I received in the post last week a 13 CD + 1 DVD set of Riccardo Chailly's live Netherlands Radio recordings with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. It cost about £65 from the Guardian reader service, and its absolutely superb. Its mainly late romantic and early modern repertoire, with a fair number of works by contemporary Dutch composers and several Berio pieces. At the other end of chronological spectrum there's a Mozart Piano concerto and a stonkingingly satisfying Beethoven sym. 2. I've always been a bit of a Chailly fan since hearing him do Bruckner 5 in Glasgow about 13 years ago. What I've heard so far has been really impressive - Bruckner 'Great' Mass in F, Prokofiev concerto 3 with Martha Argerich, various bits of Stravinsky. Highlights I have not got to yet are a complete Mahler 8, DVD performances of Pulcinella + Rite of Spring, Prokofiev 3rd symphony, Shostakovich cello concerto no 2 with Lynn Harrell and much more. I'm especially looking forward to the more contemporary pieces - the one I have tried is Wolfgang Rihm's "Schwarzer und Roter Tanz" which was a big blockbusting and very satisfying piece which I enjoyed greatly complete track listing at: [URL]http://www2.rnw.nl/mu/catalog/musiccds/classical/chaillylive?view=Track%20list[/URL] The sound quality is much better than I expected, generally its big and rich full bodied sound,I think the engineers have not been afraid to capture audience noise in order to get a full bloom on the sound. So there are occasional coughs and creaks but the music making more than makes up for it. Its better than most of the BBC R3 live recordings I've heard on disc and far far better than any of the LSO live sets I've heard (which I've been disappointed with so far) I think this set is superb value and for anyone heavily into late romantic and early modern who would also like some exposure to some contemporary I reckon its absolutely essential.
