Admirers of
Luciano Berio's Sequenzas have long wished for an affordable, high-quality collection of these masterpieces for solo instruments, considered by some to be the core works in the composer's oeuvre. Deutsche Grammophon released
Ensemble InterContemporain's fabulous set in 1994, but its relatively high price and incompleteness make it a second choice when compared with the 2006 set on Naxos, which is both reasonably priced and complete, now that Sequenza XIV for cello appears on CD for the first time. Of course, bargaining over cost and completeness is one thing, but artistic quality is another important consideration: how does the Naxos edition fare in its performances and sound quality? While
Ensemble InterContemporain's terrific compilation practically guarantees accuracy and authenticity -- many of
Berio's original musicians were involved in the project -- the performances on this triple-disc set are quite comparable and wholly convincing in virtuosic skills, lustrous timbres, and splendid recording quality; only an adept student of these pieces could note any discrepancies, and those would be minor. In musical terms, Naxos has taken pains to make its Sequenzas as good as Deutsche Grammophon's, so it has drawn on the talents of its best avant-garde specialists and produced a perfectly desirable package that
Berio's numerous fans should check out, even if they already own the earlier release.