You might have seen Classical Favourite albums in the shops. Recently there has been several collections of "Chillout Classics" or "Relaxing Classical Music" on CD. This latest collection "The Power of Music" sets out to be the opposite. Rather than soothing and relaxing music, this double album is full of the those classical moments which are exhilarating and exciting. The 2004 Olympic Games may be over, but the media attention will last for some time and this album's cover is a clear tie-in with television advertising including shots from famous sporting moments. The music is full of power with upbeat tempos, dynamic rhythms, memorable themes and loud triumphant fanfares. The music will be familiar to most people with many tracks associated not just with sporting victories but with evocative images from the movies, from television shows and from adverts. To win a copy of this double album, see the competition details below.
The first CD kicks off in powerful fashion with Aaron Coplansd's "Fanfare for the Common Man". We are then treated to a wealth of classical favourites including Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave", Orff's "Carmina Burana", Stravinsky's "The Firebird", Mussorgsky's "Night on Bare Mountain" and "The Great Gate of Kiev", Handel's "Zadok the Priest", Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" and Holtz's "Mars" from "The Planet Suite". To inject the British flavour into the collection, we also have Elgar's first "Pomp and Circumstance March" and Arne's "Rule Britannia" both frequently heard at the Last Night of the Proms. To balance out this nationalistic influence we also have the French and Russian National Anthems as included in Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". Then to conclude the second album we have a piece of music which is clearly associated with an Olympic sport, Ravel's "Bolero" as used for Torvill and Dean's Ice Dancing routine in the 1984 Winter Olympics.
This double album is great fun for everyone. Even if you have some of the pieces on CD already or prefer to listen to complete works, it is often nice just to hear the best moments on their own. If you are relatively new to classical music then this is a great introduction to the powerful side of classical music. And if you have children who spend most of their time listening to pop music, what better way to introduce them to the excitement of the classics. This double album is great value, being cheaper than many single albums and is available from this link at Amazon.co.uk. The album also gives details of 15 new ringtone of these tracks which can be downloaded from the albums.
The competition is now closed and five lucky winners drawn at random from the correct entries will shortly be receiving copies of "The Power of Music". The correct answer to the question "Who composed the soundtrack for the film Chariots of Fire based on the 1924 Olympic Games?" is Vangelis.
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