Kurt Masur’s achievement is defined above all by his relationships with two orchestras exemplifying vastly different traditions. Having spent some 20 years as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, which traces its roots to the 15th century, he became the transformational music director of the New York Philharmonic, an embodiment of the New World.

Through all this, his musical integrity remained consistent. As the New York Times wrote: “He brought to the podium the ardent conviction that music-making was a moral act that could heal the world.”

Masur himself put things more simply: “My goal is meaningful playing ... What counts is to be able to communicate the composer’s meaning to the audience ... When I conduct Beethoven, I wouldn't like to replace Beethoven. He should be in your mind, not me.” This 70CD set consolidates the entirety of the catalogues that Masur built for EMI and Teldec between 1974 and 2009.

Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven, Alban Berg, Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Anton Bruckner, Antonín Dvorák, Leoš Janáček, Zoltán Kodály, Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Benjamin Britten, Claude Debussy, César Franck, Maurice Ravel, Jean Sibelius, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alfred Schnittke, Dimitri Shostakovich, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, George Gershwin, Charles Ives