This box is a solution to a problem that occurs when we're presented with a plethora of exceptional repertoire but no easy place to put it. There are approximately five thousand masters in our combined catalogs, and about 1/3rd of those masters are unreleased in the digital format. So when looking through these listings (endless spreadsheets of bar codes and abbreviated descriptions of classical works), excitement of restoring a lost vault treasure is tempered by our release template - essentially creating large boxed sets to present to our listeners.

To solve this we're actually following two paths. The first is to create boxes like Big Romantic Composers Box, which is a very loose theme to feature composers who wrote between the mid 1800s and the early 1900s (and fit our criterion for being before copyright which means composed before 1923) It's also a bit against the current thinking that you need to have a very "search results" friendly title in order to succeed. But without going too far afield, you also can't get any traction on a master in our catalog if it isn't available anywhere except eBay or Amazon Marketplace as a "Used - Like New" CD....The second path is that we are going to release many deserving recordings in a much smaller format size coming soon.

But for now, we're happy to say that nearly every recording on this Big Romantic Composers Box is making its digital debut today. We didn't fill this release out with a series of much better known works that would be much more identified as "Romantic", because we like defining this release by the somewhat more obscure nature of the repertoire we used, as well as the relative scarcity of these recordings. Only the very first track, Franck's ballet Les Eolides, has been available in digital format, and frankly, it was included here because your friendly compiler didn't know it was available digitally until after the collection was completed...but honestly, because of the Bach Guild following, our releases often significantly revive older recordings that have been available for decades, so we're at least plucking that recording out of the darkness for a few moments.

So we've really plunged into the ProArte catalog for this set. The unusual and rarely recorded repertoire available from ProArte were a catalyst for the overall theme. The Gliere symphony Ilya Muromets, conducted by Yoal Talmi (releaed on CD as ProArte CDS 589), has its fans and seems to be a conductors favorite, starting with Stokowski, even if its length and relative obscurity make it oddly absent from the concert hall. And the orchestral transcriptions on the Brahms CD, again conducted by Yoal Talmi certainly stand out in a crowded marketplace. (The Brahms orchestral songs, arranged by Erich Leinsdorf, will be released early 2020, but we decided only to have a few limited vocal tracks which appear on the Strauss recording.)

Another ProArte release, long out of print in any format is featured here. Gerard Schwarz conducted the New York Chamber Symphony in a complete performance of Strauss's Le Bourgoise Gentilhomme, or Der Berger als Edelmann (PROARTE 448).  The New York Times called this performance "filled with charming music", and this recording offers much more than the usual suite.  Unfortunately, it's very difficult to list soloists so we're mentioning them here. Cynthia Clarey is the mezzo-soprano, Kaaren Ericsson is the soprano and Roger Roloff is the baritone.

ProArte's fine Dallas Symphony recordings with Eduardo Mata get a hearing here as well (PS we are preparing a complete set of the Dallas recordings for release in late 2019), with Sibelius' 2nd Symphony (PROARTE CD 320), the Grieg Symphonic Dances (from PROARTE CD 477) and Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (from PROARTE CD 3547). More Dallas recordings coming soon with our Little Big Spanish Music Box, whose release date is TBD right now, but we expect it before the end of October.

And last but never least, two shocking never before available omissions from the Vanguard catalog (very shocking) are two warhorse recordings of some orchestral favorites. Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony receives a very fine performance from the Utah Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maurice Abravanel. (This looks to be mis-identified on the metadata, which we will fix.) And long neglected recording of the 2 Romanian Rhapsodies by Georges Enescu by the Vienna State Opera Orchestra also makes its digital debut. Both of these recordings shared release on an Omega/Vanguard CD in the late 1980s (OVC 5002)