Age Of Revolution - Time-Life Series

    I picked this 4-LP boxed set up for $3.00 at the local Half-Price Bookstore.  This is an out-of-print 1966 Time-Life release; part of their Story of Great Music series.

    As noted in the lower-left corner, the music consists of works by Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, and one Karl Maria von Weber, who, frankly, I had never heard of.  In addition to the music, there's a 60-page booklet giving the biographies of the four composers, and a 36-page "Listener's Guide", which you can memorize and impress your peers.

    That being said, Beethoven is clearly the dominant composer here - 5 album sides are devoted to his music.  Rossini gets one side ("The Barber of Seville"); Schubert 1½ sides; and poor Weber gets just about ½ side.

    If you're expecting "war" music (I was), you'll be disappointed.  The tie-in apparently is that all the music was written around the time of Napoleon, and that all the composers did some 'revolutionary' things to classical music.  In addition the three non-Beethovens apparently had contact with Ludwig himself, albeit sometimes in a very minor way.

-TRACKS -

01.) Leonore Overture No. 3 (Beethoven)
02.) Overture to "Der Freischutz" (Weber)
03.) Symphony No. 5 (Schubert)
04.) Songs from "Die Schone Mullerin" (Schubert)
05.) Piano Concerto No. 4 (Beethoven)
06.) Piano Sonata No. 27 (Beethoven)
07.) Selections from "The Barber of Seville" (Rossini)
08.) String Quartet No. 16 (Beethoven)
09.) Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)

    The tracks are given in order, but some take up more than one side.  All of the selections are enjoyable, but none of them will make you gasp in awe.  Beethoven clearly outshines the others, but Weber was a pleasant surprise, and you'll laugh when Rossini's Barber of Seville starts up with the "Figaro" chorus.

    The discs themselves were in variable conditions.  Side 1-3 were almost pristine, but 4 and 5 had lots of scratches.  As usual, the de-popper scratch-removal program struggled with the scratches that were in the "low-volume" portions.  I had to amp up the volume of the "cleaned" music by about 30%.

    Time-Life numbered the discs so you could stack them on your 60's turntable and listen to sides 1-4, and then just flip them all over and listen to sides 5-8.  That's nice, but modern turntables (is that an oxymoron?) aren't stackable, and honestly, four straight hours of classical music is a bit much.

    At $3.00, this boxed set was a good deal, but I'll probably delete Tracks 04 and 07, which are from operas.  I prefer my Light Classical music without any singing.