Sir Charles Mackerras: The Complete Warner Classics Edition
Sir Charles Mackerras
Awards:
-
The Times, Best Classical Box Sets Christmas 2025
The music-making was consistently sprightly, with attention focused on the composer’s notes, never the conductor’s ego. Spanning 63 discs, seven record labels and more than half a century, this...
Sir Charles Mackerras: The Complete Warner Classics Edition
Sir Charles Mackerras
Purchase product
Awards:
-
The Times, Best Classical Box Sets Christmas 2025
The music-making was consistently sprightly, with attention focused on the composer’s notes, never the conductor’s ego. Spanning 63 discs, seven record labels and more than half a century, this...
About
Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) 100th Anniversary of Birth on November 17th
The Complete Recordings on HMV, Pye, Columbia Graphophone, Classics for Pleasure, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics & Erato
Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) was a towering figure in the world of classical music, renowned for his versatility, meticulous scholarship, and electrifying performances. Born in Australia, he spent much of his illustrious career in Britain, becoming a principal conductor of the English National Opera and a frequent guest conductor with leading orchestras and opera companies worldwide.
Mackerras was particularly celebrated for his interpretations of Janáček, Dvořák, and Mozart, often bringing a revelatory freshness to familiar scores through his deep understanding of period performance practices and original manuscripts. His discography is vast, encompassing a wide range of repertoire and earning him numerous awards. Beyond his conducting prowess, Mackerras was also an astute musicologist, preparing critical editions of several operas. His legacy is one of unwavering dedication to musical integrity and an infectious passion that inspired countless musicians and audiences alike.
This set covers a substantial part of the recorded legacy of Sir Charles Mackerras, ranging over half a century, from his debut on record in 1951 (Pineapple Poll), to one of his finest later opera recordings (Idomeneo), embracing a repertoire that goes far beyond any conventional notions of his specialities. Rightly considered an authority on Handel, Mozart, Sullivan, Czech music (especially Dvořák and Janáček), and with a comprehensive opera repertoire, this set also celebrates his impressive credentials in Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Mahler, in British and Russian music, in ballet and in lighter orchestral pieces, as well as demonstrating his skill as an arranger – not only in his ballets Pineapple Poll and The Lady and the Fool but also on some delightful vocal albums.
Along with his energetic and stylish musicianship, what was the key to Mackerras’s extraordinary consistency across a career that spanned sixty years, with a vast and varied repertoire? Perhaps Dame Janet Baker – one of Sir Charles’s favourite collaborators – put it best in an interview with the Guardian to mark his 80th birthday: “His whole raison d’être, his whole driving force, the whole point of his life, is to pay tribute to the score. Nothing else matters …. He has extraordinary concentration on the work in hand. All great conductors have this to a degree, but with Charles it’s as though for that moment he exists for nothing else”.
The equivalent of nearly 9CDs in total have been remastered in HD 192 kHz/24-bit for this complete edition.
Contents and tracklist
CD 1 – HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks [1959]; HANDEL/HARTY Water Music Suite [1956]; JACOB Fanfare for “God Save the King”
CD 2–3 – HANDEL Messiah (Elizabeth Harwood · Janet Baker · Paul Esswood · Robert Tear · Raymond Herincx)
CD 4 – HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks (1976)
CD 5 – HANDEL Water Music (1978); Concerti grossi Op. 3
CD 6 – HANDEL · ALBINONI · TELEMANN · HERTEL Trumpet Concertos (Maurice André)
CD 7 – A Mozart Concert (Les Petits Rîens · Dances · Marches)
CD 8–9 – MOZART Piano Concertos 20 & 23 (Alain Schiller)
