Oh Mr Amazon, with this cheap box set / bargain item, etc...

Decent cuts to classical box sets this week:

60 CD Vivarte collection for £35, down from £50:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vivarte-Collection-Various-Artists/dp/B00AOTZ156/ref=pd_sim_m_h__8?ie=UTF8&refRID=14A236F743TT9R6F9KNQ

27 disc Rameau opera box for £26, down from £38.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rameau-Opera-Collection-J-P/dp/B00KYMJ4H4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421262148&sr=8-1&keywords=rameau

55 disc Archiv Produktion anniversary box set at £60, down from £77

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archiv-Produktion-1947-2013-Celebration-Excellence/dp/B00BCSBU4E/ref=pd_sim_m_h__6?ie=UTF8&refRID=14A236F743TT9R6F9KNQ

55 CD Mercury Living Presence box at £49, down from £70 - £90

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mercury-Living-Presence-Vol-2-Decca/dp/B00B7364H2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421262156&sr=8-1&keywords=living+presence

54 disc Decca Sound down from £90 to £53:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Decca-Sound-The-Analogue-Years/dp/B00E0H8KAQ/ref=pd_sim_m_h__42?ie=UTF8&refRID=0ZSZGN8XSQG7J9FN5FE0

bargain classical boxes that i'm permanently on the verge of pulling the trigger on:

misuko uchida - mozart piano sonatas
maria lettberg - scriabin complete solo piano works
sergiu celibidache - symphonies box
gyorgy ligeti - clear or cloudy: complete recordings on deutsche grammophon

Ligeti box IMO.

Decca Sound The Analogue Years is fucking fantastic but you MUST have a taste for warhorses or at least an openness to acquiring a taste for warhorses.

Gah! I didn't even know about that Ligeti box! Fuuuuck...rrrg...yeah, probably just gonna go ahead and get that one.

whenever i see these crazy budget-priced massive box sets i sort of weep inside for that guy who spent 50 years and a million bucks putting together an impeccable collection of classical music on vinyl and CD and now it's like "oh i have your entire collection for a week's wages."

Even the first wave of box sets were ridiculously expensive. The Toscanini box was $2100 in 1991, adjusted for inflation. Now it's $120.

yeah, most of these end up being like $2–$4/disc. which is roughly what you might have paid in the 1950s for a LP.

someone should go back in time and give all those classical collectors a break. "here's all of mahler's symphonies with bruno walter conducting. no, don't thank me, it was no trouble at all. really."

17 disc Oistrakh set for £19.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001ASVXSE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3ENYW8WV04AUU&coliid=IRJXNNY4C2SXO

Jake Thackray collection down below £12:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jake-Box-EMI-Recordings-1967-1976/dp/B000F0UVC2/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1421620893&sr=1-3&keywords=jake+thackray

No excuses for not buying the latter.

Sixteen disc complete Mahler for £13 and change.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/music/dp/B003D0ZNWY/ref=sr_1_6?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1436212992&sr=1-6

That's the Warner emi one? Pretty good classic to dud ratio. Worth it imo.

This one is less than £14 for 10 discs:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Masterworks-20th-Century-Various/dp/B00TQNMCDU/

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81tcXdEBJbL._SL1500_.jpg

i feel bad for classical music that labels almost literally cannot give it away

Went for that one, ra.

Ah, nice one, Nick!

And this one is £14.10 for 14 discs:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71e2IuiuWTL._SL1417_.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yl4C5veaL.jpg

crazy days!

oops link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Messiaen-100th-Anniversary-Box-Set/dp/B001DCQJUO/

Not the world's biggest Messiaen fan tbh but fill yer boots Olly fans!

Olly Stans

olly stans resting on their laurels

man that messiaen cover is trippy!

Emi Messiaen box is basically older, golden age of stereo era recordings (though French emi sound quality not always so golden) whereas the dg box is digital era cosmopolitan technical wizardry renditions. Both worth having. I prefer analog sound for the ravishing colors of the orchestral stuff tbf

i was once wandering around avignon and bumped into a conservatory named after mr. messiaen. had no idea it existed. i was rather moved, actually.

Lesser known early 20th cent brit Arthur Bliss 5CD set for £4 new via Dodax:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Composers-Arthur-Bliss/dp/B0056H0R3C/

^ I have about 3/5ths of that on vinyl and it's great stuff

what does his music sound like? (i know, dumb question, but...)

Kind of Debussy-ish, Delius/Holst school of English pastoralism iirc

18 disc Delius collection for under £15. About half what it was when I added it to my wish list.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005RXKKQO?keywords=Delius&qid=1437327538&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3

If that is the delius emi box, it is extremely desirable, probably the best of all those emi composer boxes. I have most of its contents individually but I still want it.

