Box of delights

Sitting on my desk as I write are two objects of wonder and delight. They are a pair of box sets from the Deutsche Grammophon label celebrating the company’s 111 years of existence. An odd anniversary to celebrate, you might think, and I suspect the real reason is that the marketing men somehow forgot the centenary and are catching up late, with the rather lame excuse that the number 111 ‘enjoys a special kudos in musical circles’ because Op. 111 was Beethoven’s last piano sonata.

The first box was released last year, and very quickly sold out. By the time I became aware of it, you could only lay your hands on second-hand copies selling for eye-watering prices.

It was such a success, however, that DG has recently reissued it, along with a second collection. Together they weigh in at half a stone and contain a total of — you guessed it — 111 CDs. Very handsome they look, too, in their cheering red-and-yellow boxes with the discs in compact cardboard slip cases featuring the original album cover artwork. The earliest recording is Victor de Sabata’s 1939 recording of Brahms’s fourth symphony, which still sounds terrific, and the collection comes right up to date with some of DG’s newest artists. A couple of the most recent albums were released only last year, Yuja Wang’s collection of piano sonatas and études by Chopin, Scriabin, Liszt and Ligeti among them.

Taken together, the two boxes offer an extraordinary survey of classical music, from David Munrow’s pioneering recordings of works from the Gothic era to Steve Reich and Philip Glass, and the latest sensation among young classical performers, the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, a band that has recently been receiving astonishing plaudits.