The mental disconnect between the "Celtic" content of this release and its performance by the
City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (no conductor is listed) fades when you notice that it's not Celtic music in general that's on offer, but rather, with just one exception, cinematic scores that present images of the Celtic world. These are so frequent by now as to be considered common property, even for Czechs, and the category is a very blurry one. The inclusion of My Heart Will Go On, from the soundtrack of Titanic, is Celtic only by virtue of the uilleann pipes that accompany the departure of the star-crossed lovers from...England, and some of the other selections (the end title of The Shawshank Redemption soundtrack, for example) have equally tenuous connections with the theme. The album is clearly intended for fans of the Celtic sound, but it might also be of interest to anyone curious about the meaning of the Celtic meme in world culture at large. One might ask, for example, why the Lord of the Rings films were given Celtic musical content, sampled on a couple of tracks here. Most of the composers are American, although there are a few actual Celts involved (
Enya, Sean O'Riada), and the temporal mix, though centered on the 1980s and 1990s, runs as far back as John Ford's The Quiet Man. The sole exception to the cinematic content is a segment of music from Riverdance, which originated as an interlude on the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994. This brings the proceedings to a zippy close, and indeed the main complaint here is that the sequence of flutes and pipes drifting through dreamy music is rarely interrupted by faster pieces. Of course, for those interested in setting a Celtic mood, this will not be a complaint at all. An enjoyable budget crossover release.