Naxos Label

[allegroamabile]

What do all of you think of this classical label? I presonally love Naxos, great price with descent playing. I also love the beautiful artwork that comes with the cds. It always seems to go with the music quite well.

[Lyle Neff]

My university library keeps a subscription to the Naxos Music Library (which includes more than Naxos label items), so anyone who is part of the university can access it and listen to the collection. Great stuff.

[Yagan Kiely]

^Ditto.

I usually buy collections of things (Mahler's symphonies, Bernstein etc.) that small things. But they are usually great recordings, good performers and a good price, nothing much wrong with them.

[allegroamabile]

My university library keeps a subscription to the Naxos Music Library (which includes more than Naxos label items)

Well, they do own Marco Polo and Amadis if that's what you're talking about.

The problems I hear from people that dislike Naxos are complaints about the label featuring "exotic" and foreign orchestras that perform on the albums. I don't have a problem with that at all, they certainly "cut the mustard."

[vinteuil]

I like the fact that you can choose to get access online for like $20 a year, or you can buy the CDs at something like $7 each - and sometimes the recordings are the best available.

[vinteuil]

Another great label in these respects is Brilliant Classics - I own a multitude of their recordings, and I am extremely satisfied (Mendelssohn Chorus Music, Brahms Choral Music, Bach works, Mozart Works, Fauré Chansons, Dvorak symphonic poems....)

[allegroamabile]

Another great thing about Naxos is that they record extensively, virtually everything. They have every single orchestral piece by Glazunov, wow....

[vinteuil]

Yes. Brilliant, again, has done Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Corelli, Tallis complete works (The Bach and Mozart are easily the best), most other major works - they're working on a complete Haydn - the first installment is 150 cds

[allegroamabile]

I never have even heard of this "Brilliant Classics" label and I listen too a lot of classical music.

It's funny, I scarcely know any Bach. Maybe it's because I am a clarinettist.

[vinteuil]

Hmm...Well, the Oboe D'Amore concerto (reconstructed from BWV 1055) is wonderful on the clarinet (as Tovey points out)
They're very recent. They're the equivalent of what Vox used to be - i.e. they make large boxes (the Mozart is 170 CDs) of good quality on period instruments, and sell them extremely cheaply - that particular set cost something like 150, which is a steal frankly.

[daphnis]

I like the Naxos label (especially the subscription service, which is a great library of recordings) but you have to be careful what you get. Often times these "exotic" orchestras are crap to listen to, but if comes between having a crappy orchestra play a never-before-recorded piece and not hearing it at all, I'd choose the former. I wish they would arrange for more American orchestras to record on their label, though.

[Lyle Neff]

Ah, Vox. I still have many of their LPs.

I think once I saw their LP boxed set of Mozart's complete piano works for sale at one of the gift/tschatschke shops in Old Williamburg, Virginia back in the late 1970s or early '80s.

[allegroamabile]

I think Naxos is starting to explore into American orchestras, Daphnis. I have seen William Schuman's orchestral work recorded by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra under Gerald Schwarz and Elliott Carter's Piano Concerto performed by the Nashville Symphony on this label. I do think it is strange to hear the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra play Copland's Appalachian Spring, though.