Bart Van Oort

This 14-CD set is really very complete (a few absences are mentioned below). Besides the solo fortepiano works, it features works for piano four-hands, two pianos, even works for organ and the adagio for glass harmonica KV 617a, though these works are performed on the fortepiano. Frankly, I can't bear listening to the glass harmonica, but I prefer the organ works played on organ and the CD with Mozart's organ works I recommend is Mozart - L'oeuvre pour orgue, Olivier Vernet, Cédric Meckler, Ligia Digital. Furthermore, this box presents some never before recorded works comprising recent authentications of Mozart's authorship; doubtful and spurious works; fragments. I name these works below.

Once in a while, we encounter recordings that—for lack of proper advocacy—are doomed to exist in the musical backwater. Their artistic merit is unquestionably beyond reproach and their sound quality is far in excess of the norm. This is one such recording. - Michael Carter

In this collection of Irish Welsh and Scottish songs, Lynne Dawson presents her personal choice of Beethoven’s folk song arrangements. She has almost matchless ability to reproduce the simple tone of these melodies with her charming and touching timbre, accompanied by the austere sound of historical instruments.

Now many of the world’s most serious and significant pianists (Schnabel, Serkin, Brendel, Goode, etc.) have devoted a great deal of thoughtful study to the Beethoven sonatas; in general, performance of this music represents a level of erudition and deep contemplation probably unequaled by the works of any other mainstream composer. Serious pianists study every aspect of these works in minute detail; virtually everything is taken into account except those instruments which inspired Beethoven, and which he had in mind when he composed.