Of all the year’s classical box sets, none reaches the imposing dimensions of Sony Classical’s Marian Anderson: Beyond the Music (★★★★★, £103.50). The epic quality comes not only from the number of discs (15 CDs), but the staggering 228-page book that houses them. It weighs as much as two bricks. You could query the number of photographs and the pages of technical information. However, you need only listen to Anderson’s first recording, the spiritual Deep River in 1923, to realise that this formidable contralto, the first black artist to sing (eventually) at the Met, is worth an elaborate memorial on her vocal strengths alone. Hers is a voice that reaches straight into your heart.
We’re offered Anderson’s entire recorded legacy for RCA Victor. Spirituals dominate, but every rendition brings its own shadings. It’s her dignity and controlled passion that impresses so much, along with a rigorous respect for clear diction, one of the marks of a former age. She spreads her beauties just as well over Brahms, Schubert, the Scottish air Loch Lomond: everything she sings.
If you seek Christmas jollity, the obvious fun bucket is the Camille Saint-Saëns Edition (Warner Classics, ★★★★☆, £92): a squat box of 34 discs marking 100 years since the composer’s death, featuring recordings from across the decades, beginning with the man himself tinkling the ivories in 1904. An enlightened conservative, long-living and prolific (the 120 works here represent about a sixth of his output), Saint-Saëns can easily be taken for granted. Treat this box as a voyage of discovery, taking us beyond The Carnival of the Animals to many delightful discoveries: a gorgeous Odelette for flute and orchestra, contrapuntal keyboard fireworks, and fetching exotica of all kinds. Most performers are indubitably French, just like the composer’s music.
On now to heavier repertoire, although there’s nothing ponderous about the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm, whose Complete Decca and Philips Recordings, many made with the Vienna Philharmonic, fill out another chunky box (Decca Classics, ★★★★★, £111.50). More than half of the 38 discs are devoted to operas. Böhm’s Mozart is particularly heavenly: energetic, cleanly balanced, with very perky ensemble singing. The entire Wagner Ring cycle from the mid-1960s, live from Bayreuth, glows majestically, just like the two symphonies by Bruckner. The polar opposite of conductors such as Bernstein or Karajan, Böhm avoids gaudy excess and gloss paint, penetrating inside the music with skill, cunning and precision. Sung texts and translations, as usual these days, are only provided online.
The longest and most expensive brick contains 56 discs of flute playing. Don’t laugh, for the flautist is the exuberant Jean-Pierre Rampal, pleasing to hear even when the music is flimsy. There’s also much variety in the Sony Classical edition of his CBS Masterworks recordings (★★★☆☆, £227.75). But the healthier, certainly cheaper, gift for wind instrument devotees would be Warner Classics’s hugely enjoyable homage to the friendly and mellifluous art of Dennis Brain (★★★★☆, £35.50), who transformed the horn’s profile in the postwar period. Every day is Christmas if you listen to Dennis Brain.
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