Customer Reviews

Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I am a musician and I generally dislike classical compilation CD's, but my friend brought this in to work one day and I was hooked. It covers many different styles of classical music with a wonderful combination of pieces. The only negative for me was that some of the longer pieces had to be cut down to fit them on, but that was minor when compared with all of the good things in this set. I recommend it for musicians and non-musicians alike.

This compilation offers the most popular themes and familiar tunes in small doses, in a sampler. Unless you've lived under a rock, you can't have helped but have heard of some of these tunes, whether at a wedding, or as background music to some action scene in a movie. You get 4 CDs for the price of 1, so it's a great value, and who cares if they are not the most famous orchestras or performers. The only thing is that the pieces are somewhat abridged, and are designed to please the uninitiated, hence ear-candy. Good enough to whet your appetite for something more substantial and a start a music appreciation.

It frightens me that so many musicians and aspiring musicians below me (and no doubt, by now above me too) are praising this CD. If you want to learn about this music, as they claim they do, here's a radical thought: why not go out and get the actual recordings? The ones here are just excerpts, from no-name performers and orchestras. If you were interested in Shakespeare would you read one soliloquy from Hamlet? If you were interested in Dickens, would one chapter from Copperfield do? Part of studying music is understanding how sections relate to one another, how they develop and evolve and progress over time. Just "knowing the melody" to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik tells you no more about Mozart than knowing the line "We All Live In A Yellow Submarine" tells you anything worth a damn about the Beatles. Music students--even beginners--who think they are getting an education from this rubbish are fooling themselves.

Some will oppose this view and say everyone needs an eezie introduction to classical music. That's fine. There are plenty of them--and I've reviewed and endorsed a number of them. But some introductions are so "easy" that they've literally had all the content removed, but want to give you the illusion you are learning so you feel good about forking over your bucks.

But my complaints will probably fall on deaf ears, and soon the top of this review will say something like "0 of 96 people found this review helpful." Sad. People like the easy, no-effort way in everthing, be it dieting, "spirituality" or music appreciation. So fear not if you order this: you won't have to stretch yourself in any way, but you'll be led to believe you have learned something in the end. God bless us all.

Whether this is a good introduction to classical music, or will instead turn people off even more, depends on where the listener is coming from.

For those who just don't know much about classical music, maybe aren't very passionate about a particular kind of music in the first place, just want something nice to listen to, or maybe want to explore and learn about classical music but don't know where to start, this may be a perfect introduction.

But for people who actually think they HATE classical music, this may simply emphasize to them all the things they already don't like about it. For the most part, it's pretty, but not powerful. It's polite, but not demonstrative. It's passive, not aggressive. Etc. If you're a fan of rap or hard rock or alternative rock or something that's more or less the opposite of classical music, and hate the dainty, delicate politeness of classical music (not to mention its lack of obvious powerful "beat"), then this won't do anything to change your mind, even though there's a lot of classical music out there that is neither dainty nor delicate and is sometimes not even polite! If what you like about your music is the angst, this collection emphasizes the opposite. There is classical music to equal the intensity and power (and the angst) of the hardest hard rock (and even some with a pretty good beat), but you won't find much of it on this collection.

The most frequent complaint I've heard about classical music from people who don't like it is along the lines of "it puts you to sleep." Like my local classical radio station, which emphasizes "soothing, relaxing, stress-free..." in its marketing, this type of collection only serves to reinforce that attitude.

"Classical Music for Beginners" might be an apt title for this collection, but "...for People Who (Actually) Hate Classical Music" is probably not.

I love this collection of classical music, and I am not a classical music fan! The 4 CD's include a lot of pieces that I was vaguely familiar with, but I did not know the names of the pieces. This is a great "starter set" for anyone. I enjoy the variety of music, and I think this set is an excellent value.

This is a perfect introduction to classical music and I do not understand some of the overtly negative criticism from others. It is an excellent way to "get your feet wet," so to speak and then you can decide which composers you wish to become more familiar with. You would have to buy quite a few CDs to experience all this set has to offer. Although the CD title is tongue-in-cheek...and perhaps that is what people object to...there is nothing to criticize here.

