Title: A great collection - but a misfire.
Review: This 3 disc collection of 40 works by Gottschalk has it's pluses, and unfortunately it's minuses. The pluses include the large number of works presented in a single collection, and at an unbeatable price. On the minus side, we are presented with performances which abound with wrong notes, some of which are very excessive and plain irritating (especially "The Union"). Alan Mandel is obviously a fine pianist, and he is well recorded, but either was not given the benefit of multiple takes, or the VOX company elected to release his recordings without editing. After listening to these discs you will agree there is a case to be made for "multiple takes/splicing/editing" to produce the best recording possible. I cannot understand why the VOX label would release these recordings in this manner.
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