# Best CD For New Year Gift



## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Hello People,

I was given the privilege of choosing a New Year gift and I want to buy a box of CD of a Violinist or on violin music. It can be up to $100 dollars (though I don't want to let my parents pay over $50, actually). I want the box to contain a lot of music so that this gift can maintain my happiness until the next year when I can get a new box. It is better to be a violinist's complete recordings or something similar. I have been checking up David Oistrakh's Complete EMI Recordings by Warner, and I feel like that is a splendid box. Also it has very good reviews from other people even including the controversial David Hurwitz. Is there any other options that I should consider? (I know there is a Heifetz Complete Studio Recordings, but the price of that box is around $1365, so only Heifetz himself could afford that box...)

Kevin


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Indeed, the 17 disc Oistrakh box set is a fine addition to one's collection. It has been in mine for many years. It provides a ready compendium of what is generally considered the core works of the violin repertoire (concertos and chamber music), with the exception of the Bach works. Sound quality on some of the earliest recordings will not be up to current state of the art standards, but there is likely more worth in a great violinist performing with poor sound than a poor violinist performing with great sound. Yet, overall, the recordings are fine. I cherish this set, you will too.









You can see a full track list at Discogs.

If you love classical violin music, you'll want to add the Bach works to your collection. I have several sets of the solo violin music, but I return again and again to the recordings of Nathan Milstein.









For the concertos, there is the classic Isaac Stern recording.









Though there are recordings critics may consider more "authentically Baroque" and in the style of Bach performance of his own day, the Stern is a rousing set that provides a great introduction to music that is great in so many ways that no one recording can ever capture it all.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

You'll have a hard time beating that Oistrakh box. It's worth it for the Brahms, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Tartini alone. It doesn't give you his best performance of the Shostakovich concerto, though.

I don't think it trumps the Oistrakh box, but something else to be aware of is this budget box of Hilary Hahn's early recordings on Sony. The performances are uniformly fine, and it gives you a nice mix of newer and older, standard repertoire and less standard. The Stravinsky concerto is a personal favorite.

















If Pentatone were to box up all of Julia Fischer's early recordings, that would also be highly recommendable.


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## Michael122 (Sep 16, 2021)

Get box sets, or a few individual CDs, from any of these violinists:
Eugene Fodor {This guy is outstanding and overlooked.},
Joshua Bell, Nigel Kennedy, and David Garrett.
To be happy for the entire year {and maybe the next}, recommend you get a couple CDs by each of them.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I'm just gonna throw this out there, and it's probably not what you're interested in, but if you don't mind a single composer rather than performer, then the Complete Locatelli would give you a hell of a bang for the buck.

"Pietro Antonio Locatelli was one of the most important composers of the Baroque period, being a particularly celebrated composer of violin repertoire. His collection L'arte del violino contains 12 violin concertos with 24 caprices in the first and last movement of each, allowing for astonishing displays of virtuosity."

21 CDs of music. And right now it's something like 40% off the list price:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8075814--locatelli-complete-edition


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

So there is actually another question on David Oistrakh's complete EMI recordings. I do not see any recording of Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Is that a pity that I don't get Tchaikovsky in this box?


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

KevinW said:


> So there is actually another question on David Oistrakh's complete EMI recordings. I do not see any recording of Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Is that a pity that I don't get Tchaikovsky in this box?


It's definitely a pity, but that shouldn't sour you on the box. Oistrakh is very very good in the Tchaikovsky concerto, and you'll want to hear him play it, but I don't think he's obviously head and shoulders above the competition. It's a work that's been recorded so often and so well by so many folks.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

John Zito said:


> It's definitely a pity, but that shouldn't sour you on the box. Oistrakh is very very good in the Tchaikovsky concerto, and you'll want to hear him play it, but I don't think he's obviously head and shoulders above the competition. It's a work that's been recorded so often and so well by so many folks.


I can find his Tchaikovsky VC recording on YT and Idagio, so it doesn't really matter.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Perhaps this 10 CD set:


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

John Zito said:


> I don't think it trumps the Oistrakh box, but something else to be aware of is this budget box of Hilary Hahn's early recordings on Sony. The performances are uniformly fine, and it gives you a nice mix of newer and older, standard repertoire and less standard. The Stravinsky concerto is a personal favorite.
> 
> View attachment 162332
> 
> ...


I'll 2nd this suggestion. Great stuff.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

Henryk Szeryng In Concert on Decca
Basic violin concerto repertoire performed in top form with great conductors in excellent sound (mostly on Philips label, the rest on Mercury).


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