This is a Japanese numbered limited edition box set featuring SHM-CDs of the complete Kenso collection. Each album comes in a nice mini-LP style sleeve. In addition to a nicely put together booklet, you get the 11 studio/live albums (don't forget Music For Unknown Musicians was a double) plus a CD with unreleased studio and live tracks, a live DVD…
The Pacifica Quartet address the more intimate side of Dimitri Shostakovich, particularly his quartets composed in the fateful years in the Soviet Union, 1952-1960. In 1948, Shostakovich, along with Prokofiev and Miaskovsky, had been excoriated as “formalists” incapable of direct communication with “the people.” Shostakovich, however, employed the string quartet medium as means of personal expression relatively unhampered by “political correctness.”……Gary Lemco @ Audiophile Audition
‘Mendelssohn in Birmingham’ is an exciting new recording project with the CBSO and its Principal Guest Conductor, Edward Gardner. It celebrates Mendelssohn’s special relationship with the city’s Town Hall and will feature the complete symphonies recorded there. It was a venue much loved by Mendelssohn and saw him conduct many of his own works there, including premieres. ‘Mendelssohn in Birmingham’ also encompasses a major concert series at the Town Hall which will run alongside these recordings.