Review: John Eliot Gardiner--The Sour Grapes Edition

As Gardiner remakes a lot of his core repertoire on his own label, DG/Archiv disgorges this huge, 104-CD box of earlier stuff (on which they must have invested a fortune) as if to say,, "Here. Take that!" Trouble is, it only represents a fraction of Gardiner's best work--most of it Bach and Mozart; but his most important recordings, I would argue--of Handel, Gluck, Berlioz, the Verdi Requiem--are either on Decca/Philips or Erato. And this set isn't even complete. Mozart's music for Thamos is missing, and it was an excellent disc. On the other hand, his NDR and Vienna Philharmonic recordings of romantic repertoire run the gamut from pointless to awful, and they are all included. In short, it's hard to find a good reason to acquire this set, especially as all of the best stuff has already been boxed up and sold separately in recent years.