# box sets you use and box sets you don't use



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Alydon's post - here: http://www.talkclassical.com/29240-history-classical-music-boxed.html#post561856 - got me to thinking about which box sets we listen to and which we don't….

In my case, the Brilliant Mozart box, the Brilliant Brahms box, the HM early music box, the Lumieres box set all just sit there, and I rarely listen to anything from it.

Some of the best purchases I've ever made were the two Mercury Living Presence boxes, the DHM 50 box, the Golden Age of the Romantic Piano Concerto box, and the Sony A Secret Labyrinth box (only 10 disks, maybe not "a big box" at that). Those boxes are never really far from me. (That's in a metaphorical sense, since I actually listen to the music through my computer!)

The Rubinstein Chopin box has a few things I might never listen to twice, but it was worth it for the better stuff. Ditto the Preston Bach organ box, the Gardiner Bach sacred box, and the Sony Beethoven box. The Brilliant Tallis box I rarely listen to, but I'm glad I got it and listened to it a few times anyway.

What are your best and worst - favorite and least favorite boxes?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

As I tend to listen to things at random after they have been encoded to mp3, my box sets get as much play as other CDs. Or at least have the same chance. Anything too egregious to hear gets deleted. But then I don't have too many of the Brilliant, 99 cent deals, etc.

(No spell checker at work? I'd better not use these big words!)


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I bought two boxes (I think they were only 2 and 3 discs, so maybe they don't count as "box sets"--but they were in boxes!) of the earliest Mozart symphonies recorded by Hogwood/Academy of Ancient Music way back when they were first released; never saw any reason to go back and listen to them a second time. To this day (25 or 30 years later) they sit in my collection mocking me.

My all-time favorite (again, only 3 CDs so maybe it doesn't count):









Really fun stuff. Includes pretty good performances on some really odd baroque instruments with a nice thick booklet explaining it all.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The only box set in my collection that suffers any kind of neglect is a 6-disc Handel chamber works compilation. I just seem unable to summon up as much enthusiasm for his chamber output as I can for his orchestral and choral works.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

- Brilliant Mozart: I hardly ever listen to this as most of the performances are pretty average, in my opinion. Shame the Complete Phillips editions is so expensive.
- Brilliant Brahms: Likewise... pretty average. However a complete Brahms on DG is about to be re-released and this will definitely be on my Christmas list! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Comp...97&sr=1-1&keywords=brahms+deutsche+grammophon
- Brilliant Beethoven: Excellent! Friedrich Gulda handles concertos and sonatas. An excellent symphony cycle from Kurt Masur. This is one of the few Beethoven purchases I've ever had to make.
- Brilliant Bach: Again excellent. Pieter-Jan Belder is Brilliant's top man when it comes to historically informed baroque music. (I also enjoy his Corelli and Scarlatti recordings.) Pieter Jan Leusink's cantata cycle is good as well, although I also have my eye on the Gardiner for comparison.
- Brilliant Haydn: Adam Fischer's symphonies are great but you can do a lot better with most of the chamber music. A personal favourite is the Aeolian Quartet, for example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-St...&qid=1385408105&sr=1-1&keywords=haydn+aeolian

So much for the Brilliant complete editions. In addition, my other absolute favourite box sets are:
- Fischer-Dieskau's Schubert Lieder: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schubert-Lieder-Franz/dp/B003CF0XDE/ref=pd_cp_m_h__0
- Anthony Rooley's Complete Works of John Dowland: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dowland-Col...d=1385407736&sr=1-2&keywords=john+dowland+box
- EMI's 30 Disc Vaughan Williams: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Wil...=1385407910&sr=1-10&keywords=vaughan+williams


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

I've got a lot out of the Brilliant Mozart box, although I have alternate recordings for my favourite pieces so I don't listen to it much any more. There's still a huge amount I haven't listened to though.
I don't have as big a collection as other people here, the only other big boxes I have are Julius Katchen's Brahms, Joerg Demus' Schumann, Maria Lettberg's Scriabin, and Boulez's complete works. All of those get a lot of play.


