Decca mono bumper box

[cloughie]

Not treading on toes at all! I'll give it a read-through and post a tidied up version here :)

Should make good reading - discs I have tried so far all good - the box should be sub-titled Ace of Clubs revisited!

[Barbirollians]

Tempting but having bought quite a few of those Original Masters boxes and all the Campoli reissues on Beulah there would be a good deal of duplication for me .

[makropulos]

Should make good reading - discs I have tried so far all good - the box should be sub-titled Ace of Clubs revisited!

Absolutely re Ace of Clubs. I see my piece is too long to post all in one go, so here is episode 1, so to speak.

The Decca Sound: Mono Years 1944-1956
Nigel Simeone

This is real treasure-trove from Decca’s mono catalogue. Sensibly, it avoids series that are readily available (such as Collins’s Sibelius symphonies, Boult’s Vaughan Williams symphonies or Krauss’s Richard Strauss), and there’s no opera or vocal music – a future box is promised for that. This celebration of Decca’s FFRR (Full-Frequency Range Recording) is cause for rejoicing on several fronts. First, as well orchestral repertoire, there is also good coverage of chamber music – so often neglected in these big boxes. Second, there is some unusual repertoire that I’d not necessarily expect to find in a set of this kind. Third, while there are plenty of classic records here, they’ve been chosen with care and supplemented with interesting bonus material. I started collecting records in the late 1960s, and many of my early purchases were on Decca’s Ace of Clubs or Eclipse labels, so there are a lot of old friends in this box, several of which I’ve not heard for decades. Listening them again has been much more than a nostalgic pleasure, and there are discoveries too, even for hard-core vinyl enthusiasts.

