Customer Reviews
Snippets but no volume - By: Tucker, 10 Jul 2004 
A selection of snippets, a taste test, a combi meal of classical anthems. Ideal for the first time classical virgin but not the full bodied classical feast that was expected. It's a shame to expect to be listening to a comprehensive selection of the worlds finest classical music to find that the start, end & most of the rest has been cut out of some wonderful pieces of music to leave only the bit that anyone who doesn't nip out for a cup of tea as soon as the adverts come on television would recognise. OK, so how did I expect them to get 38 full versions of classical pieces of music onto a double CD?, well, my mistake.
**An Exquisite Album** - By: syohan, 18 Feb 2004 
Simply The Best Classical Anthems
Simply The Best Classical Anthems is a compilation album of ‘36 of the most powerful Anthems on Earth’. But, it is also said to be something else. It is said to be a gateway. A gateway to another world. A world where our imagination can run free without being shackled down by any borders or boundaries or rules or limits. A world that we have all seen or perhaps more accurately have all heard of but for many of us a world that we have never dared to enter. Never dared to enter because of fear. The fear of being ostracised & shunned by our community.
THE MYTH
‘Classical Music!’, I can hear some of you cry. ‘That isn’t another world. That’s just music for the upperclass, the high-brow, & the pompous.’ Surprisingly, I too felt this way for a long time until I accepted the invitation made to me by Simply The Best Classical Anthems. I always felt that Classical Music was nice to listen to as background music for a Levis ad or a Car ad but I would consider people strange if they chose to hear it on its own. However, after having listened to this album I realised how wrong I wasin my assumptions.
THE TRUTH
Music as with all forms of amusement helps to take you away from where you are now. It helps to relax you when you are stressed with anger; it helps to give you strength when you are vulnerable; it helps to keep your spirits up when you have faced tragedy or loss. It helps. And, for me the type of music that best conjures up the most passionate emotions (love, hate, courage & anger) at our most testing times is Classical Music.
How? I don’t know.
Why? I don’t know.
I can only promise you thatin my experience it does.
THE CHEST
The album,in visual terms, is very difficult to overlook amongst the plethora of records that may surround it. This is because the album has a very distinct purple sleeve cover. Not any kind of purple mind you but the Cadbury’s kind of purple. The kind of purple that carries with it an invitation. An invitation that if accepted promises you a treasure inside.
And since, I have always enjoyed the treasure within the purple Cadbury’s Dairy Milk wrapper, I asked myself why would an album carrying the same invitation promise to be anything different? Thus, I parted with my tuppence worth & went back home to open this purple chest of promised treasures.
THE PROMISED TREASURE
As you may have guessed, the contents of the album are somewhat different to the contents of a Cadbury’s bar. When I opened the album, I was presented with two compact discs. At first glance, there did not seem to be anything special about them. They were just your average, everyday, run of the mill compact discs. To tell you the truth, I was a bit disappointed because I suppose I had hoped for something more.
However, looks can be deceptive. (Afterall, a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk does not seem very appetising until you taste it!) And, also come November each year, I am always bemused & surprised at how the shabby contents of a cardboard box can both light up the sky & light up the faces of the neighbourhood. Thus, I pushed aside my assumptions & I ignited the discs (not literally of course, I just pressed the play button on the CD player). And, I let the fireworks begin.
THE KEY
From the very beginning, you will feel like you have unlocked the doorway to something special. And, after a full two hours of listening to both discs, you will feel like you have been taken out of this world & transported to another. Welcome to the world of Classical Music.
GUIDANCE
In the beginning, continue to listen to both discsin one go (i.e. one after the other). After a while, you will know which tracks you enjoy listening to the most. For those tracks you enjoyed the most make a promise to yourself that you will listen to the whole of the piece from which that track came from.
Good Luck on your quest if you choose to accept it.
Ride amongst the Valkyries, listen to the Flight of the Bumblebees, & use The Planets to keep you on the path.
I am not a good reviewer because as with all of my reviews I refuse to comment too much about what is inside the product but rather more about what effect the product has had on me. (Me, me, me. Vain & Egotistic, I know, so my friends & family keep telling me). But, I just want to cause a raucous about the product, enough not to spoil but enough of a raucous to let you experience it for yourself.
So my final words are:
Simply The Best Classical Anthems is an invitation. An invitation to the world of classical music. A world where you can begin a never-ending quest of curiosity. A curiosity that will always be rewarded with fulfilment.
Do you accept such an invitation?
Hope you found this review helpful.
A very good introduction to classical music. - By: , 27 Dec 2001 This was the first CD of classical music I owned & I still listen to it today. There is a wide variety of music ranging from the terrifying Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem to the wittiful Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov. The pieces are all performed superbly by a wide range of orchestras & soloists from around the world & the only drawback is that some of the tracks are only extracts from a piece, eg The 1st Mvt. from Griegs Piano Concerto. Although there are many compilation CDs available this really has to be one of the best available & I strongly recommend it to anyone new to the world of classical music. Chris Rawley UK
