The 99 Most Essential Classical Pieces For Your Mind

Great standards, mostly Mozart -- but don't believe the packaging,

Genres: Classical/General

This is another great set from the X5 group, although I am wondering just how far they can take this "99 Most Essential" idea, and how long people like me will continue buying these collections. This one will be a hit with those who like tried-and-true older repertory. The vast majority of the music is from the Classical period or the earlier Baroque, and a full 41 of the 99 tracks were composed by Mozart. A majority of the tracks are slower music -- lots of andantes and adagios. Still very good, with a calming effect. The 99 Most Essential Classical Pieces For Your Mind

The packaging is clever, and builds on the "Mozart Effect" idea that has entered the collective marketing consciousness. But we should all be aware that there is no "Mozart Effect" -- neither you, me nor our babies will be any smarter just from listening to Mozart or other classical music. There was a good story on NPR recently about how a nice little scientific study with extremely limited findings got blown up into an unstoppable marketing juggernaut.
Basically, the science only said that you could get a 10-15 minute boost in spatial reasoning -- only spatial reasoning, not general intelligence -- by listening to Mozart. This turned into a "listening to Mozart makes you smart" and "Mozart makes your baby smart" mini-industry. Check out the story "'Mozart Effect' Was Just What We Wanted to Hear" on NPR's website, dated 28 June 2010. It's an interesting read or listen.
So, is it bad that X5 is now using this discredited notion to sell classical music? Not really. Just don't take it too seriously. This is great music, after all, and you could argue that listening to it expands the mind in some sense. Why not?

Of the 99 total, 41 are by Mozart. Other composers featured in more than two tracks are Beethoven (7), Bach (6), Corelli (5), Vivaldi (5), Handel (4) and Albinoni (3). So you can see this is heavy on Classical and Baroque music. About one quarter of the tracks are by Beethoven or later composers, including two each by Brahms, Chopin, Debussy and Mahler.
At this writing, I have listened to extended samples from all the tracks. The performances are in general rich and satisfying, but not the most famous names -- following the trend on all these X5 collections. A number of the piano pieces are on fortepiano, which makes for a more interesting ride.

What about repetition from other sets? This time, it's not too bad. Judging by my own music library -- and I have bought most of the X5 classical Daily Deal sets, but not all -- there are 58 tracks here that have not appeared on previous collections (30 by Mozart). Another 17 tracks are works that have appeared on previous sets, but the performances here are by different artists. That means at least 24 have been recycled outright. I can understand this recycling, as X5 is a content provider, and repackaging content is what content providers do. I do get upset when the repackaging gets out of hand, but that is not the case here.

I am and have always been a believer in listening to whole works, not excerpts like in these greatest hits collections. But I keep buying these. I guess I like bargains too, and at the Deal of the Day price of $1.99 on Labor Day 2010, this is hard for a music-loving cheapskate like me to pass up. Sets like these are also useful as background music and to become familiar with new music. There is still a lot of Mozart I haven't heard, and some of it is excerpted here. The 99 Most Essential Classical Pieces For Your Mind