The new EMI Wilhelm Furtwängler 21-CD box-set, The Great Recordings, should be a convenient and relatively inexpensive route for young music lovers not familiar with this great conductor to get to know his art. There are also surprises for seasoned Furtwängler fans: new Abbey Road 24-bit digital remastering of the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies recordings following the footsteps of the SACDs of these recordings released by EMI Japan not too long ago. Although I've already had many Furtwängler recordings, I was still lured by this new gimmick and bought this box-set with HK$500.
The card-board packaging is quite nice and neat. So far so good. However when I read the enclosed booklet, I was really disappointed. They got the orchestra for the last three Brahms symphonies wrong. In this and previous EMI sets, only the First Symphony was played by the Vienna Philharmonic, and the rest the Berlin Philharmonic. The dates of the recordings corresponded to the old set. Here in the new box-set, it is incorrectly documented that all the Brahms symphonies were recordings of the Vienna Philharmonic as shown below:
The booklet of the old EMI References box-set of Brahms symphonies is shown alongside the new one below:
Such a pity.
I'll go to my friend Savio's home to compare the sound of the CDs in the new box-set with different previous incarnations by EMI Europe or Japan. Savio has good high-end hi-fi gears and he is also a very experienced classical music lover and critic. Let's see what results we'll get.
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