Best Classics 100 [BOX SET]

Ernest Blanc (Performer), John Shirley-Quirk (Performer), James Morris (Performer), Adolphe Adam (Composer), Tomaso Albinoni (Composer), Gregorio Allegri (Composer), Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer), Samuel Barber (Composer), Ludwig van Beethoven (Composer), Vincenzo Bellini (Composer), Hector Berlioz (Composer), Georges Bizet (Composer), Alexander Borodin (Composer), Max Bruch (Composer), Joseph Marie Canteloube (Composer), Frederic Chopin (Composer), Jeremiah Clarke (Composer), Claude Debussy (Composer), Leo Delibes (Composer), Antonin Dvorak (Composer)

Product Details

• Performer: Ernest Blanc, John Shirley-Quirk, James Morris
• Composer: Adolphe Adam, Tomaso Albinoni, Gregorio Allegri, Johann Sebastian Bach, Samuel Barber, et al.
• Audio CD (August 10, 2004)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 6
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B0001M65HE
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #162,130 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #37 in	Music > Classical > Featured Composers, A-Z > ( C ) > Canteloube, Joseph
  #43 in	Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Baroque (c.1600-1750) > Composers > Featured Composers, A-Z - egri, Gregorio - Works by Allegri
  #58 in	Music > Classical > Featured Performers, A-Z > ( P ) > Paris Symphony Orchestra

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Japanese 6 CD set. Details TBA. 2005. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Selection, But..., April 20, 2005

By	H. Elliott (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...The Audio Quality is really not great. I bought this CD because I am new to classical, and the price was great! 100 songs for 25 bucks, thats like 25 cents a song, most songs are 1 dollar or more. Now I know why it's cheaper. The audio quality isn't that good. I imported the entire collection to my computer using Apple Lossless, and it sounded fuzzy, not crisp, with background noise, and sounded like compressed music, cutting off the frequency response.
I then played the CD's through my home stereo, with the same results. I plugged in my SHURE E5c headphones and the sound was soft, uninviting, lacking punch, with significant backgound noise (not just from the headphones), which was especially distracting when the music would get softer. I have heard much of the music before, and it was much more dynamic, entertaining, this recording seems too flat.
The music selection is ok, but I was hoping for some more interesting selections from the vast classical genre.
Overall, not that great of a recording, but many might not notice the difference, so if you are new to classical or aren't like an audiophile, get this album because it's a great overview of pop-culture classical, and it's pretty inexpensive.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have classical music set!, January 5, 2005

By	Cumulonimbus Harpe "samsmylife" (Fresno, California, United States) - See all my reviews

Classical music is, by far, my favorite type of music. It can make you happy or sad, it can make you laugh or cry, and it can make you want to fall asleep or get up and dance. This 6-disc set is a must-have for and classical music-lover! It has all the great composers like Handel, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach, and Pachelbel. Some great songs include: Canon In D(Pachelbel), Morning: Peergynt(Grieg), Adagio For Strings(Barber), Cavatina(Myers), and much, much more. Every classical song you can think of is on here and the sound quality is great. So if you're looking for a good classical music CD, this set is all you need. Be prepared to be blown away!

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A gateway drug, nothing more, nothing less. , March 10, 2007

By	K. Salvesen (Where it's worth being) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

To say that this album constitutes a necessity for the classical music enthusiast would be a great big unarguable lie. It has nothing innovative to offer you as a listener, except for maybe the labelling of melodies such as "My Heart Will Go On" (that god-awful Love Theme from the gruesome film Titanic) as a worthy member of "Best Classics 100". But than again, every collection of things that does not naturally belong together, is bound to have at least one outcast where the connection clearly isn't based on anything but cost and sale-ability.

This might sound like the beginning of a CD-slaughter, or a snobbish review where only the Deutche Grammophone's recordings are meting my standards, but although I am fairly picky when it comes to musical collections, best of albums, and such horrifying destructions of the universality of the works and the intentions of the artist behind it, I am willing to give this collection another chance, since classical music is somewhere between Arabic and wine in degree of unmanageability. It also helps that all the tunes are familiar to almost every one of us, and the fact that the artists' intentions probably got killed by the hundreds of different conductors trying to convey their personal interpretation of the works.

What I am saying is that this CD can be to classical music enthusiast what 'absolute rock' can be to a rock enthusiast, or to someone slightly interested, with no conceptual frames of where to start the search for knowledge. "Best Classics 100" offers nothing except a selection of melodies where there's bound to be one for every taste, but where the album feeling, the entirety or completeness intended by the composer, or conductor, or performer is completely lost in a trade-off made with variety.

The collection is attempted organised by giving each CD a different theme, supposedly to describe the mood of the music, and the labeller succeeds only to a limited extent as we move from themes such as 'uplifting' and 'relaxing' towards 'golden'. I wonder what that golden feeling constitutes. It apparently is to be found in, amongst others, "Jesus Bleibet Meine Freunde", and in "My Heart Will Go On"?

But no matter how I try to describe this CD it will sound worse than it actually is. This because to me it works as a great reference to which I can always turn with my classical music questions. Was it Schumann or Schubert who were the sad one? Of all the -inis, which where which again? Who composed "O Mio Babbino Caro"? The starting point for finding out if you belong to the romantic or the renascence wing, lies within this assemblage, if you look with your ears.

If you feel that classical music is something you like, and you'd like to learn more about it, this is a way to get started. If used together with a book on classical music, or wikipedia, it can be a gateway drug, leading you towards the great different experiences to be found within the different genres of classical music, and within the different periods ranging from the 12th century, maybe even earlier, towards yesterdays and tomorrows spectacular compositions of melodies that conveys a feeling, a state of mind with much more precision than any other musical genre. Expect a fairly alright collection of classical prunes, and you won't be disappointed.