A Fine Pair

This whopping 30-CD box set gathers together the best of Trojan's three-disc box set series. Included are the Ska, DJ, Dub, Instrumentals, Jamaican Superstars, Lovers, Producer Series, Rocksteady, Roots, and Tribute to Bob Marley volumes, each of which can be found under Trojan Box Set for their individual reviews. What's lacking here is a booklet with additional notes and information; the bulk seems to demand some extra coverage and care, yet all that's here are the original notes of each volume – only as much text as can fit on the back of the CD sleeves.

This Naxos CD was released in 1998 and features 1995 recordings of Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4 with the considerable bonus of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43. As is often the case with Naxos orchestral recordings of this vintage, the sound is a little distant but opens up to reveal more than adequate engineering at higher volume levels.

The popularity of the film Tous les matins du monde (All the Mornings of the World) has revived the fortunes of the shadowy composer named Sainte-Colombe, who was active in the late seventeenth century. The film was largely fictitious, but subsequent research, much of it nicely summarized in the notes to this disc, has shed light on who Sainte-Colombe might have been, and has shown that the filmmakers, and the novelist (Pascal Quignard) who wrote the novel on which Tous les matins du monde was based, made some good guesses about him.

This is a very convenient coupling of the two concertos played by Moravec and recorded in 1988 and 1989. The recordings need to be played at a slightly higher playback setting, 2 decibels or so, for them to have full impact. If this is not done the orchestral sound in particular can seem rather spongy, especially noticeable at the very start of the first concerto ans in particular as regards the lower strings and timpani. So long as the volume level is raised as suggested, the recording is OK.