VA 100 Best Berliner Philharmoniker

It's a tall order to compile the best classical music of the twentieth century, but EMI has selected its top 100 classics for this six-disc set, and it's difficult to argue with most of the choices. Without taking sides in the great ideological debates of the modern era – traditionalist vs. avant-garde, tonal vs. atonal, styles vs. schools, and so on – the label has picked the composers whose reputations seem most secure at the turn of the twenty-first century and has chosen representative excerpts of their music. Certainly, the titans of modernism are here, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergey Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, and Benjamin Britten, to name just a few masters, but they don't cast such a large shadow that they eclipse either their more backward-looking predecessors or their more experimental successors.

With more than 7 hours of tender music by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Debussy, Puccini and more, performed by greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Andre Previn and Jose Carreras, this set can complete any romantic evening at home. And if we can't play upon your heart strings, 100 classics for this low price is quite a deal.

Jean Sibelius, born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957), was a Finnish composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his country's greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia.

Beethoven is undoubtedly one of the most influential and important composers of all time. This album features the landmark symphonies, concertos, chamber music and solo piano music from this giant of music, all performed by the greatest interpreters – Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Wilhelm Kempff, Carlos Kleiber, Rafael Kubelik and many others.