Oh Mr Amazon, with this cheap box set / bargain item, etc...

olly stans resting on their laurels

man that messiaen cover is trippy!

Emi Messiaen box is basically older, golden age of stereo era recordings (though French emi sound quality not always so golden) whereas the dg box is digital era cosmopolitan technical wizardry renditions. Both worth having. I prefer analog sound for the ravishing colors of the orchestral stuff tbf

i was once wandering around avignon and bumped into a conservatory named after mr. messiaen. had no idea it existed. i was rather moved, actually.

Lesser known early 20th cent brit Arthur Bliss 5CD set for £4 new via Dodax:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Composers-Arthur-Bliss/dp/B0056H0R3C/

^ I have about 3/5ths of that on vinyl and it's great stuff

what does his music sound like? (i know, dumb question, but...)

Kind of Debussy-ish, Delius/Holst school of English pastoralism iirc

18 disc Delius collection for under £15. About half what it was when I added it to my wish list.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005RXKKQO?keywords=Delius&qid=1437327538&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3

If that is the delius emi box, it is extremely desirable, probably the best of all those emi composer boxes. I have most of its contents individually but I still want it.

I've been meaning to get a box set of Sibelius's symphonies, preferably one that doesn't cost too much, because I'm not really familiar with his music at all. But there are so many different reasonably priced boxes I don't know which one to buy... There's Karajan, Barbirolli, two different cycles by Berglund (one with Bournemouth Sinfonietta, one with the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra), Vänskä, Saari, Storgårds, Ashkenazy, Colin Davis, etc. I'm not a nationalist so I don't think this music needs to be interpreted by a Finnish conductor (though Berglund, Vänskä, and Storgårds all seem to get a fair amount of praise), so I'm not sure where to begin. Can anyone (Jon?) recommend a good "starter box" for Sibelius?

Yeah, there was a wave of Sibelius boxes timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of his birth (that sort of thing seems to be a driving factor in box set releases, hence a wave of Nielsen boxes this year too). I don't really know enough to have an opinion on this, but Berglund/Bournemouth are always a powerful force in my experience.

Berglund Bournemouth is indeed a good choice. Beautiful late analog production. The 1980s berglund cycle (the other box) has a lot of important music besides the symphonies but is not quite as well recorded. Plus I think that box is out of print now so you'd have to get it second hand.

The Berglund/Bournemouth box is what I was considering first (it's also one of the cheapest box sets available), but since it's an older recording, I wasn't so sure about the sound quality. (Some 1960s and early 70s British classical records that I have have a tinny and thin sound that I don't like.) But since you say it sounds good, I guess I'll go for that one.

The sound picture is more smooth and creamy. Not as close miked sounding as emi barbirolli recordings (nb I love close miking)

Fuck! So glad I looked at this thread!

First time I ever looked at a complete classical collection it was a 120 disc Bach collection and I just assumed all these guys would have similarly massive collections, but looking at those Mahler, Delius and Sibelius boxes, wow, I can actually do this. The world appears quite a bit nicer.

Do these kind of boxes get sold at regular music shops?

Not in nyc. There are no stores here where one can buy new classical CDs anymore. If you still have virgin and hmv over there they might stock things like this.

Fopp is awful for classical music. Not sure if HMV still exists any more but they were better in their flagship branches. The prices of these sets are all over the place so online is probably your best bet.

I add tonnes of stuff to my Amazon wishlist and just use the "items with price drops" function to check for bargains. Almost everything gets reduced by 20% - 25% at some point and some sets come down by 40% or 50%.

If you aren't keen on Amazon, Presto Classical is a really good alternative - more expensive, typically, but an excellent selection and they have fairly frequent sales.

Definitely using amazon but I'm going into town today and I'll have a look in hmv. There used to be a good specialist classical store but unsurprisingly it shut down several years ago, I only ever bought one thing there (a Bach organ best of), wish I'd gotten more.

If town happens to be London, Harold Moore's on Gt Marlborough St is still going strong.

If you're in (or near) Edinburgh - McAlister Matheson http://www.mmmusic.co.uk/ is a classical music specialist store.

Glasgow. I'm back now.
I looked around Fopp for a while and the classical section wasn't clearly visible and then I forgot about it, but from the last times I looked it was very small.
Mono has a small bunch of modern classical.
HMV has a surprisingly large classical section (their metal section surprised me too), loads of Classical FM cds of old masters, only a few box sets but nothing much over 4 discs. Mostly stuff for beginners I guess; I shouldn't complain because I'm a beginner but I'm just a sucker for huge collections and omnibuses. I'm guessing this store has a fairly big selection because most if not all the other similar music shops except Fopp have shut down. I'll probably return here again for the metal.

Quite sad to notice that a lot of these music and book shops have noticeably dwindled in their selection, even within the past year. Really wonder how it will look in two years.

Classical sections are usually the dwindled-est, too. Maybe 1/8 of one side of an aisle if you're lucky

Borders & Tower used to be great for jazz, reggae, classical, blues , (funk & soul& Tower too) in Glasgow.

HMV had a full aisle of classical.

I'm pretty sure the big tall Virgin that became Zaavi that became HMV had a large room of classical.

I've been griping in various threads about box sets not including bonus tracks, even when they could easily fit on. King Diamond and Jethro Tull in particular but I've been put off so many rock band box sets because of this.
Yes - Studio Albums 69-87 and the two big Tangerine Dream box sets are some of the only exceptions I've seen to this.
I didn't get the Tangerine Dream sets because the albums are spread across discs, this isn't an issue on mp3 but it's a pain changing cds during an album and it spoiled the Bongwater collection for me slightly.
Any more good box sets for keeping all the extra stuff?

