DG ARCHIV  MOZART: PIANO CONCERTOS Nos. 5 / 8 / 9 / 11 / 12 /13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27       MALCOLM BILSON / THE ENGLISH BAROQUE SOLOISTS / JOHN ELIOT GARDINER 

DG ARCHIV  GERMANY  1984 - 1988        DIGITAL      8 LP  GATEFOLD SLEEVES + 2 CD

This must be the point at which the record companies fell out of love with the LP collector. Despite the support, encouragement and profitability of its 40 year relationship with the LP record collector, in the 1980s several record companies - now calling themselves the music industry - abandoned the LP in favour of the CD format. Given the success and greater profitability of the new format over the old (CD came out in 1982), the commercial good sense of adopting the new medium was undeniable, but to abandon the LP format part way through what should have been a 10 LP set of the complete Mozart piano concertos, when 8 LPs had already been published on LP, seems a poor deal for the vinyl collector.

 DG Archiv are not the only record company to abandon the LP part way through a complete cycle of works, but since their Bilson /  Mozart piano concertos series was begun in 1984 - well into the CD era - the LP collector should surely have been considered and rewarded for his support of the project across the first 8 issues in the series.