Orchestral
The orchestral recordings include some of Ernest Ansermet’s best mono discs, including one of Decca’s very first LPs – the first to be made available in Great Britain: Stravinsky’s Petrushka in a recording made in November 1949 with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR), first issued on LXT 2502 in 1950. It sounds remarkably bright and full for its age, and the performance is most atmospheric. Ansermet’s slightly effortful Rite of Spring from the following year is not in the same league. Roussel’s Spider’s Banquet recorded complete in 1954 is a delightful performance, as are its couplings: Roussel’s Petite Suite and 1953 recordings of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales and Le Tombeau de Couperin. Dukas’s La Péri (without Fanfare) was made with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra in 1954. The mono sound is pretty sumptuous for its day, and the performance is glorious (Testament has released the stereo tapes of this performance on SBT 1324). For the complete score with Fanfare, Ansermet’s OSR stereo remake of La Péri from 1958 (with the OSR) is readily available on Australian Eloquence (480 0041), but there’s even more character in this Paris recording. The couplings are Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead and Debussy’s Six Épigraphes antiques and Jeux, all with the OSR from 1953–4. Ataúlfo Argenta was just coming to international prominence in 1953 when he recorded Turina’s Danzas fantásticas and five movements from Albéniz’s Iberia orchestrated by Ernesto Halftter, both with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. The Turina is particularly thrilling thanks to Argenta’s ear for detail and colour, and his supple rhythmic control. These recordings remind us what a cruel loss his early death in 1958 was. The coupling is a delectable recording from 1951 of the suite from Poulenc’s Les Biches conducted by Roger Désormière, full of that great conductor’s elegance and flair. Wilhelm Backhaus was one of the biggest names in Decca’s catalogue in the 1950s, and his sensitive and characterful Beethoven ‘Emperor’ Concerto with Clemens Krauss and the Vienna Philharmonic is one to cherish. The couplings are two Haydn symphonies (Nos. 88 and 101) in which Karl Münchinger conducts the VPO in stylish and alert performances – something that was by no means the norm for Haydn in the early 1950s. The Croatian composer Krešimir Baranović’s ballet The Gingerbread Heart was composed in 1924. His Czech-born compatriot Fran Lhotka wrote The Devil in the Village ten years later. Both are attractive folk-inspired works, but Lhotka’s is perhaps the more interesting of the two (he was a pupil of Dvořák). The composers themselves conduct committed performances with the Belgrade PO and the Orchestra of Zagreb Opera. Eduard van Beinum’s records with the Concertgebouw Orchestra are much better known. His Bartók Concerto for Orchestra was recorded in 1948 (its first recording by a European orchestra), and though the sound is raw in places (particularly the trumpets), the performance is generally assured, even if it was eclipsed by the likes of Fricsay a few years later. Wilhelm Pijper’s concentrated and colourful Third Symphony has a concertante piano part played on van Beinum’s definitive recording by Clifford Curzon. The disc is completed by a radiant performance (in fine sound) of the suite from Diepenbrock’s Marsyas. I don’t know of a better performance of Bliss’s Colour Symphony than the composer’s own, recorded in 1955 with the LSO (the documentation suggests it’s with the LPO). This is a dazzling account, coupled with the Introduction and Allegro and the Violin Concerto (with are with the LPO). The soloist in the concerto is Alfredo Campoli, a violinist whose artistry is rightly celebrated in this box. His outstanding 1954 account of the Elgar Violin Concerto with Boult is extremely welcome, coupled with Boult’s recordings from the same year of Holst’s Perfect Fool, Butterworth’s Shropshire Lad and Banks of Green Willow and Bax’s Tintagel. Boult’s orchestral recordings for Decca included some Russian repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3, and Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, and The Love of Three Oranges with the LPO (again, the booklet is confusing, suggesting that both Prokofiev pieces are with the Parisian orchestra). These are delightful performances: Sir Adrian always had a soft spot for the Tchaikovsky, and his zestful versions of the Prokofiev pieces are always engaging. Boult’s 1954 recording of Vaughan Williams’s Job with the LPO is magnificent, a reading on a par with his later stereo version with the LSO in terms of its nobility and insights. There is a rightness about everything here, including the organ entry at the climax of the ‘Vision of Satan’ heard here in all its glory (in the LSO version Boult opted for VW’s alternative with the organ doubled by the orchestra at this point). The coupling is the fine Boult–LPO recording of the Wasps Suite, also from 1954. Decca has done Britten proud in the last couple of years, so there’s only one disc devoted to his music here, but it’s well chosen: the composer’s first (Danish Radio SO) recording of the Sinfonia da Requiem along with his only recording of the Diversions (with Julius Katchen and the LSO), and van Beinum’s Concertgebouw records of the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes and the Young Person’s Guide. Campoli is soloist in Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole with the LPO conducted by van Beinum (1953) on a disc that also includes the violin and piano recital recorded by Campoli and Eric Gritton as a tribute to Fritz Kreisler in 1954. Anthony Collins’s complete recording of Walton’s Façade with Edith Sitwell and Peter Pears and the English Opera Group Ensemble is still among the most convincing versions of this work, and the ‘bonus’ material is a delight: Robert Irving and the LSO in the two orchestral suites from Façade and Constant Lambert’s Horoscope – a disc that was originally released to celebrate the Coronation in 1953. Irving’s vibrant Horoscope was a disc I cherished on Eclipse and it’s great to have it in a good transfer. Collins’s finest achievement for Decca was his Sibelius symphony cycle, but that’s readily available. Instead, this set includes some of his recordings of British orchestral music: Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Serenade for Strings and a particularly impressive Falstaff, along with Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Greensleeves.

[makropulos]

