A budget-priced collection of highlights from among the composer's solo piano, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works, including his famous Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani in G minor.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the first release of Alexander Brailowsky’s complete RCA Victor recordings, many of them never before available in the digital medium.

Born in 1896 in Kiev, Brailowsky studied at the conservatory in his native city, then part of the Russian empire. In 1911, he went to Vienna to become a pupil of the legendary Theodor Leschetizky, who taught many of the 20th century’s outstanding pianists. During World War I Brailowsky also studied with Busoni in Switzerland, and in 1919 made his debut in Paris. Five years later came his first appearance in New York where he settled, then making regular coast-to-coast tours of North America while continuing to visit Europe.

There was one composer with whom Alexander Brailowsky was associated throughout his career – and has remained associated through recordings since his death in 1976: Frederic Chopin. Brailowsky was the first pianist to present Chopin’s entire 169 solo works as a cycle, performing this feat before capacity audiences in New York, Brussels, Zurich, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Paris. At the end of his 1938 Chopin series in New York, one reviewer noted that “there are few enough pianists who have the prodigious memory, the physical strength, the comprehensive technique required for such an undertaking; there are far fewer who have – plus all these – the requisite musicianship. Mr. Brailowsky is one of these latter few.”

Not surprisingly, Sony Classical’s new comprehensive reissue of Brailowsky’s RCA albums largely comprises music by Chopin. Both piano concertos are included – No. 1 with William Steinberg conducting the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra in 1949 and No. 2 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1954. High Fidelity later wrote of these two performances: “Brailowsky’s energetically contoured, sharply etched clarity represents an emerging modernity of outlook that points to present-day Chopin players.” The set also features Brailowsky’s two traversals of the Waltzes, as well as his complete recordings of the Etudes, Preludes, and Nocturnes, plus Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, the Ecossaises, and Berceuse. Of Brailowsky’s Nocturnes recording, Gramophone’s reviewer wrote: “He could sing beautifully at the keyboard. His nocturnes as a whole have a touching humanity and simplicity … The mono RCA sound is quite velvety.”

A symphonic profile of eight outstanding French composers of the 19th & 20th centuries, with the majority of recordings featuring Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Features Philippe Entremont (piano), L'orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Berj Zamkochian (organ), Bernard Zighera (piano), Leo Litwin (piano), The Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, Samuel Lipman (piano), Martin Hoherman (cello)

Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy, Arthur Fiedler.

This material represents some of the earliest televised concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and three of their eminent music directors, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf and William Steinberg. This historical footage has been restored using the greatest care and state-of-the-art techniques. It is of exceptional musical interest and historical value, and has been described by critics as a "rare treat" (Gramophone) and "welcome documentations" (BBC Music Magazine).

Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: LPCM Mono (DVD 1) / LPCM Stereo (DVD 2) / Enhanced Mono (DVD 3, 4, 5) Region code: 0 (worldwide) Menu language: English Running time: 6 hours 14 mins No. of DVDs: 5

This set contains the following 5 DVDs:

CHARLES MUNCH
RAVEL Ma Mère l’Oye – Suite; DEBUSSY Ibéria, La Mer (1958 & 1961)

ERICH LEINSDORF
SCHUBERT Symphony No. 9 "Great"; SCHUMANN Symphony No. 4; WAGNER Parsifal – Good Friday Music (1962, 1963 & 1964)

BEETHOVEN Egmont Overture; TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5; MOZART Serenade No.9 "Posthorn" – Minuet I (1963 & 1969)

WILLIAM STEINBERG
HAYDN Symphony No. 55; BEETHOVEN Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 (1962, 1969 & 1970)

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 8 (2nd revised edition) (1962)

The Orchestre National de France celebrates eighty years of historic concerts and illustrious performers with this specially-priced eight disc boxed set. Presented by Radio France in collaboration with the Institut National de L'audiovisuel, this valuable memento contains ten hours of superb live broadcasts and stage performances meticulously restored and remastered in high resolution from previously unreleased radio archives.

