When I stumbled upon this box set for an unbelieveable bargain price in the Marketplace a few months back, I was barely familair with conductor Willem Van Otterloo, having only previously heard him backing pianists Stefan Askenase and Clara Haskil in Concerto recordings (on The Complete 1950s Chopin Recordings [Box Set] and Clara Haskil: Philips Recordings, 1951-1960 [Box Set] respectively -- see my review of the latter). This delightful 7CD set restores a variety of old mono and stereo Philips recordings back to the catalog -- a box that could have easily been part of UNI's "Original Masters" series, but was instead rescued through a licensing agreement with Challenge Classics. There are some real gems here including solid performaces of Beethoven's 5th & 6th, Saint-Saens' "Organ," Franck's, Schubert's 5th and Bruckner's 7th Symphonies, Beethoven and Rachmaninov Piano Concertos (with soloist Cor de Groot), and a bunch of sparkling Overtures, Marches and other short orchestral works, mostly with The Hague Philharmonic, but also with Berlin, Vienna and even the Concertgebouw. Though in many ways the most exciting aspect of this collection for me as a huge Eduard Van Beinum fan is realizing Van Otterloo was to The Hague what Van Beinum was to Amsterdam, and together these two men were the pillars of Dutch classical music in the late 1950s. I'm really glad I took the "Challenge" to add this to my collection, and I'll now have years of listening enjoyment and comparative studies ahead of me.