I've been meaning to get a box set of Sibelius's symphonies, preferably one that doesn't cost too much, because I'm not really familiar with his music at all. But there are so many different reasonably priced boxes I don't know which one to buy... There's Karajan, Barbirolli, two different cycles by Berglund (one with Bournemouth Sinfonietta, one with the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra), Vänskä, Saari, Storgårds, Ashkenazy, Colin Davis, etc. I'm not a nationalist so I don't think this music needs to be interpreted by a Finnish conductor (though Berglund, Vänskä, and Storgårds all seem to get a fair amount of praise), so I'm not sure where to begin. Can anyone (Jon?) recommend a good "starter box" for Sibelius?

Yeah, there was a wave of Sibelius boxes timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of his birth (that sort of thing seems to be a driving factor in box set releases, hence a wave of Nielsen boxes this year too). I don't really know enough to have an opinion on this, but Berglund/Bournemouth are always a powerful force in my experience.

Berglund Bournemouth is indeed a good choice. Beautiful late analog production. The 1980s berglund cycle (the other box) has a lot of important music besides the symphonies but is not quite as well recorded. Plus I think that box is out of print now so you'd have to get it second hand.

The Berglund/Bournemouth box is what I was considering first (it's also one of the cheapest box sets available), but since it's an older recording, I wasn't so sure about the sound quality. (Some 1960s and early 70s British classical records that I have have a tinny and thin sound that I don't like.) But since you say it sounds good, I guess I'll go for that one.

The sound picture is more smooth and creamy. Not as close miked sounding as emi barbirolli recordings (nb I love close miking)

Fuck! So glad I looked at this thread!

First time I ever looked at a complete classical collection it was a 120 disc Bach collection and I just assumed all these guys would have similarly massive collections, but looking at those Mahler, Delius and Sibelius boxes, wow, I can actually do this. The world appears quite a bit nicer.

Do these kind of boxes get sold at regular music shops?

Not in nyc. There are no stores here where one can buy new classical CDs anymore. If you still have virgin and hmv over there they might stock things like this.

Fopp is awful for classical music. Not sure if HMV still exists any more but they were better in their flagship branches. The prices of these sets are all over the place so online is probably your best bet.

I add tonnes of stuff to my Amazon wishlist and just use the "items with price drops" function to check for bargains. Almost everything gets reduced by 20% - 25% at some point and some sets come down by 40% or 50%.

If you aren't keen on Amazon, Presto Classical is a really good alternative - more expensive, typically, but an excellent selection and they have fairly frequent sales.

Definitely using amazon but I'm going into town today and I'll have a look in hmv. There used to be a good specialist classical store but unsurprisingly it shut down several years ago, I only ever bought one thing there (a Bach organ best of), wish I'd gotten more.

If town happens to be London, Harold Moore's on Gt Marlborough St is still going strong.

If you're in (or near) Edinburgh - McAlister Matheson http://www.mmmusic.co.uk/ is a classical music specialist store.

Glasgow. I'm back now.
I looked around Fopp for a while and the classical section wasn't clearly visible and then I forgot about it, but from the last times I looked it was very small.
Mono has a small bunch of modern classical.
HMV has a surprisingly large classical section (their metal section surprised me too), loads of Classical FM cds of old masters, only a few box sets but nothing much over 4 discs. Mostly stuff for beginners I guess; I shouldn't complain because I'm a beginner but I'm just a sucker for huge collections and omnibuses. I'm guessing this store has a fairly big selection because most if not all the other similar music shops except Fopp have shut down. I'll probably return here again for the metal.

Quite sad to notice that a lot of these music and book shops have noticeably dwindled in their selection, even within the past year. Really wonder how it will look in two years.

Classical sections are usually the dwindled-est, too. Maybe 1/8 of one side of an aisle if you're lucky

Borders & Tower used to be great for jazz, reggae, classical, blues , (funk & soul& Tower too) in Glasgow.

HMV had a full aisle of classical.

I'm pretty sure the big tall Virgin that became Zaavi that became HMV had a large room of classical.

I've been griping in various threads about box sets not including bonus tracks, even when they could easily fit on. King Diamond and Jethro Tull in particular but I've been put off so many rock band box sets because of this.
Yes - Studio Albums 69-87 and the two big Tangerine Dream box sets are some of the only exceptions I've seen to this.
I didn't get the Tangerine Dream sets because the albums are spread across discs, this isn't an issue on mp3 but it's a pain changing cds during an album and it spoiled the Bongwater collection for me slightly.
Any more good box sets for keeping all the extra stuff?

I think the BOC box has all the bonus tracks that came out on the remastered single discs of the first 5 albums. Would have been amazing if we could have had new bonus tracks for the albums that were newly remastered for the box, especially Fire of Unknown Origin and Cultosaurus Erectus, but oh well.

Picked up the Messiaen box - thanks for the heads up.

17 disc Oistrakh set for £14

http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Oistrakh-The-Complete-Recordings/dp/B001ASVXSE/ref=pd_sim_15_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=03ZA2H3M0JPGRW800RRC

Will deliver when back in stock.

Hohoho! Bought the Sibelius, Delius and Mahler boxes but hesitated for now on the Wagner.

Add a Debussy box and you have my holy quartet of composers born in the early 1860s (the wave to beat all waves IMO)