Jacques Thibaud is considered to be one of the early 20th century’s leading violinists and chamber musicians. Such composers as Eugène Ysaÿe and George Enescu dedicated works to him. His memory lives on in such bodies as the Jacques Thibaud String Trio, founded in 1994, who pay homage to his lifelong love of ambitious and eloquent music-making in ensemble. The violinist was born in Bordeaux in the ancient lands of Aquitaine in south-west France, in Département Gironde, on September 27, 1880. His father had recognized his son’s musical talents and was still giving him violin lessons when Jacques gave his first public performance in Bordeaux at the age of eight. In 1893, when he was 13, he began studying at the Paris Conservatoire with the eminent Belgian violinist Martin Pierre Joseph Marsick (1847-1924), winning the conservatory’s Premier Prix in 1896. He also took instruction from Marsick’s compatriot Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (1858-1931). From 1940 Jacques Thibaud taught at the Paris school of music directed by the French pianist, piano teacher and writer on music Marguerite Long (1874-1966), with whom he gave many concerts. The two artists initiated the Long-Thibaud competition for pianists and violinists (Concours international Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud) in 1943. The violinist later taught at the École normale de musique de Paris, founded in 1919 by Alfred Cortot , and in the 1950s directed summer courses at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. The 73-year-old violinist’s life was tragically cut short on September 1, 1953 – 10 days after his last concert in France – when the plane taking him to Tokyo crashed into Mont Cimet near Barcennolette in the French Alps.

BRAHMS: SYMPHONY NO 1, ETC MU

CHARLES MUNCH CONDUCTS HANDEL AND MOZART

George Frideric Handel: Water Music Suite (arr. H. Harty)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Symphony No. 36 in C major, K. 425, “Linz”
Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, “Prague”

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Charles Munch, conductor

Recorded live from Sanders Theatre, Harvard University on 12 April 1960 (Water Music), 8 April 1958 (Linz Symphony), and 3 November 1959 (Prague Symphony)

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 62 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Precious, unrecorded symphonies served up in vital, energising readings.

It sometimes seems as if WGBH-TV Boston had its camera crew surgically attached to the Sanders Theatre at Harvard. Maybe the crew emerged blinking from a surfeit of lectures, keen to get reacquainted with Charles Munch. The torrent of TV material now emerging on ICA Classics is both very welcome and very difficult to sift. What, usefully, should the critic do to suggest why you may or may not wish to buy this DVD, especially if the critic is me, one who suffers from a dual impulse; firstly to buy DVDs like this and then to despair of ever finding or making the time to watch them.
 
So, what’s in it for you when you consider this latest Munch DVD? I’m not saying ICA is being naughty but there’s no indication that this is black and white footage; most people will know this, but not everyone will, even if there’s a still of Munch (in black and white) on the box cover. So it’s black and white and in mono. The dates of the concerts are 1958, 1959 and 1960.
 
The first thing that’s in it for you is that Munch never recorded the two Mozart symphonies in the studio. This makes this AV representation especially valuable. Another thing in it for you, should you be interested in such things (I am), is to see the Boston Symphony in action - the players, the faces, their responses, maybe to try to put names to the faces. To this extent I wish ICA and other companies (almost no one does this, so I’m not singling out ICA) would provide a personnel listing of the orchestra at the time. I appreciate it may not be wholly accurate but I think it would be a nice touch.
 
Things start with the Handel-Harty Water Music suite, a performance of Beechamesque brio and bravado. If you miss the days of such arrangements then Munch and the Boston won’t let you down. The basses are positioned behind the French horns, and the top to bottom sonority, despite the mono sound, is highly enjoyable. Even though Adolf Busch, Boyd Neel and countless others had trail-blazed in this repertoire, Munch makes no concessions, and nor should he have done. Munch is at his most animated in the Allegro finale, smiling very slightly, his baton swishing about fly-fisherman style in his exuberance. One notices that the director decided that a good idea would be a camera shot ‘stepping down’ the orchestral sections, reasonable in theory, but dodgy in practice, not least when the camera slips, as it does once. One also notices that the Boston was an almost all-male orchestra at the time, and that the average age of the strings, at least, must have been quite high. There are some especially patrician looking gentlemen in the first violin section.
 
