So what was Rhino Records thinking when they put together a two-CD set titled Bedtime Beats: The Secret to Sleep? This is a collection of 23 musical segments, from Vivaldi to Ravel, all in slow tempos and low dynamics. First of all, gee whiz, Rhino, what is the point of playing up one of the stupidest and most misguided stereotypes about classical music, namely, that it puts people to sleep? Fatigue puts people to sleep, not music. The idea that quiet or slow music is boring is another stupid concept; there is plenty of fast and loud music that is incredibly boring, in multiple genres. Almost every one of the pieces on Bedtime Beats (yes, I'll admit the music is, individually, very lovely) draws the listener into the music, stimulating and sharpening the senses, an anti-sleeping pill, as it were.

Even worse is the format itself, which isolates movements from larger works. Rhino is hardly the first record company to do this; the "bleeding chunks of music" release has a long and sorry history in the industry. A few of the works were meant to stand alone, such as Ravel's Pavane and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring by Frederick Delius, but to rip slow movements out of Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven piano concertos is criminal. Without the context of the outer movements, the theatrical sense of the art is lost.

Rhino is, of course, entirely entitled to sell their music however they want. But even from a marketing point of view, something is amiss here. Why would you waste money on a CD that is supposed to make you stop listening to it?