Brilliant Classics

[sdtom]

I was doing a bit of reorganizing in my collection deciding to keep all labels together such as Naxos and Brilliant and I realized I had over 400 Brilliant CD's, yikes. I think collecting them is a good value because you're introduced to many unsung for a minimal amount of money. I got out my 10 CD set  of Borodin and save for the Prince Igor Opera they're isn't much that we can call welled played material. What opinions do we have/

[mbhaub]

That's the problem with Brilliant: great value in terms of the amount of music for the small amount of money, but sometimes the performances aren't top drawer. Sometimes it's a frustrating mix: absolutely first-class performances alongside really mediocre. The Rimsky Korsakov set is a prime example of what can go wrong: 2 mediocre Scheherazades, NO Russian Easter Overture, NO Capriccio Espagnol. But then you do get recordings of some operas otherwise hard to get. On the other hand, the Shostakovich Edition is wonderful - the Barshai symphonies is a major plus. The Dvorak and Tchaikovsky editions were a mix of good and not-so good. The other problem is that most serious collectors will already have a large amount of music in any of the Brilliant boxed sets, so a fair amount of duplication is going to happen. For me, the question is how much shelf space will these take up, and will I ever really listen to the huge sets? As it is now, there's a complete Verdi opera set sitting here that I have to get busy with...

[adriano]

In 2009, Brilliant started a promising CD project with the Rome Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Francesco La Vecchia. Some of the interpretations are good, some other appear (ion my opinion) as having been a bit too hastily - and perhaps not too elegantly - played. Still, I was very much interested and started buying these 2-CD volumes, appearing one per year. At that time I also had some correspondence with Francesco, who already warned me after the 3rd volume that this project will never become a "complete" affair...
Later on, Brilliant reissued all these 4 volumes in a nice 8-CD box and were either ignorant - or just swindling potential buyers - to entitle this box "The Complete Orchestra Music"! Actually, some 16 works of Respighi are missing!

[eschiss1]

if like me one apparently has dullard's ears (so far as range is concerned) then the mp3 versions of these sets are especial bargains... have already bought the rather terrific Roussel (chamber) and Tallis reissue sets (reissued from Olympia and I think Signum?), for example (and  am considering getting more before long, I see I've bookmarked/wishlisted many of their sets.) Not perfectly presented/documented/whatnot, but that's a problem with getting things from Amazon in general, and really a fixable problem with a small amount of work- the music's the thing and a wonderful thing...

[TerraEpon]

In 2009, Brilliant started a promising CD project with the Rome Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Francesco La Vecchia. Some of the interpretations are good, some other appear (ion my opinion) as having been a bit too hastily - and perhaps not too elegantly - played. Still, I was very much interested and started buying these 2-CD volumes, appearing one per year. At that time I also had some correspondence with Francesco, who already warned me after the 3rd volume that this project will never become a "complete" affair...
Later on, Brilliant reissued all these 4 volumes in a nice 8-CD box and were either ignorant - or just swindling potential buyers - to entitle this box "The Complete Orchestra Music"! Actually, some 16 works of Respighi are missing!

The number of incomplete 'complete' Brilliant ( sets is pretty staggering. Though this is true for many others too, granted. At least BIS did right with Sibelius...

[sdtom]

All good points brought up. The Borodin 10 CD set doesn't have the Glazunov orchestration of the Petite Suite as an example. But for $24.00 I got adequate recordings of his symphonies plus the Prince Igor opera. A good and bad thing.