Part 2:
退退combination of Clifford Curzon, Eduard van Beinum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Brahms’s D minor Piano Concerto is outstandingly successful: van Beinum secures playing of electrifying tension where necessary and characterizes the orchestral writing so imaginatively, while Curzon is at his magisterial best (as he was for Szell a decade later in stereo), and the sound has come up well. The generous coupling is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Josef Krips conducting – a cultivated and unobtrusively impressive account. In the 1930s, Robert F. Denzler conducted the world premières at the Zurich Opera of two major works that couldn’t be given in Germany at the time: Berg’s Lulu and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler. His best-known record is probably Honegger’s Symphonie liturgique and Chant de joie with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. It’s good to have this sincere and committed performance restored to circulation here. For a few years this was the recording of choice for the Liturgique (before Serge Baudo’s Czech PO version appeared in the early 1960s). The couplings are Swiss rarities: The Viola Concerto by Conrad Beck (Walter Kägi with the OSR under Jean Meylan) – a pupil of Ibert who worked for many years at Swiss Radio – and Bernard Reichel’s Concertino for piano and orchestra, an well-crafted modal piece, played by Christiane Montandon with the OSR under Edmond Appia. Mischa Elman’s Beethoven Violin Concerto with Solti and the LPO (1955) is a curious affair. Solti does his best to maintain some musical tension, but Elman is wayward and, to my ears, rather mannered. Elman uses his own cadenza, which adds curiosity value. The coupling of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102 with Solti and the LPO in 1951 is altogether more successful (for more early Solti, see below). In the Brahms Violin Concerto the young Christian Ferras (then in his early 20s) is partnered by the Vienna Philharmonic under Carl Schuricht in a reading where the soloist is almost too self-effacing, but which has the benefit of Ferras’s natural musicality and an accompaniment from Schuricht that is warm and responsive. It’s a most enjoyable account that I’d never heard before. The couplings are two Ferras rarities: the Violin Concerto by Federico Elizalde and the Concierto de estio by Rodrigo. Ferras recorded the Elizalde in 1947, when he was 14 and the work was memorably (if a touch wickedly) described by Lionel Salter as a ‘poor man’s Symphonie espagnole’. The Rodrigo is an attractive piece and both works are well played. Anatole Fistoulari was a superb conductor of ballet music (think of his Mercury recording of Delibes’s Sylvia), and in this set he conducts Dorati’s Graduation Ball based on music by Johann Strauss (with the New Symphony Orchestra) and two suites from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker (with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra). The couplings are a suite of Gluck dances arranged by Felix Mottl and a similar confection of Grétry arranged by Constant Lambert (both New SO and Robert Irving), and the suite from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty with the Paris Conservatoire under Roger Désormière.

Thomas Jensen is represented by some very fine recordings of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Danish State Radio SO. Sibelius’s Four Legends Op. 22 are atmospheric and searching, coupled with a bracing and hugely enjoyable Karelia Suite. Jensen’s towering, elemental version of Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony – one of the all-time-great Nielsen records – is coupled with the Flute and Clarinet Concertos in idiomatic performances by Gilbert Jespersen and Ib Erikson, both conducted by Mogens Wöldike. Eric Tuxen was another conductor who recorded for Decca with the Danish State Radio SO in the early 1950s. His Prokofiev Fifth Symphony is straightforward and a touch wiry in terms of sound, and the playing is rather unpolished. Sibelius’s Fifth is another matter. This is a most original performance, and one that takes its time. I’m very persuaded by the expansiveness and inexorable sense of growth in Tuxen’s first movement and by his overall conception of the symphony. The sound is a vast improvement on the murky Eclipse transfer that I knew on LP. Erich Kleiber’s VPO ‘Eroica’ Symphony was included in Decca’s recent ‘Wiener Philharmoniker Edition’, and here we have two more of his Beethoven symphonies: the ‘Pastoral’ with the LPO from 1948 (coupled with Clemens Krauss’s recordings of the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan and the Good Friday Music from Parsifal), and the Ninth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic recorded in 1952 – a superbly judged performance, played with great concentration and with fine soloists (Hilde Gueden, Sieglinde Wagner, Anton Dermota and Ludwig Weber) in the finale. This was one of the great early LP recordings of the Ninth Symphony, with a particularly dramatic and incisive first movement. Hans Knapperstsbusch’s VPO recordings for Decca included several Bruckner symphonies. Of these, the Third (made in April 1954) is a version that has been reissued less often than his Fourth and Fifth but I find it more convincing than either. It is coupled with the Overture and Venusberg Music from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. A treasurable disc of French repertoire played by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra includes suites by Bizet (Jeux d’enfants and Jolie fille de Perth) and Chabrier (Suite pastorale) in vital and stylish performances conducted Edouard Lindenberg that were new to me. The couplings include Chabrier’s staggeringly lovely Ode à la Musique with soprano Janine Micheau and the Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur giving an exquisite performance conducted by Jean Fournet who is also in charge of Debussy’s La Damoiselle élue (with Micheau and Janine Collard as soloists), and two extracts from Chabrier’s Le Roi malgré lui. Moura Lympany was one of Decca’s leading pianists in the 1950s, and a disc of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (New SO, Collins) and Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto (LPO, Fistoulari). The 1952 recording of the Khachaturian is particularly fine (the flexatone comes over well in the slow movement), and Lympany and Fistoulari are a hugely impressive partnership: this is one of the finest versions of the work on record. Peter Maag’s 1951 disc of Mozart Symphonies Nos. 28 and 29 with the OSR was described by Andrew Porter in 1953 as ‘one of the most desirable of all Mozart records’ and it’s hard to disagree. The coupling is Maag’s equally attractive recording of the Serenade in D K203 with the New Symphony Orchestra made in 1955. Jean Martinon’s finest records are mostly from the stereo era, but here we have his enjoyable and detailed readings of two suites from Lalo’s ballet Namouna with the LPO, coupled with Fauré’s Ballade and Françaix’s Concertino in which the soloist is Kathleen Long. Four solo piano pieces by Fauré (also played by Long) complete the disc.

