Customer Reviews

22 Preludes Processionals Rece

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found many ideas for my wedding. Wonderful music to select from. Now I can have my fav songs on one CD for the Wedding.

I'm a sound technician, and I have used this CD at many weddings over the last few years. I've had nothing but positive comments from the wedding party and from guests regarding the music on this CD. It's also bailed a handful of couples out when the rehearsal arrives and they realize they've forgotten to hire musicians! In no way does a CD replacing actual pianists and organists detract from the ceremony(some people contend that canned music "cheapens" the ceremony). All in all, it's a great choice.

I purchased this CD many years ago, before there was such a thing as listen before you buy, and I regretted it right away. They chose excellent classical pieces, but ruined most of them with overwrought pipe organ renditions. I wish they had bothered to indicate the featured instruments of each track on the exterior notes. I wouldn't have wasted my money.

While I'm sure the musicians involved in the recording -- none of whom are given credit, by the way -- performed as masterfully as one could ask, that fact was not enough to make this a worthwhile purchase for me. No offense intended to you organists out there, but I DETEST the sound of the pipe organ. I would call it funereal, but I wouldn't play such music even at a funeral in this day and age, let alone at my wedding. The pipe organ even makes "Happy Birthday" sound like a dirge. I'm an acoustic guitar, piano, and harp lover, so... pipe organ? Uh, not so much.

There are only five tracks I find even slightly pleasing, which are the solo piano numbers, as follows:

Track #13 -- Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (by Sergei Rachmaninoff)

Track #14 -- Somewhere In Time (by John Barry)

Track #15 -- Tara's Theme: My Own True Love (by Max Steiner)

Track #16 -- Through The Eyes Of Love (Theme from "Ice Castles") (by Marvin Hamlisch & Carol Bayer Sager)

Track #20 -- We Are One In The Bond Of Love (by Otis Skillings)


Those five tracks are the sole reason I was willing to rate this CD with one star. Otherwise, it's a big zero. So, unless you actually enjoy traditional pipe organ music, or if you really, really need one or more of those particular piano tracks, and you can't find them anywhere else in the wide world, then I do NOT recommend purchase of this compilation, for a wedding or any other purpose.

(In case you're wondering, I've kept the CD all these years because I always intended to use track #20, "We Are One In the Bond of Love," during the lighting of the unity candle in my wedding.)

P.S. I included the composer names as a courtesy. Except for Rachmaninoff and Barry, the CD notes do not provide this information.

I do not recommend this to anyone, it was very crappy and I would rather have no music at my ceremony than to play any of these.