Perhaps some readers are familiar with the equivalent complete Bruno Walter collection on Sony and would share their views on the quality of the transfers and remasterings in that 77 disc album (particularly in comparison to earlier incarnations on domestic Sony, Japanese Sony and labels like Pristine, M & A, Naxos and United Archives).
I've heard many, but not all, of the new transfers, paying particular attention to recordings long regarded as 'problem' cases, such as the 1947 Mahler Fifth. After comparative listening including at least one and sometimes multiple earlier transfers of the same recordings, my view is that by no means all the new transfers I've heard surpass earlier efforts. Some ARE superior (for which credit is due), some are about the same and some are frankly inferior. I'm out of step with at least one respected authority in finding the remastering of some of the 1958-61 stereo recordings a touch disappointing. I often hear a veil over the music similar to that reported by Pristine's Andrew Rose in relation to official issues of the 1961 Mahler 9th Symphony. Pristine's own remastering got rid of that veil to superb effect.
I'd appreciate learning readers' opinions about the efficacy or otherwise of these super-jumbo sized sets. Do the benefits of completeness and a cheap price per disc outweigh the disadvantage of having to acquire some material you may not want in order to obtain performances you do want? Having nearly all of Barbirolli's Mahler and much of his British music and I'd jump at the chance of acquiring these in improved sound. But I'm not as interested in his Johann Strauss II or his Dvorak, to give two examples.
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