We were expecting Warner, and it is DG that takes us by surprise!
Our faithful member Jean-Luc Tardivat was the first to draw our attention to the important release next autumn: DG is releasing a boxset of 34 CDs + 1 DVD, encompassing everything that DG and Decca (which is part of the same group) has had in its archives for ever, or least for a long time.
We shall find the Polydor of the pre-war period, the wartime radio recordings, of Vienna and Berlin — rivalling for these last with the recent release of the Berliner Philharmoniker (voir l'article) —, the few official discs of DG and Decca from the early 1950s, that complete the radio recordings that these two labels have been exhuming over the past several decades. And, as an extra, DG includes a DVD of the film of Don Giovanni from Salzburg 1954.
Do we have reasons to be satisfied? Naturally, any Furtwänglerian can only be delighted to see that his favourite conductor is still the object of such sustained attention, and for an unprecedented price: €99.99!
That said, we should like to know what kind of mastering was effected by DG? The Berliner — even taking into account a few minimal reserves — have undertaken some truly thoroughgoing work, fully justifying production of their boxset.What about DG? We certainly ought to hold back on a definitive judgement — we have not yet listened to it — yet we fear that DG has been content just to make a compilation, albeit on a larger scale, of what is already available.
Let us therefore wait a few weeks!