Thread: Bach complete recordings.

I ask for your help and your opinion.
Wanting to buy the complete box set edition which of the Brilliant and the Hanssler you choose and why?

The Brilliant edition has 160 cd while Hanssler has 172, what Hanssler contains more than what is lacking in the Brilliant?

When I was deciding, I chose the Hannsler set because I preferred Rilling's Cantatas. If you look at the disc contents, you can see that the Cantatas make up the bulk of the set. It makes sense to choose based on them. I'm glad I made that choice because I'm working my way through the set right now and the Cantatas are amazing.

I have both sets and I would go with the Hanssler set.

Overall the Hanssler set is more "even". The Cantatas are well done in both sets but Rilling probably does have the edge. The Gardiner set beats them both, but you will probably pay more for the Gardiner set of Cantatas than you will for either of these sets. The Cello Suites and Solo Violin works in the Hanssler set are kind of weak and you might be better supplementing them with other recordings. The organ works were recorded by several different organists on several different organs where I would prefer them all recorded by the same person on the same organ. There are little things like that, but on the whole it is a nice set.

Also in the newer Brilliant Edition many of the major works are weaker in the newer release than they were in the older Brilliant release from 2000. Example: Musica Amphion’s Brandenburg Concertos are pretty pathetic compared to the Consort of London from Brilliant’s 2000 edition.

There may be works you will want to supplement different recordings for but out of those two choices. I would get the Hanssler.

Gardiner, Koopman, and Suzuki are the gold standard for the cantatas... but all three of them are quite expensive. I would also highly recommend the Philippe Herreweghe recordings. I stupidly missed out on the Suzuki box-sets released a couple of years back for quite a discount... but I've been slowly collecting volumes by each of them... with a focus on getting all of the Gardiner set.

This box set:




... currently sells for over $125US... but I picked it up new when it was going for just a bit over $30. It remains probably the best single purchase I've made... in terms of value. It contains the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Magnificat, the Mass in B-minor, the Christmas Oratorio, and some 10 discs of Bach's finest cantatas... from an earlier set of marvelous recordings:



There may be works you will want to supplement different recordings...

Oh definitely. I don't think I've yet to come across a box set of any major composer that is definite across the board. With Bach you want Gould's recordings of the keyboard works... as well as a more "traditional" version... perhaps Perahia or Hewitt. You probably need Walchau's recordings of the organ works, Savall's or Suzuki's or Concerto Italiano for the Brandenburgs; Casals or Fournier or Rostropovitch or Starker for the Cello Suites; Szeryng or Millstein or Menuyin or Kremer for the violin sonatas, etc...

I haven't found any recording that makes it so you don't need alternatives.

Originally Posted by bigshot

I haven't found any recording that makes it so you don't need alternatives.

I have a few, but I was thinking more along the lines of depending on how "into" classical music recordings someone is, it may or may not matter.

I know a few people who have bought a big Brilliant Box Set like the Complete Mozart or Beethoven or Bach sets just so they could have all their works in one box. They want to be able to hear everything someone wrote, but don't really care about tempos or interpretations, etc. They like Classical music but aren't "into" Classical recordings to the point where they own 50 different versions of Beethoven's symphonies.