Decca Sound - The Piano Edition - Box Set 55CDs

Label : Decca
Format : Flac (image + cue)
Cover : Yes

Decca Sound - 55 Great Vocal Recitals - Box Set 55CDs

Label : Decca
Format : Flac track
Cover : Yes

Authoritative and comprehensive, this 55CD set presents a unique period in human history: a period when brilliant recorded sound on LP & CD, plus radio, TV, film and live all combined to offer huge new opportunities for singers, record labels and producers to expand the audience for classical music.

This box set puts the spotlight on fifty-five unique voices whose music and art shaped the century. Included are also the debut recitals of some of today’s biggest names, underlining Decca’s unparalleled ability at spotting vocal talent. The artists in this encyclopaedic set are a who’s who of the greatest singers from 1950 to the present day.

Presented in chronological order with their original cover artwork, this set proudly takes its place as the fifth in the hugely successful Decca Sound series which documents the label’s story from the early years of mono to the present day.

55 acclaimed recitals from Decca – many original LP recitals are complemented with bonus material.

Original cover art used for each sleeve and presented in chronological order of recording date.

Decca Sound - The Mono Years 1944-1956 - Box Set 53CDs

Label : Decca
Format : Flac track
Cover : No

Decca’s big box “Mono Years” retrospective focuses on orchestral and instrumental recordings made between 1944 and 1956, many of which appear for the first time on CD. Its 53 discs are packaged in original jacket facsimiles (many including generous “bonus” fillers), ordered alphabetically by performer, and for the most part transferred from the best possible sources. If Decca lacked the strong artist and repertoire policies that distinguished EMI and RCA Victor during that time, its early outreach into local European markets actually yielded a surprisingly eclectic, far-reaching, and unpredictable catalog. Unpredictable, in fact, is the operative word regarding the set’s overall artistic and sonic quality.

Decca’s “Full Frequency Range Recording” engineering yielded some of the mono era’s best-sounding releases, like the Jean Martinon/London Philharmonic Lalo Suites from Namouna and concerted works with pianist Kathleen Long contained on Disc 38. By contrast, the Eric Tuxen/Danish Radio Symphony Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 sounds as if the hard-pressed orchestra had been shoved into an airless closet. Yet another dynamically constricted Danish Radio Symphony release conveys vivid detail and far superior playing in Sibelius’ complete Lemminkainen Suite under Thomas Jensen. Similarly, London’s orchestras could be strident and scrappy in Elgar and Vaughan Williams with Anthony Collins in charge, or positively shine in Haydn, Kodály, Mozart, and Bartók when the young Georg Solti wielded the baton.

You never knew what you’d get from the post-war Vienna Philharmonic: phoning in Haydn and Beethoven for Karl Münchinger; oozing charm (if not tip-top precision) for Hans Knappertsbusch in Bruckner’s Third Symphony, corrupt text and all; or trying hard to reconcile their genial style within Erich Kleiber’s forthright rhythmic integrity in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Decca Sound - The Analogue Years - Box Set 54CDs

Label : Decca
Format : Flac track
Cover : Front

In the late 1940s, the pioneering Decca recording engineers perfected a new set of microphone techniques that allowed the full range of frequencies to be fully heard by listeners for the first time, and the term ‘full frequency range recording’ was launched. It was a major revolution in sound quality, and the beginnings of high fidelity.

Perfected with the birth of stereo in the mid-1950s, Decca’s ‘Full Frequency Stereophonic Sound’ became a worldwide hallmark of sonic excellence and a golden age of classical recorded music was born. THE ANALOGUE YEARS presents a 50-Album overview across 53 CDs, in original jackets, of the celebrated international recordings that emerged from the London-based record label in that pre-digital era.

The Decca Sound - Box Set 50CDs

Label : Decca
Format : Flac track
Cover : Yes

This set is a marvel, a mostly wonderful 50-CD tribute to some of the finest stereo recordings ever made in the Classical medium. Smartly packaged, and intelligently chosen, the box is worth having even if one owns some of the contents already. And you are bound to, for even a novice collector will recognize the great singers, conductors, and soloists on display. It's also reasonably priced on both sides of the pond, and is undoubtedly a limited edition, in the sense it will be pulled soon and sold at outrageous eBay prices. So if the prospect interests you, by all means indulge.

By and large the historical recordings are of more worth than the more recent offerings. Argenta, Martinon, and Maag all get a nod, and it's equally nice to see that Ashkenazy is being recognized as both an arranger and conductor here. Karajan and Solti naturally appear, although it must be said that those are wholly successful appearances, Dorati gets tons of kudos on Mercury, so one disc will do here; I wish only that it were Haydn. Schiff's justly famous Goldberg's are here, and Radu Lupu gets a disc, even if it's hardly the best. Britten's War Requiem with the composer conducting has been jammed onto one disc, as if it could get any more essential, and Kerstez's Vienna 9th and London 8th make a memorable Dvorák disc indeed.