Mozart The Symphonies The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

This was the set that really got the "authentic instrument" craze going. It was a big, ambitious project that promised a fresh look at familiar music, as well as lots of exciting new discoveries. Christopher Hogwood tailored his forces to match what we know of the actual size and constitution of the orchestras of the period, and since Mozart wrote symphonies in every country in Europe, including England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, the result is practically a blueprint of 18th-century orchestral practice. Then everyone else got into the act, and these performances sort of fell off the musical map. Listening to them again, one finds they hold up rather well. There's still the sense of discovery, and of course the music itself is glorious.

L'Oiseau Lyre's Mozart: The Symphonies, performed by the Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood, is the ne plus ultra of Mozart symphony sets. Many "complete" collections of this cycle omit Symphony No. 37 as the better part of it is composed not by Mozart but by Michael Haydn as the result of a backroom trade of compositions between the two old friends. Most do not address the Mozart symphonies that are considered doubtful or that fall outside the accepted canon of Numbers 1-41, and few more contain orchestral Mozart works related to his symphonic output but are technically not symphonies.

A 50 CD Original Jackets Collection celebrating the greatest Classical and early romantic recordings from Decca’s pioneering early music label L’Oiseau-Lyre. The box features orchestral, vocal, chamber and solo piano music from Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, Malcolm Binns, Andras Schiff, the Music Party, the Esterhazy Quartet among others.

A 50-CD set of legendary recordings celebrating the world-renowned Decca Sound. Classic-status pioneering stereo recordings from the past 60 years and starring a galaxy of internationally-acclaimed artistic talent.