Spurious Compilations

I'm reviewing a couple of compilation discs. The first is called 'Aquarius' - featuring composers born under the sign of Aquarius - some of them quite unknown to me!

I do like Auber's overture to Fra Diavolo - very sub-Beethoven; plus Herold's Clog dance from La fille mal gardee - I'm waiting to receive a ticket from Covent Garden for this! It also includes: Schubert's Trout Quintet theme and variations; Boccherini Minuet from String Quintet #5; Mendelssohn's Andante and Rondo Capriccioso, which one of my friends used to frequently play at school, so this always reminds me of her; Mozart's Soave sia il vento from Cosi fan Tutti - which is achingly beautiful and gets me right in the solar plexus. And I'm off to Cosi in three weeks!

The liner notes are full of astrological clap-trap. All the composers, and me, and the rest of one twelfth of the world's population, are inventive, intelligent, bold, witty and daring. Sensitive, deep, emotionally intense, aloof, analytical, as relentlessly logical as Star Trek's Mr Spock, heartless as a tax demand (and what's wrong with that?).

Aquarians have heart, Aquarians have soul, Aquarians have passion, and perhaps more than anything else, Aquarians care

Bit of a larf if you don't take it seriously.

However, despite the bullshit, it is a hidden gem of an album. Even somehow Delius's Walk to the Paradise Garden seems to thrive in such gorgeous company

Then I move onto Cinema Classics, a compilation of some great music with some first rate performances. But somehow, it makes me grouchy. The grouchiness was brought about in no small part by my adding it to my music database using the resources of CDDB etc. I appreciate that sources like that are collaborative and are only as good as what we the users input. But there was obviously an idiot inputting this, because as the title, they decided to put in the name of the film, despite the fact that most of the pieces pre-date films sometimes by some centuries. Then under Artist/Composer, they put the song title - eg 'Piano Sonata'. And believe you me, this is not the worst example I have found - how about Title Air on a string by Ludwig van B, which I found on another album?

Mind you, just about all the films are at least fairly well known. I have some album somewhere that says 'made famous by the TV series X' and I think - I can't remember a TV series of that name. And, not featured on this album, but - has anybody under 70 actually seen the film Elvira Madigan, and, without looking at imdB, know anything about it?

I wrote the above a few days ago, and now I'm not grouchy at all. I think this CD is actually a rather splendid collection of bleeding chunks, and thoughtfully put together. Although its vehicle is the use of music in film, it doesn't make the patronising assumption that the film made the music famous. Instead, it makes the link, but then gives a short contextual note about the actual music. It's an EMI compilation and I suspect that it's compiled from their archive of fabulous recordings by a stable of stars.

I would find it difficult to single out any particular tracks to name, and, indeed, I have many of them on other albums. It seems from the Amazon that this item is discontinued, which is a shame.