Masterworks Heritage Collection

Just Ordered, so I haven't heard any of it yet,but it's from Sony (Columbia/Epic), so I assume the CD Quality is OK and worth at least 4 Stars.Thought Others Might Like to Know What's In the Box.Track Listing Track # Title 1 CD 1: the Early Years - Michael Rabin. Ossy Renardy 2 CD 2: the Complete Violin Recordings - Eugene Ysaye 3 CD 3: Liszt: Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major Claudio Arrau. Eugene Ormandy 4 CD 4-5: Great Violin Concertos - Zino Francescatti 5 CD 6: Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major " Titan" - Dimitri Mitropoutos 6 CD 7: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6, Kodaly: Dances of Galanta - Fritz Reiner 7 CD 8: Beethoven: Symphony No. 2, Mozart: Symphonies No. 35 & 40 - Fritz Reiner 8 CD 9-10: the Philadelphia Orchestra Plays Bach - Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy 9 CD 11-12: Schumann: the Four Symphonies - George Szell 10 CD 13: Milhaud, Roussel, Honegger - Leonard Bernstein 11 CD 14: Barber, Menotti, Berg, Dind - Thomas Schipper 12 CD 15-16: Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 18, 59, 95, 29 - Budapest String Quartet 13 CD 17-18: Beethoven: String Quartets Op 127, 131, 132, 135 - Budapest String Quartet 14 CD 19: Great Cello Concertos - Gregor Piatigorsky 15 CD 20 : Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 Op .100 - George Szell 16 CD 21-22: Dvorak: Three Great Symphonies - George Szell 17 CD 23-24: Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & 2 - Leon Fleisher, George Szell 18 CD 25-26: Complete Piano Music of Ravel - Robert Casadesus 19 CD 27: Shostakovich: Violin & Cello Concerto - David Oistrakh, Mstistav Rostropovich 20 CD 28: Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major "Titan" - Bruno Walter # Title

A delightful treasure trove of happiness and excitement!

Very pleased overall with this box set; another bargain (the discs are full of music; all 60+ minutes, many 70+ minutes). Please see the other longer, excellent reviews about this box - they are all very accurate. I can confirm that the music is wonderful with amazing sound quality for the dates of the recordings. The older mono recordings may sound slightly stark compared to some modern stereo recordings, but the mastering and lack of hiss, etc. is fantastic, and I think they have a very "realistic" sound. (I am not an audiophile, just a fan of good music.) I have most of these works as single issue CDs. At least the booklet included in the box set has good listings of the works/recordings and the liner notes from the single CD issues. You do miss out on the interesting art work included in the single CD issues. Also, the booklet does not include an essay about the Masterworks Heritage series in general (disappointing, thought it would). Anyway, music = 5 stars, documentation = 4 stars. Looking forward to Masterworks Heritage 2.Addendum: Just so no one buys this set and puts on Disc 2 and thinks I'm crazy: that disc has recordings from the "acoustic era", recorded in the 1910's. It has great violin performances but LOTS of hiss and surface noise to the recording. I view it more as a historical document. The sound quality of the other discs is excellent.

If you came of musical age in the late '60s, as I did, these records were immensely important in introducing the great performers who shaped the musical culture of the time. Bernstein's recording of Honegger, Milhaud, and Roussel was revelatory to ears used to the same old warhorses. Reiner's work with the Pittsburg Symphony was so different from his work leading the CSO. And Casadesus' Ravel was transcendent. It's wonderful to hear fresh remasterings of the Szell/Cleveland teamwork with new ears after burning out on all those Odyssey pressings which the younger version of me bought because they were so affordable--and it's great to hear how good they were. But most of all, it's delightful to hear Mitropoulos/New York and the early '50s Walter/NYP pairings anew. This 28 disc set has great sleeve art and a very reasonable price to boot. Highly recommended.

Here is an exciting opportunity to hear great artists of the far-distant past. Artists like Rabin and the great Belgian violinist Ysaye. The Ysase tracks are actually from the late 1800's! Amazing!! As you would expect, the recorded sound of the oldest on these recordings is very poor compared to today's standards, but the music still comes through amazingly well. I had heard and read about Ysaye for many, many years, but never expected to hear him. For many music lovers, this is a great opportunity.

It is a great collection, but it is incomplete. Still, it is a good value.

Good deal

Nice ord chassi.

Perfect!!!!

I own quite of few of these as a collector of fine records. I was "connected" and quite lucky to find many. Most did not have the opportunity to find these gems. I call these gems , in large part, this is the golden age where all musicians wore emotions on their sleeves. Pyrotechnics were frowned upon in this age. These are quite lovingly reproduced on disc, they will not sell many I surmise, but for those that love the way musician used to play , and how arrangements used to sound in a more simple time, then I would encourage you to plunge.Buyer beware: these are historical recordings, so most do not sound like what would expect new performances to sound like.CheersLuc MorinStereo Passion International

Several other reviewers have gone to the trouble of listing the contents of this box, so I won't repeat that task. Let's just say that if you were to go through the Masterworks library to look for the most significant (historically and artistic) LPs to reproduce in a special collection, these are most likely the ones you'd pick. The repertoire is varied and spans almost all genres of classical music, and it's all performed by artists who's name every classical music fan (perhaps older ones, more especially) will recognize.The box is a comparatively heavy-weight case, not a flimsy cardboard structure like some in recent box releases. Each cardboard CD slipcover has the original art on the front, and a detailed track listing on the back. The included booklet has tons of details of each recording, the artists, and the repertoire. While most of it is the content you'd find on the back of an LP, there is new content. All in all, a well presented and nice box, befitting the subject.The engineering is also solid. All these analog masters were made in the "golden" age (which varies depending on the opinion) of recording, and the remastering to digital has been done with great care by the folks at Sony (who now own the imprints). For recordings of, say, the early 50s, these sound really good. Yes, there is an age to the recordings in some senses, perhaps in the lack of bass response or full dynamic range, but I was never bothered by it at all considering the context of the recordings.And for the music, well, what can you say? These are the name artists of the era, doing music that made them famous. And the music is glorious, as are the performances. There's a number of very highly rated works here, based on quick checks in the Penguin and Gramaphone Guides, and I have had many of these recordings in my collection as LPs, frequently listening to them over the past few decades. Some of the recordings have been out of circulation for a while, so it's nice to see them back in this box.All in all, a remarkable box from Sony, celebrating a label that had some top-notch talent, made some definitive recordings at the time, and led many people to the pleasures of classical music. For me, this box was both a time-travel back to my youth, listening to the original LPs, as well as a discovery of just how good these artists and recordings were "back then". For what you get, this is an excellent box at the price.

A great collection at a very affordable price.A good way to instantly get a good Classical music collection.Sounds excellent on my speaker system.Glad I bought it .

Good selection . Great for teaching music appreciation. Quality recordings. Lovely packaging. Well done! The diversity of the conductors is great.