Classic FM: Relax

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.co.uk ------ As it says on the cover, this set offers the chance to "Relax ..." with three hours and 20 minutes of classical tranquillity. Produced by Classic FM, this anthology is very much like listening to the radio station, but with all the adverts and other talk blissfully removed. Here are the famously beautiful bits of early music: Pachelbel's Canon, Allegri's Miserere Mei, and a shortened version of Vivaldi's Nulla in Mundo Pax Sincera (though a better way to explore this latter piece is Maria Zadori's recital of Vivaldi). Elsewhere, the album mixes famous adagios culled from longer works--Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, Mahler's Fifth Symphony and Kachaturian's Spartacus--with shorter complete selections. The Britten Sinfonia offer two of Vaughan Willams's finest pieces, The Lark Ascending and the Tallis Fantasia, while such miniature gems as Barber's Adagio for Strings, Fauré's Pavane and the Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio cely require an introduction. These are all major s from the Conifer, ASV and Arte Nova labels, and offer fine sound quality and performances from such orchestras as the Philharmonia, the City of London Sinfonia, and the Royal Philharmonic. Though packaging excerpts of classical music in easily digestible chunks of mood music is inevitably contrary to the composers' intentions, the music has been carefully sequenced to produce three seamlessly flowing programmes, with many of the works being among the most popular and frequently requested on Classic FM. Listeners in search of comparable pleasures with greater authenticity might prefer to try a set such as The Spirit of England ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000037D4/%24%7B0%7D ), which offers complete performances of many well-loved pieces from Elgar, Vaughan Williams and many others. --Gary S. Dalkin