# "Great Pianists of the 20th Century": is it worth it???



## luismsoaresmartins

While looking on amazon for another recording, I've found these boxsets:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Pianists-20th-Century-Complete/dp/B00002EITP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301929264&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Pianists-20th-Century-Complete/dp/B00002EITT/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1301929264&sr=8-16

I wonder: they are extremely expensive, but are they worth the money???
I'm no expert on piano, but a compilation like these is something amazing. However, some reviews complain about the info provided with the cd's, the selection of the recordings, and their overall quality.
Any thoughts on that?
Cheers, Luís Martins.


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## Webernite

I don't own this set, but it looks expensive and not very good. I certainly wouldn't buy it myself.


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## Air

It is a great set, but my advice to you is to get the individual sets at a much cheaper price. There's a lot of jewels in there but from what I hear, there is also a lot of chaff. For starters, get the Michelangeli and the Josef/Rosina Lhevinne compilations. There is also some of the best Prokofiev by Richter on this series, though I'd think twice about getting his Beethoven on Philips as it doesn't stand any ground compared to the Leipzig recordings.


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## Ralfy

They were sold individually several years ago and I bought a few titles on sale. Some of the recordings aren't very good.


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## nickgray

If you're into ridiculously huge boxsets, get something like this instead:

http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Ultimat..._1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301941992&sr=1-1-catcorr

http://www.brilliantclassics.com/release.aspx?id=FM02095141

or for that matter, almost any Brilliant Classics box. They're cheap and the price/quality ratio is pretty good.

And if you ask me, this Great Pianists of the 20th Century does not worth the not. Afaik, it's actually out of print. Just go download it from avaxhome or something if you really want it.


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## Edward Elgar

A good university should have these CDs in its library. It would be cheaper to pay the university fees to gain access to them than actually buying them!


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## Delicious Manager

nickgray said:


> Just go download it from avaxhome or something if you really want it.


Isn't AvaxHome an illegal file-sharing site?


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## Air

Delicious Manager said:


> Isn't AvaxHome an illegal file-sharing site?


It links to Rapidshare, and there have been no successful lawsuits against Rapidshare downloaders yet. The same can be said about Megaupload and Mediafire. But yes, they are illegal.


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## nickgray

Delicious Manager said:


> Isn't AvaxHome an illegal file-sharing site?


The material is hosted on other websites, so it's as much illegal as google. It's also not a p2p site, again, the material is simply hosted on other websites, no bittorrent or anything like that. As for the illegality of it, well, immoral and illegal are two different things. Sometimes vastly different. I can say from personal experience that if this so-called "piracy" didn't exist I wouldn't be the same person I am today. I can't afford buying music, software, video, simple as that. 1 download != 1 lost sale. Also, file sharing sites aren't only about free stuff, they're also about convenience and ease of access. What's the point of buying a rare recording for some $50 via ebay? It's long out of print, all the musicians are long dead, you're only encouraging speculation. File sharing is not about doing something illegal, it's about, well, sharing.


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## Philip

Edward Elgar is right, my university's music library has this boxset and I'm fairly happy I didn't have to purchase it.


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## harmony

A German court ordered RapidShare to implement measures to prevent illegal file sharing in 2010.
Wikipedia states the legal issues in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidShare
As time goes on, actions protecting copyright owner's rights would be strengthen.
http://www.pineclassics.com provides public domain classical music.
This site would be useful for European peoples not US.


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## nickgray

harmony said:


> A German court ordered RapidShare to implement measures to prevent illegal file sharing in 2010


Yeah, but it's a Swiss site. And it actually won this court case - the court ruled that RapidShare couldn't be held liable for copyright infringement.



> As time goes on, actions protecting copyright owner's rights would be strengthen.


But these actions have no effect at all. They look more like convulsion of this huge greedy monster that record companies are. The world has changed, the technology has changed, the music industry has not. These guys still want to sell CDs at a controlled price (a ridiculously high price) via retail stores and gain enormous profit. Well, nowadays you can make a damn good sounding music at home and simply sell it via your own website. Nowadays you can freely download gigabytes of music by simply doing a couple of clicks with your left mouse button. Music industry doesn't want to face this one simple fact: technology moves forward. But then again, these are greedy people who'll do anything to keep their hands on this business.


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