James Galway at the Movies: Quiet on the Set.

James Galway at the Movies: Quiet on the Set. James Galway, flute; Thomas Kochen, London Mozart Players. RCA 82876-50932-2.

It had been quite some time, over a year or two, since BMG had last sent me a disc to review, leading me to believe they might have given up on the classical music market. But suddenly and out of nowhere, up pops James Galway and this new RCA release of movie music with the London Mozart Players, not a genuine classical disc, perhaps, but a sign that maybe BMG and RCA don't consider the classical market as dried up as they once thought.

The disc contains the kind of music you might expect best suited for reproduction via flute, not epic, old-time, big-scale Hollywood film music but softer, more gentle, more lyrical material. Galway and his accompanists do original music from "The Horse Whisperer," "Il Postino," "Forrest Gump," "Emma," "Far and Away," and "Cinema Paradiso," plus music adapted for movies like "She" in "Notting Hill," "O mio babbino caro" in "A Room With a View," and "Angel Band" in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Frankly, I found the adaptations most persuasive, hauntingly, sometimes mystically enchanting as played by Galway and his delicate touch. I did not find RCA's sound quite so enchanting, however, as it seemed far too close and far too one-dimensional to me. Except on a couple of numbers, the players appear simply strung out in a line from one speaker to another (although not too wide a line, either). But it's a small price to pay for the beauty of the performances.

While the popular music market ebbs and flows, it seems to me that the classical market has a much better chance of remaining the same. It has always been a small market, never more than five or six percent of the total music sold in America, but it has remained steady. Possibly classical music lovers tend to be a bit more affluent than the average pop-music buyer, a condition the record companies seem to have overlooked in their cutbacks. Oh, well. BMG may be getting its classical act back together, and none too soon.