The Linz Symphony is from 1958 and has by far the most degraded film of the three. Grainy and rather unclear, a critic should counsel gently on this point. It’s hardly unwatchable, but you will most certainly notice the difference. The performance is in Munch’s best, taut and linear style; I would suggest George Szell as a reasonable point of comparison in terms of expression. Though sometimes tense, it’s never driven and the wind phrasing throughout is a delight. The Prague was taped in November 1959, with footage comparable in quality to the April 1960 Handel. I sense, unless it’s the increased clarity of the film that alerts me to the upturned eyes directed toward Munch’s beat, that the orchestra follows him that bit more circumspectly in this symphony. He makes the briefest of pauses between the first and second movements, ensuring a kind of symphonic continuity to occur. The band is ready for him, and the unindulged Andante is all the better for his unsentimental approach. The only demerit is not musical but filmic; some mildly chaotic camera panning shots that disrupt things briefly.
 
Despite such imperfections, I enjoyed the DVD. It enshrines those precious, unrecorded symphonies, grants visual immortality to the Boston denizens, and serves up vital, energising readings. How often you will play it, however, is a question that only you can answer.
 
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International 

Highly disciplined, rather hard-driven concert performances from a master conductor in his prime.

Strasbourg-born Charles Munch was Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1962. He returned permanently to France in 1963, and in 1967 became the first conductor of the newly-formed Orchestre de Paris. He died suddenly the following year.
 
In an interesting booklet essay, Richard Dyer, late of the Boston Globe, recounts how Munch’s “sturdy build, shock of white hair and mischievous smile” made him a favourite with Boston’s “mink-clad musical matrons”. More seriously, and as these three performances attest, his period in Boston was a highly successful one. His particular authority in and affinity with twentieth-century French music are very much in evidence here. Dyer also refers to the conductor’s “physicality, rhythmic force, and baton technique … it is exciting to watch him move from a geometrical beat pattern into wide circling arcs of controlled excitement. Even when the stick is not doing very much, Munch is emanating …” Now all this is true, but at the same time, viewers hoping to see something of that “mischievous smile” will be disappointed, as the glimpses we have reveal him to be as unsmiling as the orchestra, and that is saying something. Using a score only in the Ravel, his conducting style is curiously stiff, with two-handed, mirror-image gestures that convey little in the way of phrasing but are ultra-clear in respect of the beat, which he frequently and meticulously subdivides. The players never seem to be looking, but they follow him slavishly and ensemble is impeccable. He barely acknowledges the audience on arrival, nor at the end of the performance. After the final chord of the Ravel - which is held for a long, long time - he half turns to them and then apparently changes his mind and brings the double bassoon player forward instead. There is a moment of humour just before Ibéria, when Munch is obliged to wait, once arrived on the podium, as sirens from the fire station on the other side of the street die away. The booklet has this taking place before the Ravel, an unimportant and easy enough error. The performances were filmed for television, in black and white, and though the booklet carries copious warnings about the sonic and visual limitations of the original material, it’s all perfectly viewable, though the film of La Mer had apparently deteriorated more than the others, the picture quality poorer and the sound less stable, with particularly acid trumpets. Few cameras were used, and the viewer is amused to find the operator “hunting” the woodwind soloists, and not always finding them. At one point in the opening movement of the Ravel the picture settles on the first flute - Doriot Anthony Dwyer, one of only two women in the orchestra - and only slipping off to her oboist neighbour when he starts to play.
 
What of the performances? On this evidence, Munch was more excitable in concert than in the studio, and not always to the music’s advantage. The reading of Mother Goose is rather more interventionist in style than we expect from Ravel performances nowadays, with a fair bit of variety of tempo and exploration of expressive byways. There is a marked slowing down in the middle section of “Laideronette”, but for the most part her bath is rapid and lacking in charm. Indeed, in this of all works, charm is short supply. One is surprised to see the vehemence of Munch’s gestures at climactic points, even in the Fairy Garden, and the inevitably limited dynamic range contributes too, everything seeming more or less forte. This does not distract from the superbly controlled crescendo at the end of the work.
 
