Highly recommendable!
http://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/a/alkan-edition/
A good cheap way into the composer - agreed. It was enthusiastically reviewed on BBC Radio 3's Record Review last Saturday.
At £38.76 on Amazon, I make that just under £3 a CD. Pretty damn good.
Hope they'll make it available as one of their fine US$8.99 (sometimes more) digital sets too (though I realize many of the recordings are available individually on other labels, e.g. Grand Piano, Nimbus, etc., already.) (I've bought a few Brilliant Classics digital sets- their reissue of the fine complete Bayer Dvorak quartets set, for instance.)
Right now we are in the final stage of an agreement with Brilliant to have my Brun CDs reissued by them in a very nice 11-CD box plus CDR with texts and photos. This means that a historical CD with Brun himself conducting his 8th Symphony will be included as a bonus.
That's (pardon me) "brilliant" news, Adriano.
Exceedingly 'brilliant', yes.
Will your Sterling disk of the 3rd symphony be part of this deal, Adriano?
A few weeks ago I found the download of this large Alkan set for $9.99 as an iTunes [USA] download. Seems it's currently still on iTunes but for $15.99, which is barely more than $1/cd. Wonderful music!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/alkan-edition/id1292935967 (https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/alkan-edition/id1292935967)
Yes, of course, Gareth Vaughan - otherwise (to me) it would not make sense, since the main title is "complete orchestral works". And it's really complete - not like that "complete" Respighi box of the same label :-)
Thank you so much, Adriano. It will be at the top of my list of must-buys.
I apologize, I seem to have caused the thread get rather confusing (though I may be the only person to be confused.)
No problem. Back to Alkan, then...
Hmm, isn't it frustrating when one has carefully built up a collection of a composer's works on diverse labels, with as little duplication as possible, and then someone goes and issues the whole oeuvre as a boxed set at a great price? I must convince myself that in the case of Alkan differences in interpretation can be so great that duplication is on paper only! :)
It's now available streaming on NML. Listened to the first few tracks (the opening etudes of Op.39 as played by Vincenzo Maltempo...)
Agreed Semloh - my reason for not buying this boxed set is that I have most of the recordings already! I also recently bought the Concerti di camera and Op.16 set recording as well. As a consolation, I also ordered the brilliant (pun intended) Mark Viner's recording of Op.35 - although this was more difficult to source than the boxed set in which it also appears!
It should be on it's way in the post in early January...