Warner Classics' epic box sets for classical collectorsWarner Classics' epic box sets for classical collectors
| Epic Box Sets for Christmas |
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| Bach: Keyboard Works (13 CDs)
| | | “One of the great interpreters of J.S. Bach,” was the New York Times’ description of the German organist and harpsichordist Helmut Walcha (1907-1991). Gramophone judged that “his coherence and inner logic as a Bach interpreter remain unsurpassed.” Walcha’s recordings of Bach’s major solo keyboard works, performed on the harpsichord, are gathered together in this superb collection. |
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| | | Beethoven: Symphonies (6 CDs) | Daniel Barenboim / Staatskapelle Berlin
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| | “I waited a very long time to record the Beethoven symphonies,” said Daniel Barenboim when this cycle was first released in 2000. “I waited for the music to mature in me – or me in it – and to find an orchestra that not only did what I asked it to do, but which really felt every detail in the music exactly as I did at the moment we were playing it… This is the greatest joy that a conductor can have.” |
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| | Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Bagatells (9 CDs) | | | “Nobody plays this music more authoritatively and eloquently,” wrote London’s Sunday Times of Stephen Kovacevich in Beethoven. Kovacevich himself has spoken of his love for the “fun and virtuosity” of the composer’s early sonatas, while in the often challenging later works he sees a “subtext of radiance and some sort of inherent faith in life.” |
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| | | | Brahms: Piano Works, Concertos, Chamber Music (10 CDs) | | | “Nicholas Angelich was born to play Brahms,” was the Daily Telegraph’s judgement on the American-born, French trained pianist, whose artistry is at the heart of this collection of concertos, chamber music and solo pieces. His collaboration with Renaud and Gautier Capuçon was praised by Gramophone as “sure to kindle anyone’s enthusiasm for Brahms”. |
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| | Chopin: Piano Works (10 CDs)
| | François was famed for bringing the intricacies of Chopin’s piano works to life in a way no performer had done since Chopin himself. Also featuring the Monte-Carlo National Opera Orchestra, conducted by Louis Frémaux, this collection includes some of Chopin’s greatest masterpieces, performed with spellbinding musicality by the eminent French pianist.
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| | | Debussy: Piano Works (5 CDs) | | | The affinity of Walter Gieseking for the music of Debussy is nothing less than legendary: “Debussy and Gieseking form an inseparable union where creator and recreator become one and the same person” (Gramophone). These miraculous recordings, dating from the early 1950s, continue to set a standard for the French master’s music. |
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| Haydn: 29 String Quartets (7 CDs)
| | These recordings have now been remastered in 24BIT-96kHz digital sound. “One has never heard them surpassed, and rarely equalled,” wrote The Times of Belgium’s Pro Arte Quartet in 1925. The ensemble’s pioneering project to record the complete Haydn quartets was interrupted by World War II, but their interpretations of the composer’s music were destined for immortality.
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| | Mahler: The Symphonies (12 CDs)
| | | “For Mahler,” Sir Simon Rattle has said, "the symphony is where you can tell the most important truths.” Spanning nearly two decades, these recordings of the complete symphonies, including Deryck Cooke’s completion of No.10, were made with the two ensembles most closely identified with Rattle’s name: the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker. |
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| Sibelius: The Symphonies (7 CDs)
| Paavo Berglund / Helsinki PO
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| | Paavo Berglund (1929-2012) recorded the complete symphonies of his great compatriot Sibelius no fewer than three times. This set, central in every respect, was made in the 1980s with the Helsinki Philharmonic and includes the early Kullervo and several tone poems. Berglund was renowned internationally as a master interpreter of Sibelius’s extraordinary music. In Gramophone’s words, he "allows the music to unfold in its own time without any loss of tension or excitement”. |
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| | Renaissance & Baroque (7 CDs)
| | | "The blend between the voices is finely controlled, the tone mellow and the tuning spectacularly accurate, giving rise to an organ-like sonority that is genuinely thrilling,” wrote Gramophone, praising the Hilliard Ensemble’s four singers, who excelled in an extraordinary variety of music over a 40-year career. This collection offers music by composers from England, France, Flanders and Germany from the Renaissance to the Baroque. |
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