Customer Rating: 
Summary: A nice introduction
Comment: This is a good well rounded collection to dip you into the classical world of Mozart.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mozart is the reference point for good classical music.
Comment: A good collection of his best work and I find it helps me focus when I'm writing or contempating life.
"We exposed these animals [rats] in utero and then sixty days after birth to different types of auditory stimulation and then we ran them in a spatial maze. And sure enough, the animals that were exposed to the Mozart completed the maze faster and with fewer errors. And now what we're doing is we're removing their brains so we can slice them and see neuro-anatomically precisely what has changed as a function of this exposure. So it may be that this intense exposure to the music is a type of enrichment that has similar effects on the spatial areas of the hippocampus of the brain." --Dr. Frances Rauscher
Dr. Frances Rausher sums up what I feel happening when I expose myself to this incredible composer (Mozart).
I have yet to grow tired of any of the tracks yet, but I will invest in more of his work soon.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mozart's music
Comment: This is a review of Mozart's music, not the cd. Mozart is praised to the skies by all and sundry, including most musicians, including my father, who no doubt has his reasons. But my feeling about Mozart has always been that there is nothing in Mozart's music that is other than music. There is no logical impressionism, there are no events that seem to be transpiring as in, for example, Beethoven. Mozart is just music. Mozart is to music as pure mathematics is to science. It hints of nothing else and has no application. I find some of his music irritatingly trivial, for example, Eine Kleine Nachtmuzic. This is mechanical music that one can imagine being piped in by a totalitarian government that insists everyone be cheerful. If Disneyland was an eighteenth century totalitarian state, Mozart would be its Muzak. The populace would be awakened, like Chinese train passengers, at 6AM by the strains of some allegro. They would arise and busy themselves with their ablutions in a state of thoughtless cheer, never for one moment leaving the surface of things. That being said, the second movement of Mozart's clarinette concerto is the music that one will hear on going into heaven.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Purists Be Damned!
Comment: This is an excellent collection and the perfect starting point for anyone interested in getting into classical music or, more specifically, Mozart. It was because of my love for this set that I ended up buying the 180 cd "Complete Mozart Edition" from Phillips. Now, spending $1000+ on everything Mozart ever wrote is a bit extreme and those who aren't kooks and completests like myself most likely won't be inclined to do so. But my love for Mozart and classical really began with this set. I found myself playing this album several times a day because I couldn't believed I had lived 16+ years without ever hearing such wonderful, awe-inspiring music.
Not to mention this set is filled with big-named conductors and orchestras who turn in wonderful performances of many of Mozart's best loved pieces. I swear everytime I hear the Adagio to Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto I still get chills. This collection also contains a wide range of styles; from opera to symphonies and serenades, from concertos to sonatas. Which is really great at helping newbies (like myself when I first got this) decide which styles they like and will help them make future purchases.
This album really opened up a whole new world for me, and I'm beyond grateful for that. For anyone out there's who's ever considered checking out classical or Mozart, if you're looking at this album, don't hesitate to buy it. At the very worst you'll end up with an album that you won't like and $14 less in your wallet. At the most it will open up a whole new world of musical wonder that you've never known before.
Customer Rating:
Summary: AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION
Comment: For those who enjoy - or would like to get to know - the music of Mozart, ESSENTIAL MOZART is a thoughtful and satisfying collection, so good, in fact, that NPR radio station KUSC is offering the two-disc set as a premium in its current fund drive.
Clearly, an additional bonus is that, for those of us who care about such things, the selections are not rendered by orchestras seeking to escape a well-deserved anonimity, as is sometimes the case with CD's like this. Instead, the recordings feature such outstanding groups as the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of Ancient Music
Yet, the real beauty of this collection is that it is neither expressly for beginners nor exclusively for the Mozart lover. It is that rarest of accomplishments: a gift that embraces the best of both.
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