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| Works of Igor Stravinsky | 
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| Creators: Donald Gramm, Howard Chitjian, John Reardon, Mac Morgan, Richard Frisch, William Murphy, Carl Kaiser, Chester Watson, Don Garrard, Herbert Beattie, Kenneth Smith, Peter Tracey, Richard Kelly, Robert Oliver, Don Christlieb, George Neikrug, Benny Goodman, Charles Russo
Label: Sony Classics
Category: Music
Buy New: $59.99
Buy New/Used from $59.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (14 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2418
Format: Box Set
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 22
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 2.3
MPN: 710311
UPC: 886971031126
EAN: 0886971031126
ASIN: B000PTYUQG
Release Date: July 23, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Just Buy It! November 15, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Unquestionably one of the most astounding music bargain you are ever going to find. Currently selling for less than $32.00 you get 22 discs filled with some of the greatest music ever written as conducted by the composer. The truth is most of us are only familiar with a small portion of Stravinsky's music and this is an excellent opportunity to discover what we've been missing or, perhaps, avoiding. If you're thinking 22 discs of Stravinsky seems a little forbidding than you are in for a surprise. Listen to the discs in order. They start with the ballets, his most approachable music. That eases you into his sound world and by the time you get to some of his more "difficult" pieces you are ready for them. I happened to buy this at the same time as Murray Perahia's complete set of Mozart concertos and I alternated between the two - one disc of Mozart followed by one of Stravinsky and so on. Mozart and Stravinsky turned out to be marvelously complementary to each other in ways I hadn't necessarily expected.
 The Composer's View - Not his best performances though October 14, 2007
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
This boxed set, finally available at the bargain price it should have had to begin with, is a very good comprehensive collection of the majority of the works of one of 20th centuries most pioneering (yet enjoyable) composers. And to hear most all of it under the direction of the composer makes the collection all the more compelling.
I withhold a fifth star from the rating because the producers never used the best musical resources in these productions. Most of these performance date from an era when CBS constantly used cheap "pick-up" orchestras to cut costs. Many of the same label's recordings with Bruno Walter made around the same time suffer the same fate. In most instances, at the same time that these recordings were being made with an inferior orchestra, the composer recently gave knock-out renderings of the same work with a major ensemble, like the Philadelphia or Cleveland Orchestra. And I can recall reading dozens of personal testimonies that described how much more stunning and magnificent those performances were when compared to these recordings.
But don't let that deter you from adding this fascinating set to your collection. Nothing of it is dull or unrecommended. It just could have been so much better.
Nice deal October 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's been a very long time since I've waiting for Stravinsky's ballets by Stravinsky, even though I have some very good performances by Boulez, Bernstein and Abbado...but nothing like original author's direction, the scent of his work beyond formalisms of the score. And finally, I made it...and even more! Having a complete box containing the works of Stravinsky BY Stravinsky is a real treasure, by all means.
This box set is quite complete, excellent sound and very cheap. Only two observations: one, operas and melodramas need lyrics and, two, it would be much better considering some works in its original language, like Les Noces.
Anyway, excelent job and very convenient...give it a try!
Igor and I: 53 years and 22 CDs: a lifetime in a box. August 20, 2007
60 out of 60 found this review helpful
I began listening to the works of Igor Stravinsky about 53 years ago, when I was 13. Over my lifetime I've listened to every work ever recorded and each in as many versions as possible. A highlight of my life was singing the Symphony of Psalms as a member of the Oberlin College Choir under Stravinsky's direction in 1963. It was half an hour outside of time and space. I remember him in his tuxedo, sitting on a stool with a white turkish towel about his shoulders, like a prize fighter, smiling at each of us as we passed by to take our places on the stage. I remember how everyone in the concert hall rose as one person when he set foot on the stage. I remember the total silence that fell upon the hall before the music began. I remember him, old and rather hunched over, raising his arthritic hands to lead us, to lead us ... and then suddenly a torrent of time and sound rushed in; it was over and there was clapping and shouting and crying. Later he said to our conductor, Robert Fountain, "Your chorus makes a most delicious sound."