Audiences nowadays seem to contain a fair number of people who wish to show how well they know the piece by being the first to applaud, frequently with a loud and obtuse “bravo!” Such individuals would be forgiven for thinking that the Boston audience weren’t sure that the good old thwack Munch encourages from his players at the end of Ibéria was really the last note of the piece. The performance as a whole is superb, colourful, rhythmically alive and seductive by turns: it certainly would have engendered a few “bravos” in London. Richard Dyer tells us that Debussy was particularly proud of the transition between the second and third movements, and that passage is very sensitively managed here. La Mer is very atmospheric too, and the orchestral discipline is remarkable. The storm that Munch whips up in the second movement is certainly very exciting, but it’s rather too much for me, I’m afraid. Parts of the final movement too, are about as fast and hard-driven as I have ever heard them, undoubtedly effective in a concert but less so for repeated listening.
 
The sound quality ensures that this DVD can never be a substitute for an audio CD. Admirers of the conductor will want it, as will those interested in American orchestral playing of the period.
 
-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International 

Includes work(s) by Georges Bizet. Ensemble: National Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Charles Munch.

When Christian Ferras died at age 49. his friend and colleague Yehudi Menuhin wrote that Ferras was"possessed by music, immensely talented, and of both a generous and intense temperament."

Christian Ferras was one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. Born in 1933, he was a guest soloist of the Nice Symphony orchestra in1942. In 1948 he won the First Prize at the International Scheveningen (Holland) Violin Competition and in 1949 won the top prize at the International Long-Thibaud Competition. Thereafter, he pursued a successful career as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and in recitals with his long time accompanist, pianist Pierre Barbizet. He recorded for EMI and from 1964 for DG where he recorded the four main repertoire violin concertos, Brahms, Sibelius, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Fortunately, Christian Ferras left behind a rich recorded legacy, that enable us to continue to enjoy his great artistry.

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 5. SCHUMANN Genoveva Overture; Symphony No. 2 • Charles Munch, cond; Boston SO • ICA ICAD 5052 (DVD: 76:00) Live: Cambridge 02/27/1962, 04/18/1961, 04/07/1959

Yet another volume appears in the ICA series of releases of Boston Symphony telecasts with Charles Munch, and this is a particularly successful one. All of the performances here are taken from concerts given in Sanders Hall at Harvard University, rather than from Symphony Hall in Boston. While the audio quality in all three works is quite acceptable monaural sound—only occasionally suffering from congestion or blare—the quality of the video portions varies significantly, being poorer with increasing age. All suffer from a considerable degree of bleaching out of the black-and-white film; in addition, the Schubert is somewhat grainy and murky, while in extended portions of the Schumann symphony the musicians’ faces and figures become blurry and distorted. Somehow this never affects Munch himself, whose trademark long baton whips about in a flurry of motion sufficient to trigger a tornado. As with other issues in this series, the set includes the introductions to the original broadcasts (here, for the two symphonies) by longtime Boston Symphony announcer William Pierce.

Of the three works presented here, the only one that Munch recorded commercially was the Genoveva Overture, and that back in 1951. That version wears its age well and is competitive with the one presented here. Live performances of the other two works have been issued elsewhere: a 1952 Schubert Fifth and 1955 Schumann Second, both by West Hill Radio Archive, and a 1956 Schumann Second from a concert tour in Moscow by Arte. However, in addition to the video dimension (not a great desideratum for me), these performances of the symphonies have several advantages over the rival versions. The WHRA issues are in a large multi-CD set of Boston Symphony performances from the earlier 1950s that limit their appeal almost exclusively to dedicated Munch collectors. These later performances are not only preserved in superior sound—much moreso in the case of the Schubert—but are also in superior interpretations that benefit greatly from slightly slower tempi.

