The All Time Greatest Classical Album
featuring Barbara Bonney, Sarah Brightman, Jose Carreas, Charlotte Church,
Michael Crawford, Placido Domingo, Karl Jenkins, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jacqueline
du Pre, & John Williams (guitarist)
SONY TV97CD [Total:
150:52 * Disc One: 73:08 - Disc Two: 77:44]
29 tracks offering popular classical melodies and a selection of film
themes and pieces from stage
shows
AmazonUK
It's easy to dismiss albums like this as a sign of a general dumbing-down
of classical music in particular and culture in general. It may however be
more helpful to consider the glass half-full than half-empty, and hope that
broad-appeal twin CD compilations along the lines of The All Time Greatest
Classical Album will encourage at least some listeners to develop a greater
appreciation of the works and composers represented here. That said, this
is not one of the better examples of it's type. The Only Classical Album
You Will Ever Need and Naxos' A-Z of Classical Music both do a
far better job.
This particular album masters on big names from the Sony and Columbia catalogues,
but fatally fails to provide anything like adequate documentation; we are
told who the star singers are, but orchestras (except for two cases) and
conductors are not even mentioned, and there are no notes of any kind. This
is simply shoddy, cheap recycling of archive material, and if Sony do wish
to encourage further exploration surely it would not be too much trouble
to document the original performances and the albums on which they can be
heard? If Naxos can do it at super-budget price there is no excuse at all.
Beyond this the actual production leaves something to be desired, with 'Nessun
Dorma!' being clumsily and rapidly faded from the original recording in a
way which is amateurish almost beyond belief.
There is another, more serious problem. Without going into a discussion of
what constitutes classical music, several of the selections clearly have
no business flying under this flag. Perhaps the fact that this release is,
despite the title, not on Sony Classical, but Sony TV. John Williams' Star
Wars theme is undeniably extrapolated from the classical tradition, but
much as I love the music I would not argue that it is 'classical' in itself.
Ten fold less so James Horner's 'Rose' from Titanic, an attractive
melody which is utterly jarring and tasteless when following Elgar. 'Pie
Jesu' from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem is a difficult one to argue
- it may be 'classical', but it is certainly not 'great classical' - but
the same composer's Phantom of the Opera certainly has no place. And
as for Stanley Meyer's 'Cavatina', popularised as the theme from The
Deerhunter? A lovely tune, but not 'classical' music. I could go on,
but you get the point. Nevertheless, the presence of these pieces may encourage
people to buy the album, and then go on to discover 'real' classical music.
As for the pieces which are 'classical', given that they are torn out of
their original context with no information provided, it is difficult to really
say anything about them other than that they generally come from good
performances with presumably major orchestras and conductors. The selections
fall safely within the classical music as tuneful wallpaper approach of Classic
FM and there will be very little here that even the most casual listener
does not recognise. Much as I personally dislike this album I am loath to
dismiss entirely because I think it does serve a purpose. It is only a shame
that the album itself could not be better sequenced, produced and documented.
As such there are many competing releases which do the same thing better.
However, for those that want them, there are a lot of famous tunes here at
a reasonable price.
Gary S. Dalkin
