Chicago Chicago IX

A comprehensive survey of classical music - for the casual listener, this might be all the classical music you need in your collection; for others this provides a starting point for further exploration. Unlike many collections of this sort, most of these 30 discs contain performances by some of biggest names in classical music. Included are: Bach's Complete Brandenburg Concertos; Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; Beethoven's Symphonies 5 and 9, plus the Piano Concertos #4 and 5; Symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms; concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Mendelssohn; music by Ravel, Handel, Gershwin, Debussy, Moussorgsky. Performers include Horowitz, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Boulez, Szell, the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and many more.

A comprehensive survey of classical music - for the casual listener, this might be all the classical music you need in your collection; for others this provides a starting point for further exploration. Unlike many collections of this sort, most of these 30 discs contain performances by some of biggest names in classical music. Included are: Bach's Complete Brandenburg Concertos; Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"; Beethoven's Symphonies 5 and 9, plus the Piano Concertos #4 and 5; Symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms; concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Mendelssohn; music by Ravel, Handel, Gershwin, Debussy, Moussorgsky.

A work with a name like this can only be unusual. The opus in question is a three-part solo piano epic, lasting a shade under four hours and of a complexity to match. Combine an all-night raga sequence with Bach's Art of Fugue and you're getting close. Is it worth the listen? Yes, if you want to give your heart and mind–not just your brain–a real workout. For all his outsize demands, Sorabji was a front-rank pianist, who understood technique as a physical end to spiritual means. There are stretches of manic complexity here, but also passages of real poetry: try the lengthy "Interludium primum" which opens Part 2, or many of the 81(!) variations which follow the magisterial "Passacaglia" in Part 3. It's music which cries out for transcendental virtuosity, and Geoffrey Douglas Madge gives it just that. He gave four performances over six years and this Chicago one from 1983 assumed mythic status among those who heard it. Remastered for CD release, it is awe-inspiring in its grasp of what's gone into this music: the audience clearly living it with the pianist every step of the way. Hear it for yourself, then why not run the marathon or climb Everest for relaxation?

From the outset of his recording career, Maurizio Pollini has championed modern music – in benchmark accounts of Bartók, Boulez, Manzoni, Nono, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern, to which can be added his later recordings of Debussy and Berg. Here are his complete recordings of 20th-century music, brought together on a specially-priced 6-CD set for the first time.

The Van Cliburn Complete Album Collection brings together, for the first time, all of the live and studio recordings the legendary pianist made for RCA. Beginning with his 1958 debut recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1, the Complete Album Collection features his personal selections of favorite Chopin, Brahms and Debussy pieces, selections from his 1972 Moscow performances, his popular album of Favorite Encores plus his last recording for RCA of Brahms pieces.

From the outset of his recording career, Maurizio Pollini has championed modern music – in benchmark accounts of Bartók, Boulez, Manzoni, Nono, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern, to which can be added his later recordings of Debussy and Berg. Here are his complete recordings of 20th-century music, brought together on a specially-priced 6-CD set for the first time.

It’s interesting that Georg Solti’s recordings of Strauss tone poems seem never to have gotten the attention that they deserve. True, he did not program them with the same frequency and comprehensiveness that he did Strauss’ contemporary Mahler, but Solti’s credentials as an exciting and idiomatic conductor of the operas have never been questioned. He knew and worked with the composer personally from his days at the helm of the Munich opera after the Second World War, and more to the point, he plays this music with just the kind of directness and virtuosity that it demands.

The Complete Victor and Columbia Album Collection reflects Arrau’s textually scrupulous yet highly personal mastery of many styles had matured and ripened, while retaining the fire and ardency of his youth. Arrau’s Mozart, Weber and Chopin probe beyond the music’s surface charm, as do the luminous and full-bodied Spanish and French Impressionist selections. Cumulative momentum and thoughtful detail characterize Arrau’s Beethoven and Schumann while the extraordinary technical finish of his Liszt transcends mere virtuosity and bravura.