And now SONY has issued this giant bargain box of the great majority of the recorded performances to which that mega-corporation now has access - and at an amazingly low price. Thank you, SONY/BMG! But also: shame on you, SONY/BMG! The annotation is terribly inadequate, even for a bargain box. The casual listener doesn't have necessary information; the serious listener doesn't have important information; and the musician / scholar who knows the scores by heart hears what the annotations do not tell. Which version of the Firebird is it? The 1910 original or the 1945 revision? We are told much later that the suite excerpted from the ballet is the 1919 verwion. We read that Petrouchka is done in the original 1911 version, yet the same disc contains the Rite of Spring without indication of which version, the original of 1913 or the 1947 scaled down revision. And so on and on. This is vital information that it would have taken an editor but a few hours to add to the skimpy booklet included in the big box.
There is no indication that any of the performances that first appeared on CD as early as 1986 or so have been remastered. All have of course been transferred from some analogue master at some time or another, but nowhere do we find the standard information telling us whether a recording is AAD or ADD. To my ears the recordings sound the same as the original CD releases in the mid to late 1980s or the "original cover" release about 1991 (the most recent (P) date to appear anywhere in the present box). The sound varies from recording to recording in matters of bass resonance or harshness in the higher ranges, especially in the strings.
Particularly disappointing in this 22 CD collection is the use yet again of the 1961 stereo recording of Oedipus Rex. The sound is raw, the soloists strain their voices, the chorus sounds small and over-miked, and the orchestral sound is muddy. Altogether preferable as a greater performance and a far better recording is the 1951 Oedipus Rex with Stravinsky conducting the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The superb soloists include Peter Pears, Martha Moedl and Heinz Rehfuss, the chorus sings spot on pitch and tempo and is clearly but not too closely miked, and the orhcestral sound is rich and detailed. Moreover, Stravinsky brings greater energy and nuance to his conducting. The narration is given a somewhat over the top presentation in French by Jean Cocteau. Perhaps because it is a monophonic recording, SONY has let it sit in the vaults, to the best of my knowledge never reissuing it on CD. This is true as well of other fine monophonic recordings from the 1950s, including great performances in fine sound with Stravinsky conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. In some cases these would have been musically preferable to the later stereo remakes. They might even have been included alongside of the remakes for purposes of comparison.
Although ballet suites are included in addition to complete ballets, the variant orchestrations of a major work such as Les Noces are not included (as they were on the LP, under Craft's direction). This gift horse is a fine thoroughbred and a grand prize winner, but when you look it in the mouth, some of the teeth are missing.
Every performance is a revelation and worth repeated listening, but as I have indicated, that doesn't mean that every or any performance is the best or even one of the best of the recorded versions available. As other reviewers have noted, it is well to explore other versions on CD and DVD, some more recent and some recorded even earlier than those in this box. I think of conductors such as Tilson Thomas, Salonen, Gergiev, Gardiner, Colin Davis, Kondrashin, Haitink, Boulez, Markevitch, Monteux, Koussevitzky, and Van Beinum, and I am sure readers will think of others. But works of genius require many interpretations and many performances to reveal the fullness of their beauty, and so it is with most of Stravinsky's compositions.
Stravinsky left us what is surely one of the greatest musical legacies of the 20th century; some would argue the greatest, because his compositions track the stylistic developments of the century from its beginning to 1966 and explore nearly the complete range of known musical forms. Indeed, he absorbed the entire course of western music history into his art, but whether he is paying homage to Machaut, Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Russian folk songs, Louis Armstrong, Schoenberg or Webern, his works always sound like Stravinsky.
For goodness' sake: buy the box, listen, and let the music make you new again.
Fantastic Stravinsky set August 6, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I remember this set first appearing on LPs, and then CDs, at premium prices. It was a jewel then, and remastered the recordings are wonderful. More than twenty years after the LP set release, this is a tremendous bargain. How long will it stay in the catalog? Buy this before it goes out of print.
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