CD 10–12 – MOZART Flute Concerto K.313 (Jonathan Snowden); Sinfonia Concertante K.297b; Symphonies 36, 38, 40 & 41
CD 13 – MOZART Arias (Barbara Frittoli)
CD 14–16 – MOZART Idomeneo (Ian Bostridge · Lorraine Hunt Lieberson · Lisa Milne · Barbara Frittoli · Anthony Rolfe Johnson)
CD 17–21 – BEETHOVEN Symphonies (Jan Rogers · Della Jones · Peter Bronder · Bryn Terfel)
CD 22 – BEETHOVEN · MENDELSSOHN Violin Concertos (Monica Huggett)
CD 23–24 – SCHUBERT Symphonies 5, 8 & 9
CD 25 – Favourite Ballet Music (Wilhelm Tell · Sylvia · Faust · Coppélia)
CD 26 – BERLIOZ Overtures & Orchestral Excerpts; Russian Overtures & Orchestral Excerpts
CD 27 – MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4 · Midsummer Night’s Dream
CD 28 – CHOPIN Les Sylphides; PONCHIELLI Dance of the Hours; MEYERBEER Les Patineurs; TCHAIKOVSKY Waltzes
CD 29–30 – VERDI/MACKERRAS Lady and the Fool; DELIBES Lakmé Ballet Music
CD 31 – Great Opera Duets (Montserrat Caballé · Bernabé Martí)
CD 32 – WAGNER Götterdämmerung Highlights (Rita Hunter · Alberto Remedios)
CD 33 – OFFENBACH Gaîté Parisienne; J. STRAUSS II Graduation Ball – Perpetuum mobile; Unter Donner und Blitz; Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
CD 34 – CHABRIER España · Fête Polonaise; DELIBES La Source; GOOSSENS Four Ballet Music; MESSAGER Les Deux Pigeons
CD 35 – MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition; A Night on the Bare Mountain [1970]; RODION SHCHEDRIN Carmen Suite / Polovtsian Dances
CD 36 – TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 3; LITOLFF · WEBER · SAINT-SAËNS · TURINA Piano Concertante Works (Joseph Cooper)
D 37 – TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture; GLINKA Warner Overtures & Orchestral Excerpts; MUSSORGSKY A Night on the Bare Mountain [1990]; R. STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegel · Don Juan
CD 38–39 – DVOŘÁK Symphonies 7, 8 & 9 · Symphonic Variations
CD 40–41 – DVOŘÁK Romance (Stephanie Gonley); Legends · Nocturne · String Serenade
CD 42 – JANÁČEK Capriccio · Concertino (Mikhail Rudy); DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dances; SMETANA The Bartered Bride Polka & Furiant; BRAHMS Hungarian Dances 1–6 & 5–6; BARTÓK Romanian Folk Dances; ENESCU Romanian Rhapsody No. 1
CD 43–44 – SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll [1951] · Savoy Opera Overtures; SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll [1960]; SULLIVAN Pineapple Poll Suite [1977]; VERDI/MACKERRAS Lady and the Fool Suite
CD 45 – JANÁČEK Sinfonietta · 4 Opera Overtures
CD 46–47 – ELGAR Falstaff · Enigma Variations
CD 48 – ELGAR Cello Concerto; HERBERT Cello Concerto No. 2; ELGAR Romance Op.62 (Julian Lloyd Webber)
CD 49 – PUCCINI Arias (Montserrat Caballé)
CD 50–51 – MAHLER Symphonies 1–5
CD 52 – MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Ann Murray · Thomas Allen)
CD 53 – REGER An die Hoffnung; BERG Frühe Lieder (Christa Ludwig)
CD 54 – DELIUS Double Concerto; Cello Concerto (Tasmin Little · Raphael Wallfisch)
CD 55 – RACHMANINOV Symphony No. 3 · Symphonic Dances
CD 56 – HOLST The Planets · The Perfect Fool
CD 57 – WOLF-FERRARI · DONIZETTI · FALLA · SMETANA; WEINBERGER Overtures & Orchestral Excerpts
CD 58 – BRIAN Symphonies 7 & 31 · The Tinker’s Wedding
CD 59 – STRAVINSKY Rite of Spring · Fireworks · Circus Polka; Favourite Music of Eric Coates
CD 60 – BURKHARD · REZNICEK Overtures; COPLAND El Salón México · The Quiet City · Rodeo Hoe Down; WIRÉN Serenade for Strings Scherzo & March
CD 61 – WALTON Symphonies 1 & 2 · Siesta; The Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Christmas Album
CD 62 – Folk Songs of the British Isles (Richard Lewis); Peter Dawson Sings
CD 63 – A Little Nonsense (Owen Brannigan); Sing the Songs of Britain (Elizabeth Harwood · Owen Brannigan); FIRST RELEASE of unpublished recordings
Awards and reviews
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The TimesBest Classical Box Sets Christmas 2025
9th December 2025
The music-making was consistently sprightly, with attention focused on the composer’s notes, never the conductor’s ego. Spanning 63 discs, seven record labels and more than half a century, this wonderful box should spread delight among listeners old and new.
