“What measures 11 inches square and seven inches high, weighs 21 1/2pounds and takes 10 days and nights to play?” writes Mike Silverman in a Monday (11/7) Associated Press report. “Answer: A new box set jampacked with 200 CDs that contains every note composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…. Just in time for the 225th anniversary of the composer’s death on Dec. 5, Decca and Deutsche Grammophon have combined forces to issue this compilation [which] starts with Mozart’s first known compositions … written in 1761 when he was five years old. It ends with his Requiem, left unfinished at his death in 1791. In between are not just all 27 piano concertos, 41 symphonies, every opera, song and sonata, but many alternate versions, fragments, arrangements of music by Handel and Bach and even works whose authorship is in dispute…. Among the extras … are five collector’s prints of Mozart autograph scores, the last-known portrait and a letter to his father [and] a new biography of the composer and a work-by-work commentary—plus a booklet presenting the numbering of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation’s forthcoming new edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works.” The suggested retail price is $479.98.
Posted November 10, 2016
