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If you thought you had all the Bartók worth having – the monumental string quartets, the spooky Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, the warhorse Concerto for Orchestra, perhaps even the three thrilling piano concertos – consider this 29-disc set. It is the only available edition of his complete works. Hungaroton issued most of these pieces in a boxed LP set almost thirty years ago. Expect some tape hiss.

However some pieces, like the 1903 Violin Sonata, were recorded as late as 1993. Treasures abound. Sample the songs Bartók wrote in 1915, based on the poems of his young student and lover, Klára Gombossy. Read the dry, awkwardly translated, and informative program notes. (There are enough of these to fill a small book.) Learn that the baroque practice of "parody," recycling parts of older pieces for new pieces, did not die out with Bach. Bartók used the second movement in his Violin Concerto #1 as the first of Two Portraits. Not only did he orchestrate several chamber works, like his two violin and piano rhapsodies, he rescored. This set includes his Rhapsody #1 scored for cello and it is most tasty.