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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent bargain, worth it for symphonies alone,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The 99 Most Essential Tchaikovsky Masterpieces (Amazon Exclusive) (MP3 Download)
Tchaikovsky is one of the most melodic, tuneful composers ever, which means his work is well suited for this kind of collection. This set is a great bargain, collecting great compositions by a great composer and offering them up for a terrific bargain price.
This collection really does offer most (although not all) of Tchaikovsky's best. It has a full cycle of all six symphonies (minus the unnumbered "Manfred" symphony), the incredibly recognizable Piano Concerto No 1, the Christmas favorite Nutcracker Ballet, the full-on Romantic-era Violin Concerto, Capriccio Italienne, Marche Slave, excerpts from Swan Lake, the Sleeping Beauty suite, the Romeo and Juliet overture, two full string quartets, "The seasons" set of 12 pieces for solo piano, and is capped off with the 1812 Overture -- arguably one of the densest collection of really catchy tunes ever assembled in 17 minutes of classical music, complete with cannon fire at the end. These are strong performances and recordings overall, mostly by ensembles that do not generally make worldwide headlines. The Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel does an admirable job on the symphony cycle (I believe taken from this set). The Nutcracker by the Bonn Classical Philharmonics sounds as crowd-pleasing as ever. The London Symphony does a great job as usual with the piano concerto and 1812. Still, not everything is perfect. The violin concerto is a thin-sounding recording -- neither the orchestra nor the soloist are tightly microphoned. The string quartets were recorded in an overly echoey room and sound kind of muddy. The track listing indicates the Nutcracker Suite (Op 71a), but it really includes the full Nutcracker Ballet (Op 71) -- even though the suite would have been better for this kind of a collection since there are a few more boring bits in the full ballet. Also, artist information is sometimes incomplete -- no soloist listed on the Piano Concerto, and no orchestra on the Violin Concerto. Plus, there is an outright mistaken Track 77, which is supposed to be the aria from "The Snow Maiden", but which is in fact a hot jazz band with vibraphone and piano. Very strange, I trust Amazon will fix this? But never mind the nitpicking -- the set is highly recommended overall, whether at the "Deal of the Day" price of $1.99 on Thanksgiving Day 2009, or at the regular price of $6.99. The symphony cycle alone is well worth the price! (Regarding the price mix-up on November 26: I too bought the set today and then found it was $6.99 in the system instead of $1.99. Amazon issued me a full refund plus a promotional credit. Just send them a customer service complaint and you'll be refunded. In the meantime, they have already fixed the price, so this is no longer a concern.)
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A bargain for the symphonies alone.,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The 99 Most Essential Tchaikovsky Masterpieces (Amazon Exclusive) (MP3 Download)
Mr. Fisher in his review below sums up the set very well. I'll just add some additional details.
The six symphonies and the Romeo and Juliet are indeed conducted by Maurice Abravanel, and taken from a Vox Box set available elsewhere on Amazon. The Utah Symphony isn't world class, but they play very well, and the 1970s recordings still sound fresh, if a bit dry. Abravanel's dry-eyed Tchaikovsky sounds a bit underpowered compared to, say, Bernstein, and his orchestra isn't as lush sounding as Philadelphia, Vienna, Berlin, etc, but he's always musical, and his recordings of the early symphonies are very good indeed. The Violin Concerto is played by Aaron Rosand with the Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg under Louis de Froment. This was taped in the early 1970s and released on Vox. The recording is a little brash, with the violin spotlit, and the orchestra a little less polished than the Utah Symphony, but Rosand's playing is bold, and the result is a good performance. I find the sound less objectionable than Mr. Fisher does. Steel-fingered Michael Ponti released many discs of little-known music on Vox. The Tchaikovsky works, part of a complete set of the composer's piano music recorded in the 1970s, found him a little more sensitive than usual. The hard, slightly clattery piano tone is typical of the label's sound at that time. The Nutcracker recording doesn't list a conductor, and credits the suspiciously named "Bonn Classical Philharmonics" as the orchestra. Pity, because this sounds like a fine Nutcracker in good sound. The chorus in the Waltz of the Snowflakes deserves to be named as well.
29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clueless,
By MusicLover (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The 99 Most Essential Tchaikovsky Masterpieces (Amazon Exclusive) (MP3 Download)
Fellow Amazonians...Please stop reviewing items in the basis of a price discrepancy, how it shipped or the condition of the product upon receipt, for example. Yes, clearly a mistake has been made and no doubt, it will be remedied. But to give this product 1 star because someone forgot to change the price for the day, is just silly. I put 5 stars because the samples are very nice and for $2 or $6, it's a heck of a deal.
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