Musings on Weber: The Spirit of German Romanticism (Warner Classics)

Of all the giants in the classical music recording business Warner Classics is by far the best. Warner Classics leaves Decca and Deutsche Grammophon in its dust. 

Recently I picked up a copy of Warner's Carl Maria von Weber box set, Weber: The Spirit of German Romanticism. The box set celebrates the 200th anniversary of Weber’s death.

I am not going to talk about the quality of the music making. Many of the recordings, which date from 1908 to 1996, have gotten good reviews in the late great Penguin Guides to classical music and in Classical Music: The Listener’s Companion, an American counterpart to the Penguin Guides and I guide I prefer to them. What I want to talk about instead is the choice Warner Classics made of what to and what not to put into this box set.

I have no problems with the items that are in the box set whether the recordings of the symphonies, the concertos, the chamber music, the lieder, or the operas. I am not sure about the discs of works after Weber or the transcriptions and arrangements of Weber’s work. They are probably not necessary but I suppose they are nice to have.

What would have been nice, however, is if Warner included even more performances of Weber’s actual work. While the Harnoncourt recording of Der Freischutz is nice to have why wasn’t the EMI Kelberth recording of the opera not included as as part of the multi-disc historical recordings discs or as a standalone? And why wasn’t the Virgin Pay and OAE recording of the two clarinet concertos and the clarinet concertinio not included to give us an idea of what Weber sounds like in a historically informed performance with original instruments? After all both EMI and Virgin are part of the Warner’s stable of classical labels now.

As with the recent Bizet box set Warner has given us another wonderful box set. At the same time, however, the box set could have and should have been better box. But then beggars can’t be choosers.