Beyond its handsome, streamlined packaging and affordable price, the true value of this seven-disc set -- the first volume in Deutsche Grammophon's survey of the Romantic piano repertoire -- lies in
Daniel Barenboim's eloquent performances and in the depth of his selections. This presentation of key piano works by
Chopin,
Mendelssohn, and
Liszt is intelligently laid out and quite generous;
Barenboim's performances of complete cycles and whole portions of large works give the set a broad context and more substance than a smattering of random excerpts would provide. On the whole,
Barenboim plays with exceptional control and clarity in
Chopin's Nocturnes and
Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte, and only falls short in
Liszt's hyper-virtuosic pieces, which call for more passion, flamboyance, and bombast than he can muster. Like some other sets in DG's Collectors Edition series, this one consists of releases from the 1970s and 1980s, and the predominance of ADD over DDD recordings is slightly disconcerting. Only
Chopin's Nocturnes and
Liszt's transcriptions of
Wagner are all-digital; the rest were remastered from analog. Perhaps most disappointing of all, the 1973
Mendelssohn recordings have a subdued, veiled quality, possibly due to the reduction of tape hiss.