I'm a studying musician preparing for college study, and I recieved this collection from my parents as a gift several years ago. I'm quite familiar with many of the works sampled, and must say this is a great place to begin your love for this stuff. On the plus side, this is an EXCELLENT collection for those wishing to explore the depth and bredth of "classical" music (sorry, that term sometimes bugs me--read the CD jackets and you'll understand why!), for both budding musicians and patrons alike. I must emphasise that this is only most benificial to those not too familiar with concert music--the more seasoned a musician you are, the less useful it will become, and the more the cuts and absence of movements and/or works will drive you insane. The more experienced I've become in music performance and study, the more I've tended to shy away from collections. This one, though not as shameful as many others, still carries the downsides of cutting "longer" movements (such as Beethoven's 5th) and leaning too much towards the familiar tune side. Personally, I think many pieces that are not so universally recognizable may have just as easily been included as Bach's Brandenburg No. 3--such as Mars or Jupiter from Holst's "The Planets," or the first movement of Dvorak's 7th symphony. Nontheless, my recommendation would be to purchase this set, with the intent of exploring whichever pieces or composers found here in more detail (for instance, don't just settle for the Largo--get the full New World Symphony! The whole thing is just magnificent!) Oh, and if nothing else, find a recording of Beethoven's 5th so you can at least hear the whole movement! (AHHH that cut killed me!) Well, happy listening!

Although I can see why classical music novices wouldn't care that this CD's recordings and interpretations aren't very good, I do think that there are much better quality compilations out there that serve the same purpose and are still affordable.

As a professional-level classical musician who has many friends and family who "hate" classical music, I always suggest the iTunes "essential" collections. iTunes picks top notch recordings and a nice balance of works - some are in the "top 40" category and others are slightly lesser known but give a great idea of what the composer's best work was like. (You'd be surprised to know that a lot of the top 40 classical pieces are not exemplary of their composers' works).

iTunes Essentials used to have a terrific "Classical 101" compilation, and now they have the follow-up "Classical 201," which is basically the same thing. You can buy the first level "The Basics" for $24.95, and if you like it you can branch out to the next levels. Also, iTunes has more Classical compilations organized by time period, if you find that you favor one period of classical over another. A very safe beginning spot if you want to start with a genre is "Classic: Romantic Period" for $21.78.

Happy listening and I hope you end up liking classical music!

I fondly remember the LP record "Classical Music for People who Hate Classical Music" from my undergraduate days in the early 1960's. Now I teach music literature online and in college. I haven't purchased this CD yet because of a couple of disastrous customer reviews and its price.

Most customers who purchased this don't seem to know much about classical music, but like this CD very much. I've noticed that unsophisticated listeners like music that's well performed much better than mediocre performances by "no-name performers" and performances that were digitally recorded better than those that were transcribed from analog to digital, even though they usually can't explain why they like one better than the other. I listened to the samples on your web site. The performances weren't great, but the pieces were very "forgiving" (even played badly they sound good).

Your top 500 reviewer, John Grabowski, trashed this CD for good reasons, but he's trashed some other things I like too, for good, thoughtful reasons. I decided to buy the CD anyway. If it's as good as I remember, I'll play some of it in my class. If it's as bad as he says, I'll give it to my brother-in-law.
Thomas J. Donahue, M.A., Ed.S., Ph.D.

My wife and I bought the "Classical kids CDs" for our kids to listen to a year ago, which have short exerpts from different composers, such as Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, etc. We liked some of them so much that we bought entire collections to hear more of the music. I was even inspired to perform in a local rendition of Handel's "Messiah", something I would never have done before getting interested in the music. I guess I'm trying to say that compilations like this can whet your appetite for more, whereas a newcomer buying a bunch of symphonies or concertos by a composer can be too intimidating. Wasn't this the whole concept that led to much of the success of "Fantasia" as well?