Thanks for the tip. I ordered from chapitre and, after advice from them that there would be a delay, it arrived today. Quite surprised to find some Stockhausen and Berio in it, along with all the expected stuff, including some conducted by Kondrashin, (no, not the Stockhausen or Berio, but Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, and Miaskovsky's 'Cello Concerto, etc). Another surprise was that it comes with a booklet (98 pages in English and 16 in French). Don't expect either a full listing or review from me though. Indeed, you won't find a full listing in either the booklet or on the box, only on the collective reverses of the individual slip cases.

The set also includes what will be my third set of Beethoven Piano Concertos played by Gilels, this time conducted by Masur.

Gidon Kremer in both instances, t_i_n. Three violin duets by Berio ("Leonardo", "Annie" and "Aldo") with Tatiana Grindenko playing the other violin, and seven signs from Stockhausen's "Tierkreis", again with Grindenko. Both the Berio and the Stockhausen were recorded New Year's Eve 1990.

Thanks, Bryn. I don't think that's enough to make it an essential purchase for now, so that's relieved my credit card a bit. (Phew.)

Well the 100 disc set arrived from Amazon France today (total amount billed to my Credit Card, £60.54p). Turns out there's another fairly major advantage to getting the set from France. Only in France does the set come with a 192 page booklet, which incudes a 42 page biography, a 54 page section on the works, 69 pages devoted to the details of the recordings included, and a brief bibliography. O.K., so it's all in French, but in the U.K and Germany there is no equivalent booklet included. However, you can download a pdf of it from here without charge.

Update: The original English text of the booklet, along with translations into Spanish and Italian, are to be found on a 'free' CDROM, included with the set. So, unless you particularly want the text in French, there is no need to bother with the download. I guess tha the Germans are not considered to be sufficiently interested in Beethoven to merit a translation.

Not a new release, but I've been vaguely aware of this for a few months and my credit card is getting itchier and itchier. Someone talk me out of it, please?

Nah, that one's for the birds, tinners. 

Ah.  Well in that case, it does indeed need to go in your queue ahead of the two you've been eyeing.  It's a superb book -- includes this amazing invented notation for all the birdsong he studies in which the various songs are broken down into independent motives/figures, and he's attempted to figure out how these are combined and ordered to generate various forms of communication.  He also researches which bits of the songs are innate and which are learned ... it's really an astonishing book, and it comes w/ a cool CD.  It's a must-have if you're interested at all in birdsong.



And, while I'm thinking of it ... it's in many ways unrelated (having, um, nothing at all to do w/ birds), but if you're interested in the music/ecology interaction, you really ought to have a look at the work of David Dunn.  His recent work with the ips beetle is incredibly important to me.  Maybe I'll start a David Dunn thread ....?