111 Years of Deutsche Grammophon - The Collectors' Edition 2 [Box set, Limited Edition]

Now, why didn't I see a sequel to last year's "111" box coming? The new, 56-disc box is, like the previous one, an incoherent but entertaining mixture of the overfamiliar and the obscure, with a much wider selection of twentieth century and Latin music this time around (a choice influenced, perhaps, by the success of Alex Ross's bestselling book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century?). Once again, chamber music is barely acknowledged, and once again Shostakovich and Grieg fail to make the cut (as do, this time, Mendelssohn and Rachmaninov). Alice Sara Ott, Hilary Hahn, Rafal Blechacz, and Yuja Wang are among the young performers who share the box with such past masters as Rita Streich, David Munrow, Eugen Jochum, Emil Gilels, and Carlo Maria Giulini. In addition to two complete operas (Abbado's "Carmen" and Kleiber's "La Traviata"), there are another sixteen discs of vocal music from the 12th to the 20th centuries, including a stunning 1990 recital of Bach arias by Kathleen Battle and Itzhak Perlman; Wilhelm Furtwangler's 1951 Schubert "Great" C major Symphony; and a 1939 recording of the Brahms Fourth under Victor de Sabata.

The list of discs in the product description above was a good start, but I've updated it with additional information about the composers and performers represented:

CD 1&2 - Bizet: Carmen / Berganza/Domingo/LSO/Abbado
CD 3 - Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.3 / Ravel: Concerto in G; Gaspard de la nuit / Argerich/BP/Abbado
CD 4 - Beethoven: Piano Sonatas No.14 "Moonlight", No.13 "Pathétique" & No.23 "Appassionata" / Barenboim
CD 5 - "The Bach Album" - arias for voice & violin / Battle/Perlman/Orch. of St. Luke's/Nelson
CD 6 - Mahler: Symphony No.1 / Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam/Bernstein
CD 7 - Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 2 / Blechacz/Royal Concertgebouw Orch./Semkow
CD 8 - Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, K.622; Flute Concerto, K.313; Bassoon Concerto, K.191 / WP/Bohm
CD 9 - Debussy: La Mer; 3 Nocturnes; Jeux; Rhapsodie pour clarinette / Cleveland Orch./Boulez
CD 10 - Brahms: Symphony No.4 / Strauss, R.: Tod und Verklärung, Op.24 / BP/Victor de Sabata
CD 11 - "Pasion Española" - songs by Alonso/Anta/Lacosta/Lopez-Quiroga y Miguel/Morales / Placido Domingo/Madrid Communidad Orch./Miguel Roa
CD 12 - "Fiesta!" - Latin-American orchestral showpieces by Bernstein/Carreno/Castellanos/Estevez/Ginastera/Marquez/Revueltas/Romero / Simon Bolivar Youth Orch./Dudamel
CD 13 - Bach, J.S.: Cantatas "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen", BWV 56; "Ich habe genug", BWV 82 / Fischer-Dieskau/Karl Ristenpart Chamber Orch./Ristenpart
CD 14 - Strauss, J.: Overture "Die Fledermaus"; Annen-Polka, Op.117; Kaiser-Walzer, Op.437; Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, Op.214; Radetzky-March, Op.228; An der schönen, blauen Donau, Op.314; Eljen a Magyar!, Op.332; G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op.325 / RSO Berlin/Fricsay
CD 15 - Schubert: Symphony No.9; Rosamunde (Overture to "Die Zauberharfe", D.644) / BP/Furtwangler
CD 16 - "Aria Cantilena" - Chapi, Massenet, Offenbach, Rossini, Villa-Lobos, Montsalvatge, Strauss / Elina Garanca/Staatskapelle Dresden/Luisotti
CD 17 - Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 / Gilels/BP/Jochum
CD 18 - Fauré: Requiem, Op.48 / Ravel: Pavane / Battle/Philharmonia C&O/Giulini
CD 19- Golijov: Ayre / Berio: Folksongs / Dawn Upshaw
CD 20 - "Reflection" - Schumann: Piano Concerto / Clara Schumann: Lieder / Brahms: Cello Sonata no.1; Two Rhapsodies, op.79 / Grimaud/Otter/Mork/Staatskapelle Dresden/Salonen
CD 21 - Schubert: String Quartet, D.810 "Death and the Maiden" / Beethoven: String Quartet, Op.135 / Hagen-Qtt.
CD 22 - Schoenberg: Violin Concerto, Op.36 / Sibelius: Violin Concerto, Op.47 / Hahn/Swedish RSO/Salonen
CD 23 - "Air - a baroque journey" / Daniel Hope
CD 24 - "Horowitz at Home" - Mozart, Schubert, Schubert/Liszt / Vladimir Horowitz
CD 25 - Bruckner: Symphony No.4 "Romantic" / BP/Jochum
CD 26 - Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op.45 / Janowitz/Wachtel/BP/Karajan
CD 27 - Schumann: Fantasie, Op.17 / Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op.24 / Wilhelm Kempff
CD 28&29 - Verdi: La Traviata / Cotrubas/Domingo/Bavarian State O&C/Carlos Kleiber
CD 30 - Mozart: Arias / Magdalena Kozena/Orch. of the Age of Enlightenment/Rattle
CD 31 - Glass: Violin Concerto / Schnittke: Concerto Grosso No.5 / Kremer/WP/Dohnanyi
CD 32 - "Memory" - Mozart, Chopin, Schumann / Lang Lang
CD 33 - Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; An American in Paris; "Porgy and Bess" Suite; Cuban Overture / CSO/Levine
CD 34 - Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, K.427 / Haydn: Scena di Berenice, Hob XXIVa:10 / Beethoven: "Ah! perfido", Op.65 / Connolly/Tilling/Gabrieli Consort & Players/McCreesh
CD 35 - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 "Pathétique" / Leningrad PO/Mravinsky
CD 36 - "Music of the Gothic Era" / Early Music Consort of London/David Munrow
CD 37 - "Carmen Fantasy" - violin showpieces by Ravel, Sarasate, Massenet, Faure, Tartini, Wienawski / Mutter/WP/Levine
CD 38 - "Duets" - Bizet, Donizetti, Gounod, Massenet, Moreno Torroba, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Verdi / Netrebko/Villazon/Staatskapelle Dresden/Luisotti
CD 39 - Liszt: 12 Études d'exécution transcendante / Alice Sara Ott
CD 40 - "Speak Low" - songs of Kurt Weill / Anne Sofie von Otter/NDRSO/Gardiner
CD 41 - Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concertos Nos.1 - 3 / English Concert/Pinnock
CD 42 - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos.14, K.449 & 26, K.537 "Coronation" / Maria Joao Pires/WP/Abbado
CD 43 - Stravinsky: 3 Dances from Petrouchka / Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No.7 / Boulez: Piano Sonata No.2 / Webern: Piano Variations, Op.27 / Pollini
CD 44 - Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin / Quasthoff/Zeyen
CD 45&46 - Reich: Drumming (original version); Six Pianos; Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ / Steve Reich & Musicians
CD 47 - Bach, C.P.E.: Symphonies Nos.1 - 4 / Munich Bach Orch./Karl Richter
CD 48 - Schumann: Marsch No.2, Op.76; Waldszenen, Op.82; Six pieces from Fantasiestücke, Op.12 / Sviatoslav Richter
CD 49 - Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites - Swan Lake, Op.20, The Sleeping Beauty, Op.66a & The Nutcracker, Op.71a / BP/Rostropovich
CD 50 - "Paganini for Two" / Gil Shaham, violin; Goran Sollscher, guitar
CD 51 - "Opera Choruses" - Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Verdi, Wagner / Deutschen Oper Berlin C&O/Sinopoli
CD 52 - "Rita Streich singt Opern-Arien" - Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Weber, Verdi, Meyerbeer, Thomas, Puccini
CD 53 - "Opera Arias" - Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Gounod, Offenbach, Verdi, Wagner, Borodin / Bryn Terfel/Metropolitan Opera Orch./James Levine
CD 54 - "Sonatas and Etudes" - Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin, Ligeti / Yuja Wang
CD 55 - Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez; Fantasia para un Gentilhombre / Narcisco Yepes/Garcia Navarro
CD 56 - Chopin: Four Ballades; Barcarolle; Fantaisie / Krystian Zimerman

A review of all the CDs would be exhaustive and really of no practical use. If you can't see that this set at this price is tremendous value, then a CD by CD review will not convince you. I think this is currently working out at less then £2 a CD, a price more than justified by the tremendous quality on offer, a real embarrassment of riches.

However, i am deducting a star for the simple reason that the CDs (in wonderful original sleeves) are housed in a box container which is at risk of damage. The lid folds away from the top to hang at the back, but after repeated openings the cardboard becomes very weak quite quickly. It is reinfored by a sticker, which also lists the CDs within, but for the same reason, the text on this sticker by the box hinge soon becomes unreadable as the material creases.

I realise this is a fairly trivial fault, and if I could deduct only half a star then I would. I prefer box sets where the lid can be completely removed and set aside, a design which neither this set nor it's predecessor adheres to.

This looks to be excellent value for money: 111 classical CDs for around £1.35 each. It will take a long time to play them all so I can vouch for only the few I have played and, so far, they are very good quality. I am pleased.