Two New Big Brilliant Classics Box Sets – Both Now Available
Russian Legends
Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon FR
Beethoven Complete Works
Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon FR
Note: On September 24, Amazon FR has these two sets on sale for EUR 78 and 75 respectively. This is a temporary sale for their 7th anniversary.
Brilliant Classics, which has made a name for itself recently with huge, bargain-priced box sets of classical music (such as the complete Mozart and Bach sets), has two new boxes due out soon. The first, Russian Legends, is a 100-CD set of great Russian performers, including Sviatoslav Richter, Evgueni Kissin, Emil Guilels, Lazar Berman, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Victor Tretiakov, Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovitch and Daniel Shafran. From what I understand, these recordings all come from Russian radio performances, and, while many have been released previously, there might be some new gems.
The second set is a complete Beethoven, at, again, 100 CDs. I’m not sure if it is truly complete, but the roster here is impressive as well: Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir Colin Davis, Friedrich Gulda, Clara Haskil, Alfred Brendel, Arthur Grumiaux, Jean-Pierre Rampal, the Guarnieri Quartet, Theo Adam, Robert Tear, Peter Schreier,the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Berliner Symphoniker and lots more. As always, these sets contain some gems (for example, the piano sonatas, performed by Friedrich Gulda), and some duds. I am not familiar with many of these recordings, not being a Beethoven fanatic, but some of his music is among my all-time favorites: the string quartets, the piano sonatas, and more.
Amazon FR has both of these boxes at less than EUR 84, which really can’t be beat; even the retail price of EUR 99 per set is a huge bargain. (I’m not sure what the prices will be at Amazon US or UK, but click through my links to find out when they are listed. If you order from Amazon FR for shipping to the US, the price will actually be cheaper, because they remove VAT, and shipping is only around EUR 10.) In any case, as always, these are great ways to fill up your shelves with some excellent music. Got ready to start ripping a couple hundred new CDs!
For those of you who order it from Amazon.fr and you do not live in the Euro-
zone, the VAT does not apply. The box therefore costs just a little more than 70
Euros, a real bargain! I have already ordered.
And their shipping, which is per item, is relatively cheap for something like this.
The same is true (shipping, not VAT) when you order heavy items from Amazon
US to any other country. I’ve ordered a couple of big sets and they turn out to be
good deals, especially with the exchange rate skewed in my favor.
Kirk