American Classics

As mentioned, this focuses on American Music. Your not going hear Beethoven, Chopin, or Mozart here. For the most part, this is Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra performing Leonard Bernstein (a great conductor in his own right). The music is grouped logically and by composer. Some of the music will be familiar to you and some of it might not be as familiar. You'll hear the theme from "The Pink Panther" (Mancini) as well as the theme from "Gone with the Wind" (Steiner). There is a riviting instrumental version of "New York New York" (i.e. Start Spreading the News...) that will make the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra proud. Another popular selection is Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" - this is heard around Summer Olympics time quite a bit, but possibly not know by its actual name.

There are three tracks from the famous Bernstein musical "On the Town" and they are grouped together. These selections are among the best that are included in the collection. The first is "The Great Lover", the second is "Lonely Town: Pas de deux", and the third is an instrumental version the famous "Times Square: 1944" (i.e. New York New York, it's a hell of a town...). The "Times Square" melody I believe is the part in "On the Town" when the sailors go dancing in Times Square. Hearing this selection as an instrumental gives it a whole new dimension. There is also a nice reprise of this in Bernstein's "America Medley".John Williams who is a great composer in his own right only has one number on this collection - that is "America, The Dream Goes On". This is one track on this collection that has vocals (although no credits are given to the vocalist(s) who sings). Although you'll hear the Boston Pops play real nicely here, it is the stirring vocals that make this one of the highlights of the CD. I consider Williams the best in the business, so I expect nothing less when it comes to him.

There are no liner notes whatsoever. I would have liked some sort of commentary of background on the pieces in this collection. As mentioned, this does hurt particularly in the Williams piece "America, The Dream Goes On". Overall, this is a great way to get an intro to modern classical music and is a nice change of pace if you don't normally listen to classical.

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• Amazon.ca : American Classics