Favourite Big CD Boxes

[Petrushka]

I fear that this could be a very expensive thread!

[Beef Oven!]

I fear that this could be a very expensive thread!

I’ve already reckoned that I can get the three K boxes down to about £460!!!

Unjustfiable. I have most of it already, nearly all in sound quality that I’m perfectly happy with. Maybe a future download if the price ever goes easy.

[pastoralguy]

I’ve already reckoned that I can get the three K boxes down to about £460!!!

Unjustfiable. I have most of it already, nearly all in sound quality that I’m perfectly happy with. Maybe a future download if the price ever goes easy.

I had a lot of duplication but I gave my extra discs away to the son of a friend of mine who was going to study at the Royal Northern College of Music. Every time I leaf through those Karajan discs it takes me back to being a teenager trawling through Rae Mackintosh's stock on a Saturday morning in Edinburgh longing for the day I'd be able to afford them. I'm sure someone on Amazon calculated that to buy these discs in their original Lp appearance would have cost over £2k in 1980's money!

I do remember that my mother took me out for my 16th birthday and allowed me to buy 4 of these treasures! Happy days.

[Bryn]

I’ve already reckoned that I can get the three K boxes down to about £460!!!

Unjustfiable. I have most of it already, nearly all in sound quality that I’m perfectly happy with. Maybe a future download if the price ever goes easy.

I got the '60s box for £87.26 including p&p from amazon.fr earlier this year. The Operas box was from amazon.de for £62,24 a year ago. The Symphonies box was £27.60 for 38 CDs two years ago. Not so interested in the other boxes.

[Pulcinella]

I guess my favourite is the Sony Stravinsky box, not least because it is nice to be reunited with the original LP cover artwork.

[Bryn]

Good job there's a plural prod in the thread title.

Here's a few that are very special to me:

[HighlandDougie]

Whew! At least I can say that I don't have the John Cage piano music but I do have the others pictured in Bryn's post. I recently vowed that I wasn't going to add to them but then along came the encomia for Mozart 225 - tick - and in yesterday's post there came the DG Chopin box (and Kertesz's Dvorak last week). But that's it - at least for the next week.

[richardfinegold]

The duplication issue is a problem for us 'seasoned' record collectors, but when the boxes are so inexpensive, I find it easy to justify. I must of already possesed about 405 ofthe Phillips box, and of the remainder, there are several that don't interest me, but that still leaves about 15 discs that I have really enjoyed and that still makes the set a bargain. I seem to have drawn the line with the Living Stereo set, because I seem to own around 80% of the contents.
I remember a review of one of these boxes that speculated that these collections would be aimed at neophytes to record collecting, because people like us would already have so many of these recordings and not wish to encounter duplication. I guess the record companies had a better hand on the pulse of grizzled veterans such as ourselves; they know that we are willing to tolerate some duplication if in the end we find more treasure.

Other winners that I didn't mention: the Haydn Symphony set on Decca, which arrived a few weeks ago and splits the HIPP duties between Hogwood and Bruggen. I've only dipped my toe in it but gave away my the Adam Fischer set based on what I've sampled. The Du Pre EMI set introduced me to many recordings by her that I was unfamiliar with. Many of the Ormandy sets
have been revelations because I remember trying to hear the music despite the horrendous vinyl pressings (particularly his RCA recordings); shorn of those limitations it is possible to luxuriate in the Philadelphia sound.
The only one that I somewhat regret is purchasing two of the Rampal big boxes from Erato. Each disc individually has merit, even if the style seems so dated in the wake of the HIPP movement. Listening to more than 1 disc at a time can be a bit to much for this listener. So in small doses, a pleasure, and there are enough discs there to extend the small pleasure ad infinitum...
flute music for this listener

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Harmonia Mundi have given me most of the Big Boxes (10CDs = "Big", Bryn?) in my collection: Lumieres (Music of the Enlightenment) - 30CDs; Sacred Music - 30CDs; Opera Baroque - 42CDs. But the Mozart 225 box tops the lot: literally - I only had room on the top of the "bookcase" for it!

And they're all splendid collections, most of which (not the Mozza - yet; still playing my way through those for the first time) I have played several times each over the past couple of years.

[teamsaint]

The DSCH Edition 27 Cd Brilliant Classics box would take a fair bit of beating, though it seems to go for much higher prices now.

[Bryn]

Harmonia Mundi have given me most of the Big Boxes (10CDs = "Big", Bryn?)

If you mean the Cage. 10 volumes but 18 CDs. Not huge but it's big to me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If you mean the Cage. 10 volumes but 18 CDs. Not huge but it's big to me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The DSCH Edition 27 Cd Brilliant Classics box would take a fair bit of beating, though it seems to go for much higher prices now.

Crumbs! You've reminded me that I also have the Brilliant Classics 40CD boxes each devoted to Bach, Mendelssohn, and Schubert! Some very good performances and recordings in those boxes - but I don't play the contents of the Mendelssohn box nearly as often as those of the other two.

[gurnemanz]

I like the picture approach. These come to mind:

[MickyD]

Ah yes, that Real Chopin box is wonderful - and some of us got it for a snip when Amazon made a mistake with the price when it came out. About £10, if I remember correctly!