Charles Munch: The Complete RCA Album Collection (86 CDs)
If you grew up listening to the vinyl LPs of Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, you will rejoice at having all those recordings gathered in one CD box set that takes up less than a foot (29 cm) of shelf space. If you are a current fan of the BSO or a beginning listener looking to expand your collection of core classical repertoire, I fear you would be disappointed by the value of this set. I have several strong reservations, as follow:
1. Short discs. The average running time is 45 minutes. This being an original jackets collection, many discs are much shorter. An abridged Water Music Suite paired with two overtures runs 28 minutes. Beethoven's Eighth Symphony languishes alone at 23 minutes and 35 seconds.
2. Awkward cross referencing. You hold in your hand a sleeve with the original cover art and a reproduction of the back notes in an inconveniently small font. Get a strong magnifying glass. You have to thumb through a separate booklet for track listings, durations and recording information.
3. Inferior recording technology. A flaw plagues the Boston Symphony's first decade of stereo recordings (it continued into Leinsdorf’s tenure): soft passages have a lovely stereo sparkle, but mezzo forte sections get wooly around the sonic edges. Anything forte or louder either overpowers the microphones or is recorded too hot. Most of these CDs have a crackling peak distortion that I find distracting. Another quirk is that the orchestra spreads its stereo wings in the piano concertos, but the soloist seems constricted in a tight mono box.
4. Inconsistent mastering. The early discs (1947-1953) bear high fidelity, late-era mono and sound better than you might expect. The stereo discs (1954-1963) vary greatly, from the warm and intimate French Touch album to the brittle and distant Creatures of Prometheus. The Star-Spangled Banner never sounded so tatty.
5. Sub-par performances. I have read that Munch was a musician's conductor, and standards got lax when he took over from Koussevitzky. The BSO sounds like an enthusiastic provincial ensemble: the reeds are blithely out of tune, the trumpets blare away. The clipped, barking chorus in Beethoven’s Ninth is stupefying: A! La! Men! Schen! Wer! Den! Brü! Der!
Until an affordable technology comes along that can rectify the last three issues, I offer Sony Music, who currently owns the rights to these recordings, a solution for the first two. Take the approach of the recent Jascha Heifetz stereo box set, preserving some of the original cover art, but providing track listings on the back of each sleeve. Add the recordings dates, producers and engineers; skip the pedigree of matrix publishing. Resequence the material and increase the running time of each disc. Groupings by composer would make it easier to explore the conductor’s treatment of Berlioz or Ravel without hopping across the set.
I would also divide the material into two packages, the mono recordings and the stereo years. My suggested playlist appears below. I condense nineteen mono CDs down to fourteen with an average running time of 67 minutes. It is possible to shrink the total to thirteen discs (72 minutes), maybe even fewer, but then the programs get a little disjointed. Admittedly, the combination of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with several works by Ravel gets a bit busy, but most discs have a satisfying unity of composer, soloist or complementary material. Handel’s Water Music Suite and Strauss’s Don Quixote make a felicitous pairing.
Charles Munch: The RCA Mono Recordings (a dream sequence)
Disc 1
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 7, Gratulations-Menuett, Symphony 1
Disc 2
DEBUSSY: La Damoiselle élue, BERLIOZ: Les Nuits d’été [de los Ángeles]; BERLIOZ: Béatrice et Bénédict Overture, Roméo et Juliette (Part I)
Disc 3
BERLIOZ: Roméo et Juliette (Parts II & III)
Discs 4 & 5
BERLIOZ: La Damnation de Faust [including the one surviving stereo track]
Disc 6
BRAHMS: Symphony 4; TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto [Milstein]
Disc 7
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto 2 [Rubinstein]; BRUCH: Violin Concerto [Menuhin]
Disc 8
d’INDY: Symphony on a French Mountain Air, FRANCK: Symphonic Variations [cond. Weldon], MOZART: Piano Concerto 21 [all Casadesus]
Disc 9
MOZART: Marriage of Figaro Overture, HAYDN: Symphonies 103 & 104
Disc 10
HONEGGER: Symphony 5; MENOTTI: Violin Concerto [Spivakovsky]; HONEGGER: Symphony 2
Disc 11
CHOPIN: Piano Concerto 2, SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto 4 [Brailovsky]; SAINT-SAËNS: Overture to La princesse jaune
Disc 12
SAINT-SAËNS: Organ Symphony, LALO: Overture to Le Roy d’Ys, RAVEL: Pavanne pour une infante défunte, Rapsodie espagnole, La Valse
Disc 13
SCHUBERT: Symphony 2, SCHUMANN: Genoveva Overture, Symphony 1
Disc 14
ROUSSEL: Bacchus et Ariane, HANDEL: Water Music Suite, STRAUSS: Don Quixote
The 67 stereo CDs easily condense down to 45 discs, averaging 65 minutes each. Granted, physical packaging is becoming moot in an age of digital downloads and streaming, but the current selling price of about three dollars per hour of music could drop to two dollars per hour. If Sony produced a more economical bundling, more listeners might be tempted to explore what was happening in Boston sixty years ago.
