Prokofiev Beroff

This 2-CD set is essential for anyone who wants to understand a crucial aspect of 20th century music but it also offers far more. Russian music from Stravinsky’s early ballets to Schnittke and beyond to countries formerly in the USSR is large in output and mainly great in quality. Given that we all know snatches of Prokofiev and Shostakovich as well as contemporaries who lived elsewhere, I suggest that re-calibrating our perceptions is due about now and this should be done without the political fog so often mentioned.

With more than 7 hours of tender music by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Debussy, Puccini and more, performed by greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Andre Previn and Jose Carreras, this set can complete any romantic evening at home. And if we can't play upon your heart strings, 100 classics for this low price is quite a deal.

This 6CD set contains 100 tracks from the catalogues of EMI Records, EMI Classics and Virgin Classics of recordings by the London Symphony Orchestra under some of the world’s greatest conductors and with a number of famous soloists.

Kurt Masur's achievement is defined above all by his relationships with two orchestras exemplifying vastly different traditions. Having spent some 20 years as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, which traces it's roots to the 15th century, he became the transformational music director of the New York Philharmonic, an embodiment of the New World. Through all this, his musical integrity remained consistent. As the New York Times wrote: "He brought to the podium the ardent conviction that music-making was a moral act that could heal the world." Masur himself put things more simply: "My goal is meaningful playing… What counts is to be able to communicate the composer's meaning to the audience… When I conduct Beethoven, I wouldn't like to replace Beethoven. He should be in your mind, not me." This 70CD set consolidates the entirety of the catalogues that Masur built for EMI and Teldec between 1974 and 2009.