"Largest Box Set in History"

[tjh]

Amazon US will start selling the complete Karajan DG and Decca recordings on 12/8 (Amazon Japan on 11/3).  350+ discs "strictly limited and numbered".
 

[john]

The first complete set of Karajan DG cd recordings was only available in Japan a few years ago, the cost was about £1,500 for 240 CDs.
I decided to wait for the set to be available in the UK however, over the past 2 years or so the 60s,70s,80s & the Opera recordings have been available at a good price therefore I decided to buy these.
I already had the box of Decca recordings (which does not include the Christmas Leontine Price disc).
The new complete set I understand now includes the early recordings plus the DG DVD Discs, I shall not be investing in this as I have the DVDs, the Decca Set and the 4 DG boxed sets mentioned above are perfectly adequate.
I am wondering if the new set is advetised as 'THE COMPLETE DG RECORDINGS'?
The 4 previous boxes are not complete as they do not include the DG 'live' Vienna discs of Die Frau ohne Schatten 1964, Fidelio 1962,Pizzeti Murder in the Cathederal & Montiverdi - Poppea niether does it include the 'live' DG CDs of Schumann 4th from Salzburg 1972, Schubert 8th + Strauss Waltz etc Salzburg 1968, Betthoven 9th Tokyo 1979, Bruckner 9th Vienna 1976, Tchaikowsky 6th Tokyo 1954 & Mozart Piano Concerto 21 & Symphonies 35 & 41 Salzburg 1957.
The above are the DG discs I have in my collection and know about, others may exist, for all Forum members please let me know if you think anything is missing or if you have any further updates.

John

[tjh]

I have not looked into the track list but from the 4 minute advert on youtube showing the stages of un-pack, a large part seems to be the re-pack of the DG ‘60, 70, 80s. I have the 70s also, which as you know does not include live nor any opera (Parsifal, Tosca, Merry Widow). I think the interpretation of the branding is recordings “published in the” 70s.

I bought the 70s primarily for Beethoven 8 because of the several previous releases on disc I find none are as good as the cassette version. And it does have improvements from my perspective. However, there are others, like the Mozart Requiem, that appear to sound worse than the earlier release.

[charlesb]

On 17th August I posted:

"It looks like this will be a re-release of the CD boxes and DVDs they have released already, so it probably won't contain the Unitel recordings that have not been released (like the Wagner Mastersingers Overture video from 1975) or the Decca/RCA "Carmen" CDs. The DVDs of Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto with Weissenberg and the 31/12/77 Beethoven's 9th Symphony will probably not be included either (DGG released these on VHS but not DVD)."

Sadly, it looks like my prediction was true. It is particularly disappointing that the Tchaikovsky DVD with Weissenberg is not included, this is one of my favourite Karajan video recordings. So far, the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto DVD has only been released in Japan, firstly by DGG Japan and later by Dreamlife.

[David]

Just found the full details including hundreds of track samples ..............

www.deutschegrammophon.com/gb/cat/4798160