Charles Munch: The Stereo Years (a dream sequence)
Disc 1
MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto, BACH: Violin Concerto BWV 1041 [Laredo]; BACH: Brandenburg Concertos 1 & 2
Disc 2
BACH: Brandenburg Concertos 3–6
Disc 3
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 3, Creatures of Prometheus (excerpts), Corolian Overture
Disc 4
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 5; Violin Concerto [Heifetz]
Disc 5
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 6, Leonore Overtures 1–3
Disc 6
BEETHOVEN: Fidelio Overture, Symphony 9
Disc 7
BEETHOVEN: Symphony 8; Piano Concerto 1, Piano Sonata 22 [Richter]
Disc 8
BERLIOZ: Corsaire Overture, Symphonie fantastique [1962], Béatrice et Bénédict Overture
Disc 9
BERLIOZ: Le Carnaval romain, Symphonie fantastique [1954], Benvenuto Cellini Overture
Disc 10
BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens, Romeo and Juliet (Part I)
Disc 11
BERLIOZ: Romeo and Juliet (Parts II & III)
Disc 12
BERLIOZ: L’enfance du Christ (Parts I & II)
Disc 13
BERLIOZ: L’enfance du Christ (Part III), Requiem (Nos. 1 & 2)
Disc 14
BERLIOZ: Requiem (Nos. 3–10)
Disc 15
BARBER: Adagio for Strings, Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, BLACKWOOD: Symphony 1, HAIEFF: Symphony 2
Disc 16
BRAHMS: Symphony 1, Tragic Overture
Disc 17
BRAHMS: Symphony 2, Symphony 4
Disc 18
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto 1 [Graffman]; BLOCH: Schelomo [Piatigorsky]
Disc 19
CHOPIN: Piano Concerto 1, MENDELSSOHN: Capriccio Brillant [Graffman]; SCHUMANN: Manfred Overture
Disc 20
DUKAS: Sorcerer’s Apprentice; SAINT-SAËNS: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, CHAUSSON: Poème for Violin and Orchestra [Oistrakh]; CHAUSSON: Symphony in B flat, DEBUSSY: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun [1956]
Disc 21
DEBUSSY: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun [1962], The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
Disc 22
DEBUSSY: La Mer, Images, Nocturnes
Disc 23
DEBUSSY: Printemps, ELGAR: Introduction and Allegro, DVOŘÁK: Symphony 8
Disc 24
IBERT: Escales, FRANCK: Symphony in D minor, Le Chasseur maudit
Disc 25
MAHLER: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Kindertotenlieder [Forrester]; MARTINŮ: Symphony 6
Disc 26
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony 3, Symphony 4
Disc 27
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony 5; Violin Concerto [Heifetz]; Scherzo from Octet
Disc 28
MILHAUD: Suite provençale, La Création du monde, PISTON: Symphony 6
Disc 29
MOZART: Clarinet Concerto, Clarinet Quintet [Goodman]
Disc 30
PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto 2 [Heifetz]; Piano Concerto 2 [Henriot-Schweitzer]
Disc 31
PROKOFIEV: Romeo and Juliet (excerpts), POULENC: Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani
Disc 32
RAVEL: Bolero [1956], Daphnis et Chloé [1955]
Disc 33
RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé [1961]
Disc 34
RAVEL: Bolero [1962], Pavane pour une infante défunte, Mother Goose, La Valse [1955], La Valse [1962]
Disc 35
RAVEL: Rapsodie espagnole; Piano Concerto in G, d’INDY: Symphony on a French Mountain Air [Henriot-Schweitzer]
Disc 36
SAINT-SAËNS: Le Rouet d’Omphale, Organ Symphony, SCHUBERT: Symphony 2
Disc 37
SCHUBERT: Symphony 8, Symphony 9
Disc 38
STRAVINSKY: Jeu des cartes, STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel, SCHUMANN: Symphony 1, SMITH: Star-Spangled Banner
Disc 39
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony 4, Romeo and Juliet [1956]
Disc 40
TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo and Juliet [1961], Symphony 6
Disc 41
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto [Szeryng]; Francesca da Rimini
Disc 42
TCHAIKOVSKY: Serenade for Strings; RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto 3 [Janis]
Disc 43
WAGNER: Tannhäuser Overture, Magic Fire Music, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey; Brünnhilde’s Immolation, Prelude to Act I & Isolde’s Liebestod [Farrell]
Disc 44
WALTON: Cello Concerto, DVOŘÁK: Cello Concerto [Piatigorsky]
Disc 45
RAVEL: Valses nobles et sentimentales, FAURÉ: Pelléas et Mélisande, BERLIOZ: La Damnation de Faust (excerpts) [Philadelphia Orchestra]
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