Silva Screen Records maintains a library of classical music and film scores, most of it recorded by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, that it recycles in various albums tied into specific themes, some of them obvious (a composer-based collection, for instance), some more esoteric. The concept here is credited to Keith Ferreira, who seems to have noticed that many competitive figure skaters choose music to accompany their routines from the same repertoire. So, here we have 16 selections, ranging from familiar classical pieces such as Ravel's "Bolero" and Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" to excerpts from movies like Little Women and Sense and Sensibility, that were used by the likes of Tara Lipinski, Michelle Kwan, and Torvill & Dean to underlie their spins and lifts and Lutzes as they competed in the Olympics and other skating championships. The excerpts tend to run around five minutes each, an appropriate length for a skating program, and to have some rhythmic variation. Some seem more obvious than others. It's easy to see why Sarah Hughes chose "Swan Lake" at the 1998 World Junior Championship in Saint John, Canada, where she won the Gold Medal, but Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1," a contemplative piano solo (here credited to London Music Works) seems an odd choice for Kwan at the same competition, where she too won the gold, according to the CD's annotations. In any case, as a listening experience, the album simply brings together some appealing classical and film music, some of it well known and the rest equally attractive.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo