS

Quote from: Brian on August 09, 2020, 02:15:34 PM
META DISCUSSION

I thought it might be useful to discuss the presentation of the big box sets by the various different labels, and to air compliments and complaints about each label's general style.


Naxos. Naxos is another label that has way different approaches to their different boxes. My complete Grieg piano works and complete Haydn masses are cap-tops, where most of the box comes off and you have a bunch of CD sleeves in a little stand. The Grieg sleeves all have pretty, over-colorized pictures of fjords; the Haydn is just track listings on a gray background. There's usually a pretty decent booklet. I'm a little curious about the complete Beethoven, which uses pride-rainbow colors to distinguish the composer's different genres against an all-white background, and the collected Maggini Quartet British music recordings. Hey, what happened to the Maggini Quartet?


Naxos boxes.
The Beethoven box is very barebones. Any details you need to refer to the booklet. To be fair, some CD are so packed with fragments, ephemera, and short pieces that a CD back cover would not have space for a track listing.  Worst things about the contents: instead of Jeno Jando's complete sonata cycle they have 29 sonatas by Jando and the three sonatas Boris Giltburg recorded a couple of years ago; and the Grosse Fuge is performed by the Fine Arts Quartet on a CD devoted to miscellaneous fugues and canons instead of being performed by the Kodaly Quartet as part of the string quartet cycle.

The fact that those are the two worst things I can say about it should lead you to correctly infer I think it's a very good box. It's supercomplete: just about every note Beethoven wrote that has been preserved is included.  Some tracks are less than ten seconds long.  The liner notes concentrate on LvB's development through each genre rather than extended discussions of individual works.

The Maggini box CDs have the front and back covers of the original CDs printed on cardboard sleeves, and the liner notes collected into the booklet.
For some reason, the bulk of the box is taken up by composers whose name started with B. Perhaps they intended a comprehensive series but ran out of steam by the time they got to the letter C?  At any rate I think it's also a good box.

The Maggini Quartet is apparently still active. .Or at least has a website. 
http://maggini.net/wordpress2/

The original 2nd violinist, David Angel, died suddenly in 2017 (heart attack) and was succeeded by a gentleman named Ciaran McCabe. They have recorded for Meridian Records. The website mentions a recording of two of Beethoven's Op 18 quartets to be released this year, but the date on the announcement is 2016, so I don't know what impact Angel's death had on that.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Madiel

Quote from: Brian on August 09, 2020, 02:15:34 PM
Dacapo. You can tell that when this label makes a box set, it's a source of cultural/national pride and they put effort into making it handsome, well-notated, and generally worth your time.

The Holmboe string quartets box fails to have any track listings or information on the individual sleeves or the actual discs, beyond a CD number. All of the details you have to find in the booklet.

The 2 Nielsen boxes I have do not suffer the same problem.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Brian

Thanks for the comments and info so far, JBS and Madiel. Very interesting start to this discussion.  8)

Wonder why on earth Dacapo veered from their normal standard for the Holmboe.

staxomega

Anyone here pick up the Alban Berg Complete Warner set having problems playing the DVDs, and are they region 0? One reviewer on Amazon said some of the discs won't play. Thanks.

Brian

Confession: currently tempted by the Zubin Mehta Los Angeles Decca box.

Quote from: Brian on August 09, 2020, 02:15:34 PM
Sony/RCA Wishlist: I look forward to buying the eventual giant Ormandy box, and I'm also hoping for Slatkin/RCA and Fiedler/Boston Pops boxes. Conversely, I'm sad I missed buying the Reiner megabox. There are probably many more soloists to come, as well. Sony feels like the only label where there are whole chunks of back catalogue that I don't know about at all that they might spring on us as a total surprise. Hurwitz also interestingly lobbies for a reissue of Dick Hyman's Scott Joplin series, which apparently included a discussion disc with Eubie Blake talking you through how to do ragtime properly. Heck yeah.

Warner Wishlist: Ideally, instead of doing shit like "Previn: The LSO Years" with 10 random discs excerpted from the whole, they'll do the complete Previn LSO years. (Decca is even worse about this.) I will buy the complete Leif Ove Andsnes box, for sure.

Deutsche Grammophon Wishlist: Now that I've got the Boston Box, I want another collection of Deutschamerikana: the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. And how about a complete Igor Markevitch collection?

Decca Wishlist: Blomstedt San Francisco complete recordings, not highlights.
Update: DG will be releasing a Markevitch Big Box in 2021.

Here's an idle thought: what about a Grumiaux Decca/Philips/DG big box? That could potentially be quite the enjoyable doorstop.