Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23788 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-25
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 230 minutes

Customer Reviews

A great introduction to classical music
I have listened to quite a few compilations such as this one but never really felt like exploring the world of classical music much further. This album opened my ears to the delights of classical music by including pieces that are recognisable by someone like me who knows little about classical music. For example, I did not know that the dramatic opening music in 2001 - A Space Odyssey was from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Strauss or that the background music in the British Airways TV commercial was the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme.

Since listening to this compilation, I have bought several classical music CDs and am enjoying them immensely. For example, I had actually seen Swan Lake and heard the music many years ago but never felt tempted to listen to it again. But after hearing the bit included in this compilation, I bought Tchaikovsky's Ballets (LSO, Andre Previn, EMI) and have listened to Swan Lake several times; each time the pleasure increases.

I also bought the Orchestral Works of Strauss (Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, EMI) and The Complete Symphonies and Piano Concertos of Beethoven (Philharmonia Orchestra and New Philharmonia Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim and Otto Klemperer, EMI) and listened a few times to Also Sprach Zarathustra and Symphony 9 a few time, again each time with increasing pleasure.

So this compilation album opened many avenues of pleasure for me that I was not aware existed.

A wonderful selection of every classical style - SUPERB!
A wonderful CD containing a lot of pieces that everyone will know, and including some new ones. An excellent CD to come home to and unwind with. It makes me want to explore the world of classical music more and has introduced me to composers who I would never have considered before. Definitely worth a listen to, especially very loud - only way to get the passion from the music!

Surely one of the best classical compilations about.
I've had this box set for about three weeks now and I am still listening to it daily. I like to dip into classical music now and again, but this compilation has opened my ears to a number of composers hitherto overlooked...

Each of the three CD covers a "theme". Relaxing, Vocal and Epic. Granted, there are plenty of obvious choices (Beethoven: 5th Symphony, Mozart: 40th Symphony, Puccini: Nessun Dorma and Handel: Hallelujah amongst others) but what I have enjoyed from this box set is an introduction to a number of other, lesser known pieces from composers not generally recognised (well to me anyway!).

Granted, one or two tracks are a bit "grainy" and appear to have been copied illegally... (Verdi: Dies Irae sounds particularly warped at volume) but they are perhaps two or three from a selection of almost 60 tracks.

However, if you treat this CD as an introduction to the best of classical music, or simply as a tool for broadening your knowledge of classical music, then this CD is more than up to the job. If you buy it, you won't be filing it away after a week, that's for sure!!!