Szell’s bells and Szeryng with friends
This month’s round-up also sees anniversary nods to two composers
The repertoire is rich and varied across the 106-disc Szell set
George Szell presided over The Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death in 1970 and The Complete Columbia Album Collection (Sony 88985471852) takes in recordings from across that long tenure. Szell transformed the orchestra into one of America’s finest and their recording output was vast. The repertoire across the 106-discs is rich and varied (there’s even a short festive selection), with appearances by the Budapest String Quartet, Columbia Symphony and New York Philharmonic.
Henryk Szeryng is the focus of a new set gathering his Complete Philips, Mercury and
Deutsche Grammophon Recordings (Decca 483 4194). The 44-disc collection presents just shy of a couple of decades of recordings across the three labels and is very smartly presented; it’s also easy to navigate thanks to clear
(and colourful) spine detail and an unusually roomy box. Content-wise it’s a broad mix, with concertos by Sibelius, Berg, Schumann, Saintsaëns, Wieniawski, Szymanowski and – of course – Brahms and Beethoven. A highlight is the 1964 Treasures for the Violin.
Rather less easy to navigate is the new celebration of
Gioachino Rossini (Warner Classics 90295611156), a weighty 50-disc box which sees the sleeves so tightly packed that they’ll surely suffer wear and tear from all the inevitable pulling about and thumbing through. That said, the set – released to mark 150 years since the composer’s death – is a wealth of riches that takes in opera, choral, song, chamber and instrumental writing. There’s star appeal, too, with the likes of Callas, Bartoli, Netrebko, Caballé, Hampson, Gedda, Antonio Pappano and Roger Norrington.
Some 200 years before Rossini’s death, François Couperin was born – a new box
(Erato 9029561116) celebrates his 350th birthday. The bulk of this 16-disc set sees harpsichordist Laurence Boulay performing complete recordings of Couperin’s plentiful keyboard works, while the likes of Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, Les Arts Florissants and Les Talens Lyriques feature on a handful of surrounding discs of notable historical and choral recordings.