Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Barking Mad Bach, 9 May 2007
This neatly presented 155 CD box set includes the entire lifetime works of the great JS Bach. This is an incredible achievement which should be appreciated by everyone, and especially by the Bach admirer who (like me) has spent considerable time searching for some of the composer's lesser known works.
Far too much material to review in depth, suffice to say that there is no problem with the recordings or the performers of these works and there should be absolutely no hesitation in buying this bargain.
To briefly describe the set, it consists of six sections:
1. Orchestral works and chamber music
2. Keyboard works - played on harpsichord, as they would have been composed for this instrument throughout most of Bach's lifetime - the piano only becoming popular during the latter part of his life.
3. & 4. Cantatas 1 and 2 - specially performed and recorded for this set by the Holland Boys Choir. As such they are a nicely uniform interpretation of Bach's immense output of cantatas.
5. Vocal works - by various performers.
6. Organ works - all played by Hans Fagius so, like the cantatas offer a consistent interpretation.
Included also is a PC format CD with almost 500 pages of information on Bach's life, biographies of the performers/orchestras/conductors, comments on each CD, libretti (words) to all of the vocal works and cantatas.
Buy this collection before it becomes a discontinued item.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
A box of delights, 6 Feb 2007
Brilliant are just that, brilliant. They are on a mission to bring good music to the masses as cheaply as possible and they do this admirably through their box sets. I'd already got the Complete Mozart and was impressed with the quality of those recordings so it wasn't too much of a gamble to purchase the Bach set. I did not make a mistake, the recordings are first class, all of them. Notable are the complete organ works which are the legendary Hans Fagius / BIS set and the Jacob Lindburg / BIS Lute Suites. Many of the cantatas and other choral works are recorded especially for Brilliant by leading specialists in early music including such stars as The Sixteen, Roy Goodman, Peter Schreier, Rogers Covey-Crump, Michael George, Emma Kirkby & Michael Chance and the performances are as good as I've heard. The standard for this box set is consistently high so if you are in the market for a lot Bach then you can't go wrong, especially at the price.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
A great work as a whole, 5 Mar 2007
Though I have my favourites by now, and I must admit some of the cds are just hard to bear, this is a great set. The organ works set, comprised of 17 cds by the great Hans Fagius, or the 12 cds of the keyboard works, plus the complete set of cantatas are more than enough reasons to buy this.
Of course there are better performances of most of these recordings. In some cases, the ones included in this box are my favourites ever, as with the English Suites by von Asperen or the Joseph Payne's French suites.
The cantatas are in general excellent. I don't mind the short time in which they were recorded. Of course there are flaws, but tell me only one set that doesn't have them. I have my reservations about even the best sets by Gardiner or Koopman.
There are at least 50 cds you will find excellent, which makes this set worth buying.
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