Search For Beethoven The Collectors Edition 50 Cd at Amazon
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful. The Hungarian Quartet’s complete set, a Paris recording, was familiar from Seraphim lps. The Hungarian Trio, also a French production, was new to me, and fine. The rest of the recordings — Giulini (Missa), the Karajan FIDELIO — were more familiar. There is a sparse booklet, with only a list of the works and movements, disk by disk, and copyright dates. The packaging is poorly thought out, but can be managed with some reinforcement. This is my only complaint. Each Western nation has its own tradition of music-making, its own group of revered performers, its own stylistic preferences. Here are the performers whom the French admired in the days before globalized marketing. At the price of just over a dollar per cd, this is a true bargain. Anyone can prefer to hear Beethoven played differently, but this is, at least in part, a picture of a distinct musical culture at a moment in time, the fifteen years from 1959 to 1974. 26 of 29 people found the following review helpful. Good points- 2) Some very pleasant surprises in some of the more obscure works. If you’ve only heard the intro to the 5th Symphony and Moonlight Sonata would you have guessed that Beethoven did works for Mandolin and harpsichord, or variations on Scottish folk tunes? Bad points- 1)Very spartan packaging. All you get is the box, CDs in papaer sleeves and a small booklet listing the tracks. No biography, commentary or pictures. Certainly not a “deluxe” edition. 2) Piano Concertos 1 & 2 are in mono, and the viloin sonatas are in poor stereo that sounds like mono. 3)And, IN MY OPNION, some of the slower movements in the piano sonatas sound too hurried. People can vote “unhelpful” for that if they want, but I still feel that a few of piano works lose some of the emotional impact by just being played too fast. I don’t think they’re bad I just prefer some other interpretatons. In summary this box set represents a huge gold mine of great music for music lovers. |
A Fine Box of French Beethoven
20 years ago trying to get all this music on vinyl would have cost at least $1000, probably considerably more. Okay, maybe the idea of “budget Beethoven” might seem slightly tacky to some, but I’m not self conscious enough not to grab so much great music at such a low price.