I've now got a copy of the 109CD box set of all Barbirolli's recordngs for EMI/Pye/ etc that Warner hoovered up. It's an excellent collection overall. I'm particularly impressed by the number of rarely re-released early '78 era' recordings because they have been 'cleaned' very well and many sound really good. Also better for some later recordings where early EMI CDs did lousy transfers. Plus some never-previously-released items as well.
The real weak point is the 'booklet' with says very little about the recordings. Each disc *sleeve* has details like the date and location of the recordings and identifies the engineers, producers, etc. But in *tiny* type in a way that is very hard to read. And of course, all spread out on the actual covers. Whereas almost all the other recent big box sets I've got in recent years - e.g. Decca: Analogue years, etc - have a booklet that gives all the details page by page, with a decent index.
So just in case it helps anyone else, I'll point out that there is a book I bought some years ago - "Sir John Barbirolli - A Career On Record" by David Li Jones that has a decent discography with with details, and indeed, a CDROM showing more info like scans of the original disc labels! More than fills rhe gap! But a shame that the box-set's 'booklet' is so thin!
