Review: Naxos' Smart Early Music Collection
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- This 30-CD box, offered at a very attractive price, provides the finest available early music sampler on any label. You get everything from Gregorian chant, through the origins of polyphony, the music of the medieval troubadours, and the rise of instrumental music for the guitar family, keyboards, brass and strings. It's 500 years of music in a nutshell--or rather, an attractive and sturdy box, excellently performed and vividly engineered. Of its kind, you can't do better.
Naxos has always been adept at delivering worthy, enjoyable Boxsets. The music of Byrd, Tallis, Josquin, Ockegham etc were all introduced to me in the early 1990s from Naxos recordings. Early music was always on of their strengths.
This time again, your wonderful review on this box set of early music made me think about buying this set although these days I must hesitate to amass my CD collection due to my age(73) but finally ordered this set to Amazon and arrived a few days ago.
As you reviewed, this set is so excellent and worthy of adding to my collection. Many thanks again for your review from a great fan of you in Japan.
Glad you enjoyed it. Many thanks for letting me know.
It’s truly amazing that there is such a store of wonderful music to discover and enjoy! Thank you for pointing this wonderful collection out!
Wow! Who could resist it? Thank you so much for your channel.
Glad you enjoy it!
For us early music ignoramuses, that handy calendar chart alone is probably worth the price of admission.
Indeed, only a label like Naxos could be as considerate towards its target audience. Another smart move.
Check out Readers Digest 8 CD box set 700 years of Classical Treasures. Easy to find for under $10 on ebay. It has a 104 page hardbound book. Complete with a timeline.
I just discovered your informative and entertaining videos (November ‘23) just as I was endeavoring to deepen my classical music collection. Perfect timing. Thank you!
I was so inspired by this Naxos review, I ordered the set before I was half way through the video!!
Thank you, and welcome! Enjoy the show(s).
Guillaume de Machaut's "Le jugement du roi de Navarre" makes for great listening in these pendemic times as the black plague looms large over it. The Ensemble Gilles Binchoi makes a beautiful job under Dominique Vellard for Cantus.
Fascinating talk. Can I say one of the jewels in Naxos' early music collection crown is Music of the Italian Renaissance for voice, lute, Viola de mano, Cittern and Renaissance guitar exquisitely sung and played by the remarkable Shirley Rumsey. It is extremely persuasive and beautiful music, beautifully performed.
When I was in music grad school I remember my early music prof. telling us that there's just as much music written before 1600 as there was after 1600.
"…but you can't have everything, I suppose"
A very interesting talk about the many treasures in early music.
I would only have wished that the edition had included some spanish polyphony and instrumental music from the period. Composers like Antonio de Cabezón, Diego de Ortíz and Tomás de Victoria all made considerable contributions. But…
After all these years as a music collector, i feel free to acknowledge,that Naxos is the best classical lable! I respect some more of course...
Very hard statement to disagree with. They are extremely enterprising. And I for one began building my collection with Naxos recordings. I also think their diversity of recordings is impressive and their quality is of a generally really high nature. I also believe that their presence in the market has driven down the cost of other labels’ music and as such we are now buying these amazing boxes for very little money. At less than $2 a disc these boxes are amazing value.
Apart from bargain compilations of re-releases from Warner/Universal, most of the recordings I've bought in recent years are from independents like Naxos and Hyperion. They have excellent artists, superb recording engineers, and a much more eclectic and interesting range of repertoire than the "big labels" ever had.
@@ftumschk agree with you re Naxos and Hyperion. But I do think all of the major labels are pulling their weight also. Those Sony mega boxes are fabulous. So too the decca and dg and Warner. We are just so spoiled for top quality music at prices that probably were unthinkable a decade or so ago.
@@alanmcginn4796 Oh, indeed. However, the Sony, Decca and Warner mega boxes tend not to cover the wide range of "niche" repertoire that Naxos, Hyperion and other independents provide.
Naxos' Monteverdi: Complete Madrigals by Italy's Delitiæ Musicæ (not to be confused with the Spanish lute duo of the same name) box is a similarly excellent production and package. Complete liner notes of each individual release are preserved in their own little cardboard sleeve. A class product all 'round.
I'm a little surprised that more by Ensemble Unicorn (e.g., selections from Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa Maria) didn't make this box. I suppose this could be considered a sampler to inspire later acquisitions.
