Track Listing

1. Adiemus - Adiemus, Karl Jenkins, Michael Roland Ratledge
2. The Ashokan Farewell - The Band of Her Majestys Royal Marines, John Perkins, Jay Ungar
3. Symphony No.3 Opus 36 "Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs" - Dawn Upshaw, Henryk Gorecki
4. Le Onde - Craig Ogden, Ludovico Einaudi
5. Farewell to Stromness - Peter Maxwell Davies
6. Theme - Ladies In Lavender - Joshua Bell, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Nigel Hess
7. Standing Stone - London Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Fruhbeck De Burg, Paul McCartney
8. Pie Jesu - All Angels, Ian Tilley, Steve Abbott, Simon Lole, James Fitzpatrick, Bohumil Kotmel, Jan Holzner, Steve Lowe, Andy Fox-Hulme, City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, John Langley, Dick Beetham, Daisy Chute, Melanie Nakhla, Charlotte Ritchie, Laura Wright, John Brunning
9. Pro alios curantibus (For those that care for others) - The Enchanted Voices, Lucy Page, Daisy Fancourt, Peter Gregson, Howard Goodall
10. Durham Awakes (from Durham Concerto) - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Mischa Damev, Jon Lord
11. Quanta Qualia - Janet Coxwell, Conventus, English Chamber Orchestra, Patrick Hawes
12. The Lark Ascending - Nicola Benedetti, Andrew Keener, Jane Ward, Simon Eadon, Dave Rowell, Bill Sykes, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton, Vesselin Gellev, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16722 in Music
• Released on: 2009-05-04
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 158 minutes

Customer Reviews

A Great Selection
I, too, thought 'hang on - made famous by CLASSIC fM?' when I looked at some of the titles.

However, I do know from recommending the station to friends, that these pieces ARE new to a lot of people who did not listen to Classical Music before CLASSIC fM came along. And certainly, modern classical composers like Howard Goodall, Patrick Hawes, John Rutter, Paul McCartney have been given airtime and encouraged by CLASSIC fM. The 'Composer in Residence' position has inspired some sensational pieces. I would not have known about some of these composers without listening to the station, which also presents classical music in a non-patronising way.

Maybe they do usually just play the 'best bits' (although there are the Full Works programmes), but anything that introduces this genre of music to people is a good thing and may well encourage them to hear and enjoy more.

There is a lot of snobbery about classical music. This collection is, simply, beautiful and popular music to be enjoyed as and when you wish to listen to it. I think it's a great selection.

P.S. - I am not employed by CLASSIC fM!

Every song is a famous one

A cheekily titled 2CD from Classic FM, and a little tongue in cheek too I think, for many of the songs have been famous long before Classic FM's first radio broadcast in 1992.

For example, the opening track `Zadok the Priest' composed by Handel in 1727 for the coronation of King George II proved so popular that it's been played at every coronation service since. It's also been used by football's UEFA since 1992, later becoming the official theme music for the UEFA Champions League and used as the theme music for every live TV broadcast. So that's one that was already famous before Classic FM arrived!

But that's no real criticism of Classic FM, for they do deserve credit for popularising so much of the classical music that we listen to today and this compilation reflects both the listener's favourites and the radio station's recommendations.

As expected there's a host of big name performers making this a collection of music which will be familiar to many of the radio programs listeners and is a nice combination of new and old.

Very highly recommended.

Classic FMs entire playlist
You can pretty much listen to classic fm for about 2 hours any day, any week and hear all this music played then without buying the cd. How they can say that they made half of this music famous is beyond me, other than that they play it ad naseum...