The Naxos label, perhaps trying to drum up business for its five Perfect Wedding CDs (one for each season, plus one all-purpose release), offers Perfect Romance, a set of 15 selections from its vast catalog. They are not identified by performer; the only liner materials are a paragraph on love, "the greatest of all emotions," a track list, and a big red rose. If you're planning to use this disc in the big seduction, here are some things you need to know. There is little or no space between tracks (interesting how, thanks to the iPod, this conception of the segue is catching on). The instrumental media range from orchestral pieces to string quartet, piano, a harp solo, and so on -- there's quite a variety. And there are three operatic selections, all famous Puccini pieces. Given all this, the track sequencing makes sense; each piece flows into the next and complements it gently.
The big question is why it's all so dreamy. Romance is intense, but the most churned-up the music here gets is a selection from
Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a tuneful but hardly passionate thing. Most of the works do represent romance in some way, but the inclusion of the orchestral version of
Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess, here just called, understandably enough, "Pavane") really makes you wonder. Your romance might be, well, stillborn unless you spice the playlist up with some Liebestod, Liebesfreud, or Liebesleid.