Listening to classical music can seem like a chore without a basic understanding of the genre.
Thanks to This Is Classical Music, a double-disc compilation album comprising 14 of the most popular classical tunes of all times, this knowledge can be acquired.
The age-old music - some written hundreds of years ago - shakes off the dust and springs back to life under the baton of Yip Wing-sie, the music director and conductor of Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
Recorded from the Know Your Favourite Orchestral Tunes concerts in July at Hong Kong City Hall last year, the album opens with a medley of great melodies, including Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550.
You may not recognise the titles, but you're likely to have enjoyed them countless times before in movies or TV dramas.
This is followed by Pachelbel's Canon & Gigue in D, perhaps the best known piece of chamber music due to its common appearance at weddings. Written in or around 1680, the piece - with a simple harmonic sequence that repeats 28 times - illustrates why in music, as so often in life, beauty resides in simplicity.
A highlight on the first disc is Grieg's Peer Gynt: Morning. If you've seen David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, you'll know the glorious desert scene lit by the first red glow of sunrise - the scene that is said to have inspired Steven Spielberg, at 15, to become a filmmaker.
