Prominent in the musical evolution of 20th-century France, Charles Munch (1891-1968) also spent 13 epoch-making years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This collection assembles newly-remastered versions of all the recordings he made for EMI and Erato in the 1930s, 1940s and 1960s. The repertoire ranges wide and the 1965 recording of Roussel’s Suite in F makes its first appearance on CD.  Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique – a Munch speciality – features twice. The version from 1967 marked the recording debut of the newly-established Orchestre de Paris under its inaugural Music Director.

2018 brings the 50th anniversary of the death (6 November 1968) of the French conductor Charles Munch. For decades he was an important and influential figure in France, and this 13-CD set focuses on his achievements with French orchestras, but he also enjoyed fame as Chief Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a role he held from 1949-1962.

These 13CDs, containing Munch’s entire Warner Classics catalogue, comprise recordings made between (i) 1935 and 1949 (CDs 7-13) and (ii) 1965 and 1968 (the year of the conductor’s death, CDs 1-6).  The repertoire on the 13 CDs is wide-ranging – from the Baroque era to the mid-20th century (Bach and Vivaldi to Dutilleux and Jolivet) and from core repertoire to rarities. The 78rpm era recordings find here their first original complete edition and they include numerous official premieres on CD. Roussel’s Suite in F recorded for Erato is released here for the first time on CD.

The Berlioz Symphonie fantastique with the Orchestre de Paris was recorded a few days before the first concert of the orchestra: the first notes ever played by the Orchestre de Paris. Jean-Charles Hoffelé, in his note for the boxset, sums up Munch’s style thus: “… his frenetic rhythms, his enormously varied palette of intense colours … his unerring feeling for a crescendo, all the subtle accents and phrasing that make his performances speak directly to the audience, and above all an irrepressible sense of movement …”