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04 February 2016
Woodstock in a can!
0 of 1 found this helpful Great item. Expanded director's cut on 2 DVDs, extra DVD on unreleased performances and final 4th DVD of various extras-interviews, more unreleased performances, etc. Paper mementos and booklets are nice additions which fit into the DVD sized box. The oversized round cardboard container which houses this is a bit unnecessary, except for use as a holder for the equally unnecessary tambourine, but, hey that's American marketing for you....
09 December 2013
Fantastic 90 CD collection of recordings of pianist Arthur Rubenstein
This 90 disc set contains the complete RCA recordings of renowned pianist, Artur Rubinstein, housed in a very sturdy box with a top that lifts off.
The 90 CD's within are arranged chronologically in two smaller, white, open-top boxes. The discs come in cardboard replicas of the original album/CD covers. (The recordings which were originally 78 RPM recordings are combined on 14 CD's which have been grouped in 3 multi-disc cardboard sleeves.) The spines of all of the CD's show the original LP catalog numbers, the album titles and the sequenced CD numbers of this set. The spine information is printed legibly.
A 160 page hardcover book rests on top of the CDs and provides a bio, photos, pictures of all the album covers and track and time listings. The track and time listings are essential, since the back of the CD sleeves depict the original LP liner notes and the original side 1&2 LP track listings, which often did not contain times and even when they did, the LP track numbers do not correspond to track selections on the CDs. The print on these mini LP sleeves is too small for a man my age to read without a magnifying glass.
Two of the discs are, in fact, DVDs. One is a documentary on Rubinstein's life, the other is a video of part of the performance for Israel, a CD of which is included in the set.
The music speaks for itself-a rich legacy of one of the finest musicians of the 20th century. The repertoire is heavy on Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and Schumann. It is light on Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Ravel. I am not quibbling, just stating a fact. Also, as technology improved during the course of Rubinstein's lengthy career, he often re-recorded pieces. Thus there is some small duplication of repertoire. This is not a complaint either.
My only complaint is that the designers of the product felt that a full CD sized label was not in order, and instead, in an attempt to mimic the way an LP looked, opted to have the label in a small area around the CD hole, leaving the rest of the disc black...just like an LP. The problem is that with only the center 1/3 of the CD devoted to label art and copy, the printed information is small and difficult to read. Also, the 'miniLP" idea may be cute, but the CD's look more like miniature 45's, since the CD hole is itself more than twice the size of an actual LP center hole. RCA/Sony would do well to abandon this concept and follow the lead of other classical labels and use the entire surface of the CD to replicate the label of a release. That would provide more room for track, time and repertoire info and would be more faithful to the actual size of an LP label.
Other than that small complaint, this is a wonderful set of recordings, made even more pleasing since the set has seemed to drop in price recently. The original list price was close to $300-I picked this one up on Ebay for just over $100-NEW-and I have noticed it offered elsewhere at a similar savings.
At a little more than $1.00 per disc, this is one of the great classical CD bargains around these days.