BTHVN 2020 - Beethoven The New Complete Edition

At over £200 I had to think carefully about investing in this edition, but having taken the plunge it is proving to be well worth it.Yes, the box is large and imposing - almost a piece of furniture in itself, but given the contents it's an impressive piece to have. The look and design is impressive, with the contents packed snug and clearly sectioned. As there are over 100 CD's and DVD's altogether, it will take many hours to listen to and watch.First the book which is well printed, colourful and clear essays and interesting articles about the different aspects to Beethoven's life and his music's development. (There has been criticism about being in other languages - so what? Most CD's have sleeve notes in English, French, German and Italian. Or maybe having left the EU, that will change!)So far I have watched the Bernstein 'Fidelio' which is wonderful.The symphonies on Period Instruments has been a revelation, as are the Masses. Some of the historic recordings are fascinating to listen to and compare - modern engineering should be congratulated about giving new life to these and the DGG engineers are the best.I'm dipping in to the Concertos and Quartets - but there is still a long way to go - I'm taking my time.Overall, I would say for anyone who loves Beethoven or simply wants to explore his music more comprehensively this Beethoven Edition 2020 is ideal - expensive, yes, but a bargain when you think this will last many, many years and give you the Master's works to compare and revel in this giant of music.

The box is too wide, my copy includes all the discs but the box is packed with several pieces of cardboard and there seems to be no practical reason for this. The booklet is interesting and for the most part comprehensive but for some reason only lists the tracks from CD 19. Beyond this the tracks are comprehensively listed although without lyrics or libretto. Very good for those who missed out on the larger edition but, like that edition, more attention to the presentation and packaging would have been nice (how did they achieve that promotional page with the box full of discs?) The music includes all the rare stuff and pieces recorded for the larger edition and for that reason the box is well worth the money, in fact in this respect it is very good value. Four stars only because of the packaging, the music is worth five.

Yes there certainly are cardboard inserts here and presumably the box was found to be too large for the contents and cardboard was used to pad out the box and keep the contents securely in place. Maybe in future they plan to use a smaller box to house the contents. The set is exactly as described and maybe a more positive way of viewing the cardboard inserts is that they can easily be removed to help facilitate accessing specific numbered CDs.A bargain reissue of the larger 'Beethoven:The New Complete Edition' and well worth the money. The items not included in this 'Essential' set, being on the whole the HIP performances, are ones I already own anyway so thus removing some further element of duplication.

This is the third of these mighty sets I have invested in, and I can't imagine there will be any more. Obviously I have not had time to play the hundred-plus cd's and anyway, most people will have a pretty good idea the quality of the contents.The packaging tries to live up to the Bach333 and Mozart225 standards and fails. The box is very deep, in order to accommodate the book. Well, on that basis why not lay the book down as was done with the Mozart225? That way the set could have been a more handleable size. No idea. It means is that there is a large cavity beneath the cd's. Very poor design. The book itself, whilst well produced, appears on a brief review to be disappointing as well. It is multilingual which means a load of it has no value for most people, and there is little as far as I can tell, that the casual listener will not already have come across. . The other poor design feature is the cd trays, which both have a large chunk of foam to fill the surplus space. So, why is there surplus space? Did DG plan on including more discs but couldn't find them? At any rate, with something this expensive you expect the box etc to be made for the contents in which case there should be no need for chunks of foam to fill gaps.Very poor design.The rest of the box is fairly much as you might expect. Quantities of various cd's, some of which you already have and some of which you wish were represented by a different version. And small cd-sized books for various sub-headings. You can't really call these books slim, because they are actually quite fat, but regarding the contents it is slim pickings I am afraid. They are ok but better quality and more detail would have been justified by the price.I purchased this for a particular reason and am not myself disappointed. But it could have been much better and it failed. I get the impression that DG have themselves lost faith in the mega-box concept and only brought this one out because it was expected. That would explain the poor design issues outlined already. Anyone who was waiting for a DG complete Brahms, Schubert or Tchaikovsky is probably going to have to wait a lot longer than just until a justifiable anniversary.Another reason to see this as the butt-end of the DG megabits is that, unlike the earlier ones, these ones are not numbered. I was not sure that the numbering had much point but it did seem to add value to the previous sets which is clearly lacking with this one.So, should you buy this? Well, if you have little or no Beethoven in your collection (unlikely) then by all means go for it. It does have some really good versions of some of his works. If you have the Bach333 and the Mozart225 and are looking for the third matching set, buy it but don't expect to be swept away. These sets are, in my view, sadly the final swan song of the compact disc. I shall miss it.

Unlike one of the other reviewers I think the packaging is excellent. The problem (for me) with the Mozart 225 collection is that if you want to keep everything in the box, you have to remove the books, the catalogue and prints to get at the CDS; and then you have to remove the boxes of CDs to find the CD that you want. With this Beethoven collection, as with the Bach 333 box, each CD is easily identified (in this case by a large number in the LH corner) when you take the lid off and can be accessed immediately without having to remove anything else. The hardback book and booklets are also well positioned. Very pleased, now to the music!