Boyd Neel recorded Handel’s twelve Concerti grossi Op. 6 between 1950 and 1953, with his own orchestra and Thurston Dart as the continuo player. These performances are very much of their time but they are an enjoyable reminder of Neel’s work during the post-war period. So, too, is his brisk and sprightly 1954 recording of the Water Music (16 movements). Ruggiero Ricci was one of the star violinists in Decca’s catalogue in the 1950s and his disc of Paganini’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with the LSO under Anthony Collins reveals a soloist at the top of his form (including a dazzling cadenza by Sauret in the first movement of No. 1). Georg Solti recorded for Decca from 1947 onwards. His 1954 recordings of two Mozart symphonies (No. 25 and No. 38) with the LPO are swift and intense, with a strong sense of forward momentum. The same can be said of his Haydn Symphony 100. Solti was even more in his element with Bartók (Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta) and Kodály (Háry János Suite), both recorded in 1955. Though there are later Solti performances of both works, there’s a unique keenness and relish in the mono accounts. Piero (then Pierino) Gamba was not yet 20 when he conducted the LSO in a lively programme of Rossini Overtures which is missing only the last ounce of wit and fizz that the greatest Rossini conductors bring to this music.

[makropulos]

And finally...

Chamber and Instrumental
Clifford Curzon and three members of the Amadeus Quartet recorded Mozart’s two Piano Quartets in 1952, performances that still stand up well (unless you are allergic to Norbert Brainin’s vibrato), above all for Curzon’s miraculous playing. The recorded sound of the strings is sometimes a little wiry, but these are versions I’d never want to be without. The coupling is the Horn Quintet K407 with Dennis Brain and members of the Griller Quartet recorded in 1944. Pierre Fournier and Wilhelm Backhaus are a majestic duo in the two Brahms Cello Sonatas: this 1955 recording is still one of the most impressive of these great works, thanks to the overall vision that Fournier and Backhaus bring to them, as well as the peerless authority of the playing. As a filler Bach’s Sonata in G major BWV1027 (originally for viola da gamba and harpsichord) is played on cello and piano by Fournier and Ernest Lush. Maurice Gendron recorded for Decca at the same time, and his performance of Schubert’s ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata with Jean Françaix is subtle and expressive, and beautifully phrased. The original coupling is preserved: Schumann’s Fantasiestücke Op. 73 and Romances Op. 94. To this has been added Gendron’s recording of the Schumann Cello Concerto with Ansermet and the OSR. The Griller Quartet is a legendary ensemble, its recordings of first four quartets by Ernst Bloch (he wrote a fifth in 1956, two years after these records were made) had almost mythic status thanks to the rarity of the LPs. Eventually Decca reissued this set on CD and it’s great to have it all here, on two discs. These are performances of extraordinary understanding and sympathy: the players seem to live and breathe every phrase of this music as if it was their own, and it’s impossible to imagine more persuasive advocacy of these pieces. Friedrich Gulda recorded extensively for Decca in the 1950s, including an outstanding Beethoven sonata cycle from which we have the ‘Hammerklavier’ Op. 106 and ‘Les Adieux’ Op. 81a, along with the ‘Eroica’ Variations. In ‘Les Adieux’, Gulda’s poetic sensibility allied to a strong sense of structure and purpose produces memorable results, and his status as a great philosopher-virtuoso is clear from the remarkable ‘Hammerklavier’. As well as recording British ensembles such as the Amadeus and the Griller, Decca also made records with leading European quartets. The Quartetto Italiano recorded Haydn’s Op. 64 No. 6 and Boccherini’s Op. 6 No. 1 in 1948, and Schumann’s Op. 41 No. 2 and Verdi’s String Quartet in 1950, the latter a particularly fine performance, utterly natural and unforced. The Danish Koppel Quartet recorded Nielsen’s String Quartet No. 4 and Holmboe’s String Quartet No. 3 in 1954 and these rarely-heard works are played with winning conviction even if there’s occasionally an unyielding quality to the phrasing. The glory of this disc is the ‘bonus’: the Griller Quartet’s 1950 recording