To save sales from piracy, some editors put their faith in useless but annoying anti-copy protection scheme. Other editors have more imagination, and try to seduce consumers instead of chasing them.

For classical music, there are several labels selling CD at very attractive price. Much lower than iTunes Music Store for example. Naxos, or Arte Nova are well-known. They record new artists, and sell their CD at ~6.0...7.5 euros only. 10 years ago, it was revolutionnary. Who is the leading actor in the classical market: Deutsche Grammophon? No, it's naxos

But a new record is now broken. It's called Brilliant Classics. This label based in Nederland records fresh discs and republish older one and sell them at much lower price (usually less than 3 euros). For the upcoming "Mozart Year" (1756 - 2006), Brilliant Classics has released the most unexpensive CD box ever released: 170 CD at 99 euros!
It's not a joke. There are no old and dusty recordings (75 CD were recorded between 2001 and 2004, and 90% of the full set are pur digital). No anti-copy mechanism. 170 hours of music, 2400 tracks. Translated in 'friendly price' alla iTunes, price would reach 1700 euros "only", at 128 kbps, with DRM as bonus. With Brilliant, the bonus consists in 3 KG of paper and plastic, a bonus CD-Rom with booklets and libretto (english texts and untranslated opera texts). And you can rip, copy, transfer, burn again the tracks without problem.
Artistic quality is more than decent, and sometimes excellent (complete Symphonies by Jaap ter Linden, Da Ponte Trilogy by Kuijken, Die Entführung and Die Zauberflöte by Sir Charles Mackerras (licensed by Telarc), Zaide by Koopman, Violin sonatas by Accardo...)




This product should be available in different country on local stores. It's also available on the web (apparently not in USA):
- amazon.fr
- amazon.de
- amazon.co.uk (more expensive).

Merry christmas and happy "Mozart year" (sic).

On Amazon.fr, it is now 0.5 euros per disc

Too bad I'm not a big fan of Mozart. I hope they do this with other composers like Bach.

guruboolez,

I assume that your high regard for this collection also means that there is no clipping on CD-s and they are not squashed. In other words they do not fall into the loudness race category.

Could you comment on this? Many thanks.


Gabor

There's nothing to worry with current classical production.
My highest "album gain" value is something close to -3dB (for stereo - mono are different) for more than 1000 CD I've ripped.
It might change in the future, but nowadays it's OK

That would surely make my day.

Although I'm pretty confident such collections wouldn't come to Brazil anyway.

Besides, Bach's complete works might not take 170 CDs, but 1700

Very true.

The Bach Year was celebrated in 2000. There were two Complete Works of Johann Sebastien:
- Hansler Classics (172 CD)




- Teldec (153 CD)





Brilliant Classics (same label as the Mozart box) has also released Bach Complete Works at unexpensive price (but higher than for Mozart) in 160 CD :


But most of these CD in this edition were not recommended (especially the full set of Cantatas).

We're far from 1700 CD. But of course, we lost several works of JS Bach. Anyway, he haven't composed enough material for filling 1700 CD. Teleman maybe, but not Bach family

Thank you. Marvelous find.

Than you very much Guruboolez. I'm impressed by your knowledge. And all I can say about those Bach collections is

Insanely expensive

Wishing the Mozart collection were available out here in "the colonies." Apparently there is not the market - doubt that - or some licensing problem to keep the package from being sold here. Tant pis; je regrette. Maybe in the future.

It is in fact already in the states distributed by the company Qualiton Imports, Ltd., Phone: 001 718 937 8515 www.qualiton.com as well as a large amount of other titles from the catalogue Brilliant Classics. If you want a full excel list with all products available and direct access to all details on head office website, let me know by sending me an e-mail.
I am myself looking for anyone who could have an interest in starting some resale of these items in all Latin and South american countries, I am sure there must be a lot of music lovers kept in the dark untill now!! regards ronny

The price is ~ $1.65 a disc in the US...Still a bargain! Guess what I am getting me for Christmas!?

People interested by the Kantor's complete works at low price should take a look on this:
http://www.bach-complete-works.com/

99 euros again but "only" 160 CD.

Interesting point from the site:

120 euros for Brazilian fans... is someone interested?

Another red-hot deal for music. JS rules!

Are these good recordings? Are they worth 100 hard-earned smackers?

Roberto asked me last night about the Bach collection and I was concerned that it seemed dominated my Pieter Jan Leusink (conductor) who was unknown to me (as opposed to the conductors of the Mozart collection).
I couldn't find him mentioned in my normal reference (the penguin guide to classical music) but today I found it in the gramophone guide to classical music.
Here is their review of the Leusink cantatas collection:
http://ikol.dk/~jan/bach/bach1.jpg
http://ikol.dk/~jan/bach/bach2.jpg

The complete box is certainly worth 100...120 euros. Even if 2/3 of the whole recordings are unintersting, price would be still interesting.
I personaly don't found this box as interesting as the Mozart ones. Jan S. mentioned the Cantatas recordings: french critics was not very "tender" with it. It's apparently far from Gardiner's and Suzuki's performances, and is less enjoying as the now old but still interesting Harnoncourt/Leonhardt historical adventure.
But, well... did you ever listened to “uninteresting” performance? It's often pleasant when you never heard the composition before
It's not that I recommend this Bach's box (the Mozart one is really enjoying!), but for the price it may be interesting to have tons of rare compositions of J.S. Bach.

Fantastic. Thank-you very much for the information, Guru and Jan.

Oh well, guess I won't resist it anyway...

The shipping took 4 weeks (I'm living far from German/France boudary: 800 meters at best...), but I finally got my Gesamtwerk. Very nice box, and the content is really pleasant to my ears.
Thank you Jan S. for the review: it was helpful and annihilated all resistance.
With Mozart and Bach: 200 € = 330 CD = 5500 tracks = 333 hours of music in two nice box.

Bach rules.

I resume this old post because I discovered a new Brillant Classics "Big Box", this time devoted to Beethoven (85 CDs + 15 CDs of historical registrations @ 99 €)

Link

I consider that as a Christmas self-gift so what do you think about the quality of this box?

thanks

I looked over it and in the first 85 cds the big names are very rare. The historical recordings though are made up of big names. I'd say the first 85 cds are mostly a gamble but the last 15 cds should be good.

Indeed. But I find that Orgelwerke played by Hans Fagius on several historic Swedish organs (originally recorded and published by BIS) is very good. There are also some highlights like Lute works by Jakob Lindberg and Flötensonaten by Stephen Preston and Trevor Pinnock.

Thanks Jan for your comments.

Do you think this one from Sony BMG could be considered more qualitative overall?

I'd definitely give the edge to the brilliant set. Looking over it again it actually has more strong names than I first thought. I'd say it is definitely a fantastic buy even if half the stuff can't be expected to be world class. There is enough stuff by famous performers that you're guaranteed to get value for money.