Customer Reviews

The 99 Most Essential Brahms Masterpieces (Amazon Exclusive)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is another great collection from the X5 group. The set is a bargain for the complete cycle of all four of Brahms' symphonies alone, featuring the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (BSO) conducted by the Venezuelan conductor Eduardo Marturet.

The symphonies are performed ably by the BSO and Marturet (who is now music director of the Miami Symphony Orchestra). The readings seem to drag in a few places, but overall the recordings are quite good. Symphony No 1 is a live recording and has a very few coughs and such. The others seem to be studio recordings -- at least they don't have applause at the end and I didn't notice crowd noise during a casual listen.

The BSO features prominently in this collection. During the Cold War, the BSO was East Berlin rival to the West's Berlin Philharmonic, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall there were questions about whether it could survive at all. But it has recovered today, and in 2006 changed its name to the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. It is still a fine orchestra, and features frequently on recordings, often for budget labels.

Besides the symphony cycle, the BSO and Marturet perform a set of all 21 of the crowd-pleasing Hungarian Dances. They also give nice renditions of both of the Piano Concertos, but unfortunately the name of the soloist is not provided. I believe it might be Karin Lechner -- I haven't found references to any other recordings of these concertos by Marturet and the BSO with any other soloist.

It is really interesting (and a terrific idea) that both of Brahms' clarinet sonatas are included in both the original versions for clarinet, and the alternate versions for viola. It's great to listen to these works back to back with the alternate instrumentation -- and a much faster reading on the clarinet versions. The collection also contains all three of Brahms' violin sonatas, performed capably by Aaron Rosand and Hugh Sung.

The Violin Concerto by Rosand and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic is performed well, but the orchestra sounds a bit dark, like it wasn't microphoned very well. The solo violin is much brighter and the contrast is a bit strange. No matter, it doesn't detract from the set overall. I really like the Double Concerto with the well-known Dutch violinist Emmy Verhey and Hungarian cellist and Indiana University professor Janos Starker.

The set doesn't include any of Brahms' choral works, but its selection of orchestral and chamber works is really quite good. There are a few Lieder, but they are not the focus or the high point of the set, really.

The casual listener who just wants a "greatest hits" collection may be a bit disappointed, because Brahms had far fewer "greatest hits" than some other composers. If you are unfamiliar with this music, it can be a bit slower and less catchy than, say, many well-known pieces by Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. But it's definitely worth it!

Snap it up at the special $1.99 price as the "Deal of the Day" on January 23, 2010 if you can, but if you miss that deal, it's still a bargain at the regular price. Highly recommended!

Wow, 12 hours of Brahms. All the works are complete, and the wonderful D-major violin concerto is here, in a solid performance. The Berlin Symphony Orchestra is fine with the symphonies. Except for the notable lack of all but a few vocal works, this is a great introduction to one of my favorite composers.

I own several of the other 99 Most Essential albums (Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky) and I'd have to say that Brahms is my most favorite to listen to. Mostly because this album includes more complete works than the other ones and they're performed in a way that someone not very familiar with Brahms will enjoy them. I am that person, not too familiar with Brahms, but I loved this album and am now interested in learning more about this amazing classical composer.

This is a new addition to my collection of "The 99 Most Essential...Masterpieces" classical music albums from Amazon. This is also a good compilation and I am glad I got it. I am not a classical music enthusiast, but like listening to it every now and then to take a break from the talk radio that I normally listen.

The "99 Most Essential" series is a great deal . . . a little too great. The albums are too big to download before the links expire. I bought several of these, but by the time one album loaded, the download links expired on the others and I just received error messages. My internet connection is a fairly good cable modem connection and should have been more than adequate. I had to call Amazon customer support to have them refresh the links TWICE, which meant I had to click on a few hundred individual songs in the "your media library" section to receive my purchases. Even then, I ran into several error messages and could not get the complete albums. I finally just asked for a refund (on my 5th call to customer support). What a pain!

This was not a pleasant buying experience. If you buy 99 song mp3 albums, only buy one album at a time and make sure you have a very fast internet connection. Amazon - please allow more time for download, have a better way to refresh download errors, and have a way to download entire albums from "your media library" instead of only individual songs.

As most have said, I got this a few months back and it is just XCELLENT! extremely calming and relaxing for me.

Beautiful music, beautifully performed at a wonderful price.

What a magnificent opportunity to experience classical music you may not have heard before.

I look forward to many more such releases.

This is a pretty good deal, but read the fine print before you press "GO".

Due to time restraints and a network issue, I did not download the purchase quick enough and my downloads were cancelled. I have to purchase the album AGAIN. Amazon should correct this issue. To prevent somebody from downloading their own purchase (at ANY time) is doing nothing to prevent piracy... but will likely cause customers to seek other outlets for digital purchases. Amazon didn't even grant me 12 hours of access time, to my download my purchase. On albums of this size, I recommend making sure that you can have enough uninterrupted time to complete the download. I'd further more recommend just purchasing the collection elsewhere. Somewhere, where you aren't denied access to the media that you JUST PAID FOR!

Due to limited time on downloads, you may not be able to download. Customer service is slow and then you get another limited time download offer which is unclear as to how it is to be used. By the time you figure it out, the download time expires and you're stuck with nothing, nada, just a big waste of time.
I bought 19 albums and was able to download only 4 or 5.
Gave up trying.