Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9421 in Music
• Released on: 2003-11-03
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

ANOTHER 'Only One You'll Ever Need'...???

If the original 2CD `The Only Classical Album You'll Ever Need' was true to its claim, then surely there'd be no need for this volume 2 would there? Never mind, all good things deserve a sequel I guess.

This follow up 2CD release matches the original in that the budget price doesn't reflect the quality, for the soloists, orchestras, conductors and the recordings themselves ensure it is a good quality selection of mostly familiar music from the classical music repertoire.

The choices this time offer a slightly more varied repertoire than the opera-biased original, for example there are film soundtracks such as `The Mission' (Ennio Morricone), `Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore), `The Deerhunter' (Stanley Myers) and `2001 : A Space Odyssey' (Richard Strauss's `Also Sprach Zarathustra').

Also included this time are the glaring omissions, unavoidable though due to the limitations of only 2CDs, such as Beethoven's popular `Ode To Joy' from Symphony No. 9 and Ralph Vaughan William's version of `Greensleves'.

More unusual inclusions are Bach's `Goldberg Variations' (Silence of the Lambs ) and his beautiful Cantata No. 140 `Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme'(Wake up, the voice is calling us) commonly known as `Sleepers' Wake'.

As with the original `The Only Classical Album You'll Need' the tracks are mostly single movements from the whole score, which may not please the more enthusiastic classical fan, but then this album really is only aimed at those wanting a brief 'best of' product rather than an in depth study, and for that purpose it does its job well.

I would recommend the album as a bargain value, well perfomed selection of classical music which builds on that of Volume 1.

classic vol 2
this was exactly what I expected it to be. Most of my favourites but with some variations on arrangements.