I love it when "light" music gets some serious, devoted, loving treatment, and this 52-CD set represents the iconic example. It's delicious. Dip into it anywhere for a refreshing (if high-calorie) treat.
Strauss dazzles - his melodic inventiveness is beyond belief! I sit down with a cd from this set from time to time and....it ALWAYS cheers me up! No other composer has this ability....
I'll add it. The Strauss-father collection is excellent. Joseph Strauss is excellent, and the eleven Emil Waldteifel discs in general shocked me. How beautiful his music is.
Yes it’s categorised as “light music” I guess. But I’m not sure there’s that much snobbery about it. I mean Brahms, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern et al would probably absolutely love this set if they were transported into the world of recorded sound :)
Thank you so much for doing this, Dave! I was hoping this would come up; but never got the impression you were a Strauss Jr. Fan. This is the first box that I bought when I got into classical music.
This is a very fine review. Over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate this music more and more. Wondering if you might review the recent complete Sousa march series as issued by the US Marine Band. Alas, not on physical disc, but all available on RU-vid, and most (those in PD) available for download.
I love watching your videos and being able to see what is really out there about. I really only exclusively use streaming services like Spotify to find the stuff you share and I get bummed out when I can't find the specific things you're showing but at the same time, I glad I know it's out there especially with composers like Strauss Jr, who don't get the same spotlight treatment that Mahler, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart get all the time, even though Strauss music is more popular and commercial than people think. Great vid as always!
I wish Naxos would box up the Johan Sr, Josef, and Eduard Strauss recordings that were on Marco Polo. I'm not sure if they ever completed those projects; but its very hard and expensive to track down all the OOP single disc releases.
Mine arrived today --so excited. Also it should be mentioned that there is tons of documentation - not only short remarks on each piece in the booklet but the Naxos website has detailed and comprehensive notes on each piece!!!!! Thats the way it should be done I think
Dave, excellent. Any chance of including the Complete Liszt Piano Music (Leslie Howard Pno on Hyperion) in your excellent series of most important sets EVAH? I recall you gave a very comprehensive and favorable critique of the set.
NAXOS has done some really wonderful box sets/collections, but with the huge amount of recordings they have can you imagine what they could put together if they wanted to 😋
I value that even more highly than these orchestral works. Even though it does show Strauss valiantly striving against some dismal librettos. Offenbach and Sullivan were much luckier than Strauss in that regard.
@@bbailey7818 Sullivan was lucky in Gilbert; Offenbach was lucky by virtue of his sheer fecundity. The librettos of Strauss's operettas were not actually all that bad. The problem is that 2-3 of his stage works were extraordinarily successful, crowding out attention for the others. Der lustige Krieg and Simplicius are both very interesting pieces, and have proven successful in revival.
I’ll nominate the series of the (nearly) complete works of George Lloyd on Albany Records (most of which is now out of print - maddeningly!!!). This wonderful series exposed the world to a first-class composer who still believed in the primacy of melody and the continued validity of the symphonic form, two things which many asserted had become “dead” in the Boulez/Darmstadt era. What’s more, most of the symphonies and other orchestral works were recorded very persuasively with the composer himself at the podium. Without this series, I may have never been introduced to who is now one of my very favorite composers!
You have mentioned Don Gillis once in a while, so the Gillis survey with the Sinfonia Varsovia with Ian Hobson deserves attention. So much unbound joy is found in Gillis’ compositions.
My personal most important recording project is, of course, Leslie Howard's complete Liszt Piano music on hyperion. Here's why 1. Liszt is one of the major composers. 2. Liszt composed numerous works. Of course, not all of them are good, but there are a lot of forgotten pieces that are quite interesting to the listener, and I had a lot of fun exploring them. 3. This is one of the true complete works. Leslie Howard is a pianist, but also one of the best liszt experts. So, he was able to put everything of the composer in the most complete way than any other project. 4. This project is the first Liszt complete piano collection project and will be the last Liszt complete piano collection project in recording history.
A fantastic collection. Such a collection can be safely taken to a desert island. This collection is a great antidepressant. Strauss's music is gorgeous, and all of it. I wonder if a second collection of operettas will be released? But there is one drawback - the orchestra's playing is much inferior to the same Robert Stolz or Boskovsky
Hey Mr. Hurwitz, what do you (as not really a "Lieder-guy) think about Walter Legge's recordings for the "Hugo-Wolf-Society"? I think it got this composer internationally known and there are also some terrific singers to hear. Sorry for my poor English...
This set, and another I expect you'll cover have a negative in common. The complete Schubert songs on Hyperion, curated by Graham Johnson, had copious notes on each song on the individual discs. The box set lacks these (it of course has texts and translations). The Strauss Junior Marco Polo discs also had extensive notes on each work, the collected box does not. I suppose there is (or was) a way to go online and get the notes but I'm hopeless with that stuff.
@@bbailey7818 indeed! I think it’s Yale university press, although I haven’t looked it up recently. Depends how much you like Schubert, but I’d guess it’s one of the most important publications about him.
Another suggestion for the same series : Handel's recordings by John Eliot Gardiner. It is not really a "set", but he recorded 10 oratorios, 2 operas and the Dixit Dominus. All are excellent, and most of them are reference recordings. It would have been an historical legacy if he had registered all Handel's oratorios and operas. Unfortunately, he decided to move thereafter to Bach, where he was less successful, to my point of view.
If I were a rich man--I'd fund a methodical, work by work uncut series of the complete operettas of Offenbach. With texts and translations.(Spoken dialogue optional--the music's the thing.)
