Four CD set. Les Disques du Crepuscule presents a comprehensive anthology by visionary French avant-garde composer Erik Satie, collecting together piano works associated with the Dada, Cubist and Surrealist art movements, as well as his celebrated musique d'ameublement (furniture music) written between 1917 and 1923. The four CDs are housed in a clamshell box, which also includes an illustrated 32 page booklet featuring detailed liner notes by James Nice and Stephen Whittington.

Presenting the Complete Philips Recordings of John Williams on 21 CDs, with the original jackets, celebrating the maestro's 90th birthday on February 8. This box set includes the original artwork and spined wallets, a 32-page booklet with new liner notes by Dr. Emilio Audissino (author of The Film Music Of John Williams and Film Music In Concert: The Pioneering Role Of The Boston Pops Orchestra). All packaged in a 2-piece lift-off lid box with V-shaped thumb-cuts on either side of the lid.

For those who want the most remembered passages of classical music's best-loved works, here's a package for you. On this bargain priced double-CD, you'll find music from 40 different classical composers; for the most part, the recordings excerpted here are some of the very best. Of course, you only get one Bach sampling (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, played by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra) and one Mozart (A Little Night Music conducted by Herbert von Karajan), but this is still a nice collection–perhaps the starting point for a budding collection of classical music. This set's downfall? Unfortunately, though the liner notes discuss the evolution of classical music chronologically, the tracks are programmed in alphabetical order by composer's last name. This makes for some startling transitions! Emil Gilels's reflective performance of the Adagio from Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata is followed by the crashing cymbals and bombast of Carmen's "March of the Toreadors," a recipe for a heart attack if there ever was one. Still, there's something here for everyone and the liner notes even explain what movies this music can be found in. A nice touch. –Jason Verlinde