Bands Music

I love to put this CD on when I have to psych myself up to clean the kitchen! It's full of powerful, up-tempo music.

You have to have this before your next major task, whether it be home remodeling or skydiving or whatever. Truly motivational!

The mixture of tunes on this CD have helped us through many remodeling projects as well as entertaining the kids.

For the novice, this album is a LOUD, bombastic, in your face way to get you hooked into opera. Opening the album is Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra: Fanfare, which enjoyed enormous fame as the "Theme to 2001 A Space Odyssey". Behold The Sea Itself from "A Sea Symphony" is a spectacular musical account of the ocean in all its majesty. Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries is the most famous work of classical music with fortissimi passages and made famous through the film Apocalypse Now. Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain is an intense, gritty piece describing a harrowing, haunted night on the supposedly spooky mountain in Russia. Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" Fantasy Overture includes a thunderous, intense section depicting the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. Other music on here include the stunning, climatic finale to Puccini's opera Turandot with soprano Eva Marton as Turandot, Mussorgky's Great Gate at Kiev, O Fortuna the chilling hcorus from Orff's Carmina Burana, and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, which is a staple of 4th of July concert programs. All in all, a great album of thunderous classical music that invades your stereo with its powerful sound.

The theme of this cd makes it fun to listen to, and the liner notes are as entertaining as any of the pieces. A lengthy timeline lists humorous events concerning royalty throughout history, which is actually pretty witty. Another good feature of the album is the amount of music it contains: 28 tracks (75'18) of good recordings, for the most part. All but a few of the ensembles and artists are top-notch, and the repertoire spans enough time that the listener won't get bored listening to baroque for too long.

Close your eyes while listening to this and you will think your in the Kings Court!

The selection of music is great. There are a couple of the cuts that are not the best recordings I have ever heard. But most were well worth the listening. And please don't let that comment I made scare you away from buying it. It is lively, fun, and the title explains it all. It is a mix of just what you would expect the word ROYALTY to invoke in a Classical Music compilation. I was expecting a gold gilded horse drawn carriage to appear in full suit waiting just outside the front door of my home. I love it.

My parents really love music and they have passed this love down to me. Ever since I was a little kid, we have listened to tapes and cd's of classical and other music. This tape was one of the tapes I have grown up listening to. It is a wonderful cd with great music. The Make Believe Brass is a great brass ensemble and they make their music enjoyable to listen to. I recommend it for music lovers and people who simply enjoy music.

I love this cd. The majesty and power of the music is overwhelming.

If you like a strong, powerful melody, you'll like this cd

I had purchased an abundance of the "Favorites" collection and some were better than others.

This CD is at the top of them all. They may be short, but not that short. Wondrous music.

I can almost guarantee that you will like this music.
Well worth the price!

I bought this CD to use in my classroom as listening examples. I'm not just a super big fan of some of the performances, but they are all good and for the price you can't beat it. That's why I gave it 5 stars. It's worth more than it costs by far.

This is a who's-who of great pieces of music you have heard all of your life, and never knew the names and stories! I listened to it over and over in the car and had my own concert! A friend borrowed it to add music to his Home Movies and it was perfect!

I bought this CD mostly for "Entry of the Gladiators," which everyone will recognize as classic circus music. The performance on this CD (by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops) is the best available version of Entry of the Gladiators. The rest of the CD offers mostly excerpts of classical music.

This is one of my favorite CD's in my collection. It has some of my favorite symphonic songs. This CD was the biggining of my brass CD collection and has the best collection of bombastic songs on the market.

It's certainly not the most comprehensive collection of "thunderous" classical music-- TimeLife's "Classical Thunder" comes close-- but for this price, it's a no-commitment CD. You can stick the CD in, not know the names of the pieces, enjoy the brilliance, and match which movie trailers have used which tracks.