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## ShropshireMoose (Sep 2, 2013)

I've been lately gently ploughing through the Bruno Walter box, which I've enjoyed, and revisited several discs already. Then there's the box of Horowitz's Carnegie Hall recitals, this is stupendous, and is definitely one which I will return to again and again, ditto the EMI Cortot box. This latter is such a treasure trove of wonderful things, I had a good many of the recordings in some shape or other, but it's nice to have them all under one roof as it were, and anyone who's not got much, if any Cortot, I would urge them to get it, 40 CDs that you can get for just under 50 pounds on Amazon, with a lifetime of listening on them.
The EMI Elgar boxes, both the 30 cd set and the set of all Elgar's electrical recordings are a constant delight. Then there's the Beaux Arts Trio set of Haydn trios, EMI's Icon set of Pierre Fournier's recordings, RCA's complete set of Rachmaninoff's recordings, Dorati's Haydn Symphonies on Decca, the Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts that I had for my birthday this year on RCA. Come to think of it, there really aren't many boxes that I don't regularly dip into. I suppose though, that it helps that by the time the Brilliant boxes et al were coming out I'd already got near enough individual recordings of nearly everything by the major composers. There has to be some advantage to having been a record collector for 33 years, eh??


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

A music server set to random shuffle will guarantee you get the most out of all of your collection.

Another thing I've found about having a music server is that I judge based on performances now. I used to tend to favor full priced CDs and turn my nose up at Brilliant boxes. When I went to random shuffle, I have to look at my iPhone to see who was playing. Suddenly, a lot of things changed. My respect for Derek Han on the Brilliant Mozart box, Dorati and Gunther Wand went WAY up and Abbado, Neeme Jarvi and Gardiner got knocked down a few pegs. That box cover is a powerful placebo!


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Sometime around 2002 a local Wal-Mart-type store, one whose classical music section is usually 95% "best-of" knockoffs with roses on the cover, some how got hold of an end-of-line special on the boxes that comprise the 100 2-cd sets that make up the Philips Great Pianists Of The 20th Century series

...which they then proceeded to sell at two dollars a set, thinking them no different to the cheap rubbish they usually have.










I was considerable less familiar with these artists then than I am now, but I heard high praise of the series from the Penguin Guide, so I grabbed ten sets, found those to be amazing, and continued to go back grabbing more and more with the same amazement, until i decided to make a point of getting the lot. I enen talked one of the clerks into retrieving two presentation suitcases from the dumpster out back.

Anyway, those were a hell of an education and at an absurd price and I still play something from them regularly.

(Another clerk told me later that he'd never seen the classical section so swooped on or so busy as it was in those weeks.)


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I don't like those boxed sets with various composers in one set, so I haven't got any. If there's a work I want, I locate a fine album or set of the composer's works that has it. I am not going to panic if I don't have absolutely every work by a composer, nor if I have a bit of duplication. I think it's nicer to have a hand-chosen collection, than to have Walmart's 100CD _All the Classical You'll Ever Want_ for $99.99. Such sets are acceptable introductions to classical for those who don't want to take the time to select individual albums, but they usually end up collecting dust after the introductions have been made, so I don't feel that they are good investments, no matter how cheap they are.

I have a good number of boxed sets of specific works:

Schoenberg Complete Works for String Quartet
Webern Complete Works
Beethoven 9 Symphonies (2 sets)
Shostakovich Complete String Quartets
Mozart Quartets dedicated to Haydn and Quintets
Beethoven Violin Sonatas

...and many more.

I purchased them after carefully considering the availability of the pieces I wanted, the performers, price, etc. I listen to these albums all of the time. Each piece in each of these sets is as important to me as any piece on any single disc album in my collection. I chose these sets because they contain the works I want by performers I want on labels I want.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

brotagonist said:


> I think it's nicer to have a hand-chosen collection, than to have Walmart's 100CD _All the Classical You'll Ever Want_ for $99.99. Such sets are acceptable introductions to classical for those who don't want to take the time to select individual albums, but they usually end up collecting dust after the introductions have been made, so I don't feel that they are good investments, no matter how cheap they are.


Who is it you're responding to there? Nobody is advocating such a set. The "various composer" boxes I have are by artists I know I love or by labels whose house-style I know I love and can gamble on safely if the genre or theme is enticing me. Usually they contain three or four albums which you know you would have hand-picked at full price, and which already justify the entire bargain price - the rest throws up buried treasured and unexpected surprises.


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

SimonNZ said:


> Sometime around 2002 a local Wal-Mart-type store, one whose classical music section is usually 95% "best-of" knockoffs with roses on the cover, some how got hold of an end-of-line special on the boxes that comprise the 100 2-cd sets that make up the Philips Great Pianists Of The 20th Century series
> 
> ...which they then proceeded to sell at two dollars a set, thinking them no different to the cheap rubbish they usually have.
> 
> ...


That is one boxed set I would like to get my hands on - I think you got the bargain of the century there!


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