of Sibelius’s Voces Intimae Quartet – an outstandingly thoughtful and persuasive account of this haunting work. Nikita Magaloff’s complete recording of Granados’s Goyescas was recorded in Geneva in 1952 and it deserves to be much better known. This is some of the most haunting and poetic Granados playing one could ever hope to hear, delicate, half-lit and exquisitely coloured and characterized – it was a major find for me, as I’d not heard this version before. The Canadian-born cellist Zara Nelsova made some important records for Decca (all reissued in an Original Masters box, now deleted), and among these Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata with Arthur Balsam is one the finest: it’s a performance of tremendous poetry and beautifully judged control. There are many more extravagant readings, but this one is unusually cogent and compelling. The couplings include Nelsova’s impressive accounts of Kodály’s Sonata for solo cello Op. 8 and Reger’s Suite No. 2 for unaccompanied cello Op. 131c. The Quintetto Chigiano is all but forgotten today but its chamber music recordings were widely admired at the time. This remarkable ensemble is featured on two discs in this box. The first includes the piano quintets by Shostakovich (aptly austere) and Bloch (colourful and splendidly flamboyant). A second disc includes two quintets by Boccherini and a memorable 1951 account of the Brahms Piano Quintet. The sound is good for its age and this richly satisfying performance, full of interpretative insights, attention to detail an d collective flexibility stands high among the most musically rewarding discs of this work. Another great Italian chamber group, the Trio di Trieste recorded for HMV in the 1940s, and for DG from 1959 (its first record for DG was their incomparable Ravel Trio), but in the 1950s they made a handful of records for Decca. This set includes two of them on a single disc: Beethoven’s ‘Archduke’ and Brahms Piano Trio Op. 8 in spacious and sonorous accounts that combine wisdom, drama and supreme technical assurance. In 1953 the Végh Quartet recorded Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 (From My Life), and Kodály’s striking (and rather neglected) String Quartet No. 2 – a record that shows these great players at their freshest and most engaging. Schubert’s A minor String Quartet D804 is not quite on the same inspired level. The Vienna Octet – led by Willy Boskovsky – was perhaps the chamber ensemble with which Decca had its closest relationship in the 1950s and 60s. Mozart’s Divertimento in D K334 was recorded in 1950, and the Divertimento in F K247 two years later. They make a delightful pairing. The second Vienna Octet disc includes two performances from June 1953 that are both exceptional. Mendelssohn’s Octet is given with such energy and refinement that only the slightly shrill recording in any way disappoints, though the ear quickly adjusts. But the second work is Desert-Island stuff: Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet with Alfred Boskovsky as the soloist. His stereo remake is extremely good but this earlier version is sublime. Put simply (and personally) it’s one of the greatest records of chamber music I’ve ever heard. The sense of understated melancholy and autumnal poetry is caught here as on no other recording I know, and the effect is supremely eloquent. It’s the perfect choice with which to end this survey.

I hope it’s clear just how rewarding this box is, and how many hours of enjoyment can be had from dipping into. The booklet is well illustrated and includes well-informed essays by Michael Gray and Raymond McGill (who also deserves considerable praise for choosing the records in this box). Quite a few of the records in this box are receiving their first international release on Decca, so this collection is enterprising as well as a highly satisfying. Inevitably, there are some names from Decca’s mono catalogue that I would like to have seen (such as Albert Wolff, Karl Böhm, Julius Katchen and Peter Katin), and I regret that none of Jeanne Demessieux’s wonderful records of organ music have been included (Bach, Liszt, Franck, Widor). But this is to split hairs, since what we have is a delight for any devotees of early LPs, well transferred, well selected and beautifully presented in facsimiles of the original jackets (Decca 478 7946, fifty-three discs, approx. 60 hours).