I think the BOC box has all the bonus tracks that came out on the remastered single discs of the first 5 albums. Would have been amazing if we could have had new bonus tracks for the albums that were newly remastered for the box, especially Fire of Unknown Origin and Cultosaurus Erectus, but oh well.

Picked up the Messiaen box - thanks for the heads up.

17 disc Oistrakh set for £14

http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Oistrakh-The-Complete-Recordings/dp/B001ASVXSE/ref=pd_sim_15_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=03ZA2H3M0JPGRW800RRC

Will deliver when back in stock.

Hohoho! Bought the Sibelius, Delius and Mahler boxes but hesitated for now on the Wagner.

Add a Debussy box and you have my holy quartet of composers born in the early 1860s (the wave to beat all waves IMO)

Is there a similar box for him?

There were the usual competing anniversary boxes during his centenary year. I don't remember if emi did one. The Sony one wasn't very good. I seem to recall the UMG was the one to get.

late to this conversation but I order classical from arkiv, they're great: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/main.jsp

we had a store in town with an actually quite good classical section but they changed hands this year and the classical's gone.

Arkiv has the Solti Ring Cycle in its latest remastering on sale for 37 bucks, or at least they did a few days ago.

I bought this Deutsche Grammofon 17CD Debussy Box when it came out, and I think it's pretty excellent. Though admittedly I don't too many other Debussy discs to compare it to, Jon can probably tell how this recordings compare to others?

"I don't own too many other Debussy discs"

The Sony Debussy has some really good Boulez stuff but the piano music is probably covered better elsewhere.

Not that it isn't very good.

Yeah it's the piano stuff on the Sony that sorta let it down, the Boulez Columbia stuff is awes

Sun Ra, "Four Classic Albums", under a tenner: Jazz By Sun Ra / Supersonic Jazz / Jazz In Silhouette / The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra plus bonus CD of ludicrous 50s singles

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Classic-Albums-Audio-Sun/dp/B007VA1YE8/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1437943894&sr=1-5

Ha, I've just noticed Cecil Taylor, SEVEN Classic Albums, £6.80!!!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00B1D6XJW?keywords=cecil%20taylor&qid=1437944296&ref_=sr_1_5&s=music&sr=1-5

Albums:
Jazz Advance (1956)
At Newport (1958)
Looking Ahead (1959)
Stereo Drive (Hard Driving Jazz) (1959)
Love For Sale (1959)
The World Of Cecil Taylor (1960)
New York City R & B (with Buell Neidinger) (1961)

You're better off with this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Collection-1956-1962-Cecil-Taylor/dp/B00JWS9I9U

Jazz Advance
At Newport
Looking Ahead
Stereo Drive
Love For Sale
The World Of Cecil Taylor
New York City R&B
Into The Hot
Live At Cafe Montmartre

The Cafe Montmartre disc is crucial.

This is a lot of Tchaikovsky for £28, though possibly more than i would ever want:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-Edition-Various-Artists/dp/B00FP45TT8/ref=pd_sim_15_43?ie=UTF8&refRID=01X5AFNH7YVFD64BCNPA

Faure Edition for £16 is very good value:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faur%C3%A9-Various/dp/B00EZCVEPY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1438082094&sr=1-1&keywords=faure+edition

Do read reviews when it comes to Brilliant Classics box sets, they are all over the map when it comes to performance and recording quality. That Faure one does look great! I've heard good things about a lot of those recordings in their former incarnations.

Other Brilliant boxes that are strongly rec'd:

Complete Shostakovich symphonies - Barshai
Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas - Friedrich Gulda
Complete Haydn String Quartets - Buchberger Qtet

i only know faure's requiem and the pavanne. hows the rest of his stuff?

i mostly know the chamber music. a mysterious reserve cloaking a volcanic inner radiance?

the other cecil taylor is twice the price

and both are missing a track from at least one album

a mysterious reserve cloaking a volcanic inner radiance?

ha, sounds good to me!

Faure is one of my favourites, but it's kinda hard to pin him down. Often quite romantic, but never corny, and even though he's best known (I think?) for serene, straightforwardly melodic works, there's a lot of proto-modernist anxiety in his works too, especially the later ones.

I don't know about the quality of the the Brilliant Classics set (like Jon said, it's a budget label with a lot of variance in quality, though some of their comps are quite good), but these two Erato boxes are quite fantastic, and they'll provide you with pretty much all of his chamber music you'll ever need:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oeuvres-Pour-Piano-Collard-Rigutto/dp/B000V1Z0H6

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faur%C3%A9-Musique-Chambre-Various-Artists/dp/B0040UEIA4

Like with most French composers of his era, the piano and chamber music forms the most essential part of his oeuvre, but there are a few orchestral works you should check out too, like the aforementioned Pavane and, especially, the Requiem - it's pretty much my favourite classical requiem of all time. There are a kazillion recordings of it, but this Philippe Herreweghe one is my favourite.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faur%C3%A9-Requiem-Messe-p%C3%AAcheurs-Gabriel/dp/B000027O2A

It's a recording of the earlier, more stripped-down version of the Requiem from 1893, which I think sounds more sublime than the later revised version, which is the one that usually gets performed and recorded.

This British recording of the Requiem from last year is really good too:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faure-Requiem-Choir-College-Cambridge/dp/B00L5J4Q5K

The recording quality on it is excellent, the sound is so lovely and intimate. And if you have SACD player and surround speakers, you get a nice 5.1 mix, though (like all hybrid SACDs) the disc plays in regular CD players as well.

Thanks tuomas!