Vihuela looked similar to guitar, but the intervals of vihuela tuning were identical to the six-course lute of the Renaissance (not likely many will care, but the third is in a different place than guitar's relative to the highest-tuned string: the music thus does play physically differently). There were several books published during its heyday. Milan's (1536) was the first. Those entities-vihuela and guitar-were pretty distinct in the Renaissance, but the organology got kinda hairy as the Baroque approached, especially in Portugal.
Carry on.
I shall.
A wonderful review that went a long way toward dispelling the onus of esotericism that tends to pervade the early music scene. My love for this repertoire began with the old Noah Greenberg recording of Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua, followed by the still great "Glory of Gabrieli" series for Columbia. I agree whole-heartedly with your characterization of Early Music as "fun." It is, or at leat should be that. I would also like to point out that the first great composer in Western music for whom we have a name was a woman--Hildegard of Bingen. Can't wait for your review of the Josquin box and your repertoire talk about Monteverdi Madrigals.
Yeah, esotericism sucks.
@@DavesClassicalGuide You can say the same for academicism, which also prevails in some Early Music circles.
Great set - just finishing it up. They also have a superb Choral collection 😎
Very important collection.
I have to mention my favorite recording of Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame: the 1996 version by Marcel Peres and Ensemble Organum.
Now, there is no middle ground with this album -- people either love it or despise it. And I have read from early music scholars that the central conceit of this recording (that the tradition of Corsican chant that has survived to this day may have sounded similar to the performances in Machaut's own time) is, shall we say, tenuous at best. I can't speak to that, but frankly I don't particularly care. The results are what matter, and I just find this version extremely compelling. The combination of Machaut's really unorthodox harmonies with the performer's ornamentation (which reminds me of the tradition of Koranic recitation in Islamic countries, a musical universe in itself) sounds unlike anything else, like music from an alternate history.
You may hate it, and that's OK! That's why we keep on listening.
The Ensemble Organum recording is one of my favourites, too. Regardless of how "authentic" it is, it makes for fascinating listening.
I like it, actually. It's pretty wild and imaginative, given the repertoire.
I have that one, too. I like it.
Thank you David for you're wonderful reviews of classical music. Please go on with your videos, its marvelous😀👍I'm about to buy the Rachmaninov Complete Works from Decca. Do you think it is a good box? Best regards, Micke
On the whole, yes.
Splendid ! And this is the ideal gateway for a Schütz or Buxtehude talk ^^
A “tonus peregrinus” is a wandering mode! Back in the day they loved organizing chants in terms of mode, but sometimes a chant “modulated” between a couple modes, or they couldn’t figure out what mode if any it was actually in, so they just stuck it in the “tonus peregrinus.”
What I said.
@@wortleyclutterbuk7347 Oh, the pedantry. This why no one wants to bother with this stuff. Life is just too short.
I really like Hildegard von Bingen, not only for her music, but also for her poetry which is courageous. In her lyrics you will not find any traits of relaxed sensitivity, childish tenderness or lazy spiritual provincialism. The overall tone remains pure and austere even in the descriptions of the most unimaginable ecstatic and visionary experiences. Upon reading Hildegard's texts you will have an image of an alpine landscape: mountain air and breathtaking steepness. Take as an example 'O Jerusalem. Sequence for St Rupert:
...O soft flower of the field
O green vigour of the sweet apple
O weightless burden
the does not involve the heart in evil deeds.
O noble vessel
unpolluted and unconsumed
by the dance in the ancient cave,
unweakened
by the wounds of the ancient enemy...
I like Guillaume de Machaut 'Messe de Nostre Dame' and have several versions, but my favourite performance is by Graindelavoix/Bjorn Schmelzer. If you have, David, free 4 min, please listen to the first track in their CD - Inviolata Genitrix / Felix Virgo. It is fabulous! Machaut, what a genius he was!
Out of all Naxos CDs I have only the Troubadours, which is a fantastic harmony of love poetry and songs.
Thank you for recommendations, David, apart from your review I have listened to track samples at Naxos site and this box is a real gem. Superlative performances.
Well, that seems a really fantastic box, and a good corrective to obsessing away about 18th-20th century repertoire
And it’s Josquin year so my goodness, if anyone hasn’t listened to that you won’t have a better chance!