[verismissimo]

One door closes and another one opens. Thanks, makropulos!

[mathias broucek]

+1

[pastoralguy]

+1

+ another one!

[cloughie]

Good review, mak. I too would have liked inclusion of others - Denzler's Chausson Sym and Wolff's Glazunov Seasons 'though I think both were mono only on LXT/SXL but mono ACL then genuine Stereo on ECS. Nevertheless a good big box and we may get another or some more gems on Eloquence.

[teamsaint]

Thanks for posting that terrific review, Mak.

Sold !!!!!
Incidentally, folks might be interested to know that the entire ( I think) Decca Analogue boxes are available to hear on spotify. Just listening to the Monteux Sibelius 2, and even on Spotty free version it sounds superb.

[makropulos]

Good review, mak. I too would have liked inclusion of others - Denzler's Chausson Sym and Wolff's Glazunov Seasons 'though I think both were mono only on LXT/SXL but mono ACL then genuine Stereo on ECS. Nevertheless a good big box and we may get another or some more gems on Eloquence.

I hope we get more too. By the way, Wolff Glazunov Seasons is on an Eloquence set (4802388). I suppose my ideal might have been a big box with only chamber music, but I can see that Decca needs to have an eye on the market too. What the booklet does promise is a mono opera/vocal/choral box. There's lots of scope for interesting things there, especially a whole raft of song recitals (Danco, early Sozay, Kolassi, Jennifer Vyvyan and plenty more).

[cloughie]

I hope we get more too. By the way, Wolff Glazunov Seasons is on an Eloquence set (4802388). I suppose my ideal might have been a big box with only chamber music, but I can see that Decca needs to have an eye on the market too. What the booklet does promise is a mono opera/vocal/choral box. There's lots of scope for interesting things there, especially a whole raft of song recitals (Danco, early Sozay, Kolassi, Jennifer Vyvyan and plenty more).

Thanks for info on the Glazunov - missed my radar!

[Alain Maréchal]

More thanks to makropulos from me, but he has left me with a dilemna. Two in fact (what's the plural in English?):

1. Since I have most of them on Vinyl, can I justify 110 Euros? answer: probably, with a little mental agility. (I don't really need new summer clothes anyway).
2. The greater problem. How would I smuggle the box into the house, and how would I then hide it? Surely not a problem unknown to others who read the CD threads.

A possible solution: is there a download in CD quality, and if so how do I find it. Downloads take up little space, nor do they arrive in a bulky box.

Oh the anxiety!

[Dave2002]

More thanks to makropulos from me, but he has left me with a dilemna. Two in fact (what's the plural in English?):

1. Since I have most of them on Vinyl, can I justify 110 Euros? answer: probably, with a little mental agility. (I don't really need new summer clothes anyway).
2. The greater problem. How would I smuggle the box into the house, and how would I then hide it? Surely not a problem unknown to others who read the CD threads.

A possible solution: is there a download in CD quality, and if so how do I find it. Downloads take up little space, nor do they arrive in a bulky box.

Oh the anxiety!

Do you still work? I have a friend/former colleague who used to get things sent to his work place, including some quite high value items. The snag is that things can go astray, or be stolen!

Once the parcel has been delivered it should surely be possible to import it into your house inside a case or shopping bag.
Problems may arise if you have things sent home, and you are not in, or cannot intercept the postman. Not that I have any experience of this, of course.

In the long run you may find out that your family know about all this anyway, and are amused by your behaviour - providing you don't overdo it! You may not find out for years.

[Alain Maréchal]

Clearly, Dave, you do not have a spouse with x-ray vision and the ability to notice within seconds when a shelf has "moved along". However, a trip away without me is coming up! I think I could manage the delivery, and as for the hiding away part: copy to hard drive, originals down to the cave. Just my conscience about those 110 Euros now- that behaviour would not amuse.