Munch’s brisk take on the Schubert Fifth is the antipode of the lyrical Gemütlichkeit of Bruno Walter or the stateliness of Karl Böhm, both very Viennese; but what is exhilarating in 1962 crosses over into the jarringly manic a decade earlier. The final movement in 1962 still suffers from some abrupt shifts in tempi and is one point here where Munch is not at his best. While I much prefer Walter’s approach, I nonetheless find this a bracing alternative that challenges my previously held conceptions of how this piece ought to sound.

With Schumann, we come to a composer for whom Munch had a very special affinity. It is a crying shame that his only studio recordings of the major orchestral works were the First Symphony for RCA and the Piano Concerto for EMI; fortunately live performances of the Fourth Symphony and Cello Concerto have also found their way into print, leaving the Third Symphony as the major gap in a Munch Schumann discography. Of the composer’s four symphonies, the Second has proved to be far and away the most difficult for conductors to get right; in my estimation the number of recorded performances that exceed mere competency and achieve greatness can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Here we have one of those exalted rarities. There are no traces of leaden heaviness anywhere, and Schumann’s often dense orchestration is made to shine. The ever-tricky transition from the slow introduction to the faster main section of the first movement is nicely gauged, though Munch needs a few bars to get up to full speed. The finale is a model of triumphant exuberance, though the latter section is taken a tad too quickly for my taste and requires the conductor to slow back down slightly for the final peroration on the trumpets and timpani, which is dispatched without the unnatural exaggeration that too often spoils the symphony’s close. The rendition of the overture is on a similar plane of excellence. In sum, then, this DVD is warmly recommended to fans of Munch, aficionados of historic performances, and lovers of Schumann alike.

FANFARE: James A. Altena

-----

Recorded live from Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, 18 April 1961 (Genoveva), 7 April 1959 (Symphony No. 2), and 27 February 1962 (Schubert) Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: LPCM Mono Region code: 0 (worldwide) Menu language: English Booklet notes: English, French, German Running time: 75 mins No. of DVDs: 1

Recorded at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, on 1 December 1959 (Symphony No. 3), 4 February 1958 (Symphony No. 4) and 7 April 1959 (Mozart)

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Ambient Mastering
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Subtitles: English, French, German
Running time: 70 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

There should be really a collective noun for the plethora of WGBH telecasts featuring Charles Munch now emerging on ICA Classics. The series, covering the years 1958-60 and largely taped at Harvard, has proved highly impressive, albeit sometimes interpretatively inconsistent – and occasionally unreliable in filmic terms.
 
This one focuses on two Mendelssohn Symphonies. The Scottish was taped in December 1959 and is of good quality. As is often the case in this series the camera panning shots are sometimes jerky – I wonder what kind of mount was used, as there is occasionally slippage during shots. Clearly editorial work went into the chosen shots but again things didn’t always go right on the night; it’s fine to concentrate on the hard working percussionist, but only if he’s actually playing – and then playing something of significance. As often in this series sectional shots are favoured, though sometimes they are apt to be cumbersome. But when one sees Munch one observes the rapt concentration that so often produced an extra quotient of excitement during these performances. The proximity of the audience must have helped spark something of that added level of adrenalin. It’s only late in the symphony that I noticed that, presumably because of space shortages at the hall, the piano is visible actually in the body of the orchestra. What was the concerto, one wonders, and who was the soloist? I commend retrospectively the director, David M Davis, for managing (almost) to obscure this detail.
 
