Mozart: Popular Music from Film

This CD of Mozart works used in hit films, presumably released in conjunction with the Mozart 250th birthday hoopla, actually stands out from among EMI's reduce-reuse-and-recycle CD releases as a compilation that's both enjoyable and useful. The value of the collection lies in its scope and in its quality of being current -- all the films whose soundtracks are excerpted are fairly recent (Amadeus, the obvious choice, is one of the oldest), and there are some surprises, like There's Something About Mary and even Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which use different movements from Eine kleine Nachtmusik. There's a good range of the uses to which Mozart's music can be put, ranging from the hushed and miraculous (Lorenzo's Oil) to the tensely mechanical (The Truman Show), and the famous coffeehouse passage in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, in which the Rex tremendae section of the Requiem foreshadows the growing immersion of Tom Cruise in a sea of dark doings, can be relived on Disc 2. The sound quality of these 1960s and 1970s releases is just fair, and the attention given to Amadeus is excessive considering the more than 300 film soundtracks including some Mozart that were available to choose from. Nevertheless, buyers interested in anything from the contemporary significance of Mozart's music to a pleasant two hours of listening will be pleased with this disc.