Various Artists - Hear The Light On Philips (1984)

EARLY CD WEEK* (APRIL 18-23, 2022)

An early demonstration/sampler disc for the classical crowd. Released by Philips from their 'Digital Classics' line.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks:

Covering the years 1725-1981, the label tries to provide something for everybody - orchestral, chamber, guitar, piano, pipe organ - although the complete lack of vocal music is surprising. The Tárrega piece was new to me and highly enjoyable. Other favorites here include the Vivaldi, Grieg, Widor, and Beethoven.

Track 10 provides us with an example of the ever-popular Chopin/Liszt 'shopping list' pun.

I would have thought that every '80s classical demo CD opened with the first section (Sonnenaufgang) of Strauss's tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra. And I would have been wrong, apparently.

All tracks recorded digitally in the early '80s and, of course, complete recordings of the works sampled here are available on other Philips CDs.

CD with "DDD" SPARS code

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

---

*I recently compiled complete chart data for compact disc charts from both Billboard and CashBox magazines. While doing so, I saw the names of a number of very early sampler/demonstration discs with which I was completely unfamiliar. I found a few early CDs that charted, as well as similar discs from 1983-85, and am featuring those this week.