It’s a shame they didn’t include their recording of the Dufay Homme Arme Mass, with the fantastic motet Supremum est mortalibus bonum - Dufay’s songs are marvellous but to get a sense of why he (and Josquin) were the greatest composers of their time and worthy to be considered alongside Mozart, Beethoven etc, you do need to hear his sacred music and it’d have been good to have two masses based on the same song there, as the endless comparison and competition with the same material is sort of the point. No Victoria either, but I’m not sure Naxos did a Victoria requiem. Nonetheless it all sounds like a really great way into all of that.
I once bought a Naxos box just because it looked so pretty. "Early English Choral Music" with the Oxford Camerata and Jeremy Summerly.
The performances happened to be really nice too but it was the box design that screamed "buy me!"
Speaking of boxes, I found out recently that a new Solti box is coming out this Fall, which will have his London orchestral recordings. I just wonder if that will be worth it.
I think it will. It has a lot of his best stuff.
Are there plans to do a review of the Warner Classics "Josquin & the Franco-Flemish School" on 34 CDs? It just came out last month, I think.
I already said so in the video.
Wanted to throw this out there to our community especially to those who (like me) love the digital world and the ease by which you can select particular music to play etc.
I was looking at the early music box on Amazon today and reading some of the reviews. One such review was from a collector who loves this stuff like we all do but commented, in particular, that many of these big mega box sets are not offered as digital downloads also.
Can you just imagine buying the Ormandy box for say half the cost of the physical box in digital format on Amazon, presto whatever and it just gets saved to your iTunes or Amazon music or whatever.
It would be so so convenient and would prevent many of these recordings going out of print.
I get that many of the readers on here want the physical product, but I do think the digital download is a great option.
Hopefully the big labels are reading some of our comments and consider doing this across all of their libraries.
Do you guys agree. Disagree?
Perhaps there's simply less incentive for manufacturers to "box" digital files regarding compilations of full albums that are downloadable individually at prices already reduced from that of the physical individual albums. Yes, individually amassed digital albums may be more expensive than if they were bundled, but why bundle them given the above? I would like to hear the thoughts of those who actually assemble such packages.
That's a nice talk. In going through the box, it's almost like a guide through early music. Pity Praetorius doesn't get a mention, but you can't have everything, I suppose.
Dav
"…but you can't have everything, I suppose"
A very interesting talk about the many treasures in early music.
I would only have wished that the edition had included some spanish polyphony and instrumental music from the period. Composers like Antonio de Cabezón, Diego de Ortíz and Tomás de Victoria all made considerable contributions. But…
Excellent video on a great box set. As you said it has a bit of everything, just enough to get an idea of what you like and don’t. BIS has some great CDs for early music but it seems like some have been out of print for a while.
Looks like a great set. it would be perfect if it included Monty Python's medieval minstrel song, Brave Sir Robin.
Absolutely. A sine qua non for any classical collection!
This box looks like a no brainer (just like the Orpheus earlier this week), and so does that Warner collection coming up. Worth pointing out that Josquin wrote two Missa L'hommé masses: "super voces musicales" and "sexti toni." This is the latter, which has the most beautiful Agnus Dei I know. I heard also that there were plans for a complete Josquin mass cycle from the Tallis Scholars. Do you know about that? I love their Josquin.
As far as I know the Tallis Scholars finished it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I believe so, too. As something of a Tallis Scholars groupie I collected the series, and I think the only thing that's "missing" is for them to be re-released as a box set.
@@ftumschk I wish they would. Actually, we need more early music boxes that treat the work of individual composers systematically and completely. I think it would be very helpful to get a grasp on who did what, and why these are such important names.
I also HIGHLY recommend the 8 CD set put out by Readers Digest called 700 years of Classical Treasures. Easy to find for about $10 on ebay. It has a 104 page hardbound book. Great for a newbie like me.
Wonderful video, thanks for musics. But I'm just curious about: is there any danger of copyright to this musics?
Luckily, David has permission from some record labels (including Naxos) to play samples of their recordings in his videos.
@@ftumschk Seriously, didn't know that. Thanks 😊
I just read that there is a new 34-CD Warner box: Josquin and the Franco-Flemish School. Is it recommendable?
Watch the video, read the comments...
Not to mention the Schuman symphonies! A gift to us odd lovers of mid-century modernism.
[takes credit for western civilization]