Canter Bridge

There are two things you should know before buying a greatest hits album by one of the legendary composers whose music we often call ‘classical’.

First, the purists hate them. Their ire is understandable. Art music is so enriched by an understanding of its historical moment, its place in a composer’s career, the history of its performance, and the like that it seems almost barbaric to strip out a few listen-able tunes and flog them on an album that provides none of this context. These are portions of long pieces, not the four-and-a-half minute stand-alone tunes to which we’ve become familiar (and learned both to love and to consider normal) in pop music.

Second, the big box stores are full of ‘greatest hits’ albums performed by fourth-tier, no-name orchestral groups with little personality and unrecognizable roots. Don’t buy them if your entree into, say, Bach is really an entrance to something larger rather than just a need to fill the house with a little background music (which is not a bad thing on its own terms and beats hearing the doors squeak on their hinges or the frozen pizza sizzle on its lard-ish pan).

The Sony Classical series of greatest hits album is not what I’ve just described. Bach: Greatest Hits is one album of a splendid series with an appealing common genre of artwork, entry-level time lines on the CD liner notes and—here’s the Big Thing—selections from the very best performing ensembles in the world.

Not that’s a greatest hits album. If your interest in classical music is at a beginner’s stage, buy the whole series. If that’s a stretch, you won’t regret starting out by snagging Bach: Greatest Hits.

Rock on.