The Italian Symphony suffers from a much grainier picture, though it was recorded only a couple of years or so earlier in February 1958. This is another feature of the series – varying quality of footage within discs. It results in some lines running across the screen. The sound is decent enough mono, but the visual element lacks the clarity of the Scottish. Shame though this is, it doesn’t obscure Munch’s vigorous take, almost Toscaninian in places. The director for this was Whitney Thompson and he preferred more static shots, bedding the image solidly, reluctant to keep things moving too much - he was less of a visual contrapuntalist than Davis. When there are panning shots, the image degrades somewhat. There are also a couple of poor edits. Personally, I find this doesn’t matter to me. These are artefacts of their time. I did wonder, though, if the ‘hair on the lens’ problem could have been mitigated in post-production and remastering. Maybe not. It doesn’t last too long, nor do the smudge marks on the print. I mention these things not to suggest that you are in for a disastrous viewing, but to make you aware of the imperfections inherent, or seemingly inherent, in the production.
 
We also have a ‘bonus’ of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music, from April 1959. It too is rather grainy. And yet again I wonder rhetorically how a DVD that lasts 73 minutes can include a ‘bonus’. Is anyone fooled?
 
That apart, and with the spirit of caveat emptor in the air for those unfamiliar with these telecasts, I ought to end by saying that these Mendelssohn performances are terrific.
 
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

This volume represents one in a series of releases that preserve the Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts originally broadcast on national television in the 1950s, thanks to the efforts of its musical director at the time, Charles Munch (1861-1968). The program contains interpretations of two pieces performed at Harvard's Sanders Theatre: Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E Major (February 18, 1958) and Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 98 in B Flat Major (October 18, 1960).

Charles Munch conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1959-1961 in works by Wagner, Franck, and Faure.

Available for the first time since original broadcast!

R E V I E W:

All of a sudden, Charles Munch's star seems to be once again in the ascendant. Sony has recently reissued a swathe of his RCA back catalogue on its new Sony Originals label, including his Debussy orchestral works and his recordings of the Dvorák and Walton cello concertos with Piatigorsky. Coming soon in April is an eight disc box set on RCA Classical Masters that brings together recordings of Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn symphonies and other orchestral works … and at a ridiculously low price. Meanwhile, the new independent label, ICA Classics, has brought to market three DVDs of Munch in concert with his Boston Symphony Orchestra. This Beethoven DVD and its companions (a DVD of Debussy and Ravel, and a DVD of Franck, Faure and Wagner) capture live broadcasts that have not been seen since they first went to air in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
 
I have always been in two minds about Munch's Beethoven. His Boston Beethoven 9 for RCA - one of those new Sony Originals reissues - 88697702992 - is one of my favourite recordings of the work. It is unsubtle, oddly up close and spotlit and never plumbs the depths of piano let alone pianissimo, but it is absolutely thrilling from first note to last and very moving. His Beethoven 5, however, is one of the most enduring disappointments of my CD collection. I pull it out every year or so to see if this time I will find something magical in the performance, and each year I hear scrappy and dynamically flat orchestral playing and an interpretation lacking in nuance.
 
What a delight it was, then, to listen to and watch the performance of the 5 ^th that closes this DVD. Here is the Munch reading I had been listening for in vain: a dramatic and rhetorical performance; a performance that builds inexorably towards the final peroration; a performance of contrast held together by flexible but fundamentally solid tempi; a performance abounding in spontaneous touches, like the extra space and freedom he affords his oboist, Ralph Gomberg, for his solo in the first movement. It is wonderful to hear, and also great fun to watch Munch's facial expressions and the way his baton drops when the dynamics do so that he seems to be conducting with shoulder movements rather than the invisible stick that is beating time around his knees.
 
As good as the 5 ^th is, it is the 4 ^th that for me is the highlight here. Munch cuts an unexpectedly dour figure in the adagio introduction to the first movement of the Fourth Symphony. If it weren't for the expansive baton strokes and the white hair, you could almost believe you were watching Fritz Reiner. The allegro ignites, and Munch seems himself once more. Is it a trick of the lens, or is his baton bent a little towards its tip? My goodness, he does shake it about a bit in the allegros! Beethoven's games with rhythm in this symphony are right up Munch's street. His knack of pushing a performance forward and building momentum suits this symphony beautifully. There is a bounce and swagger to the third movement that you just won't hear elsewhere and the finale fizzes.
 
The music from Beethoven's Prometheus ballet is an interesting inclusion. The liner-notes make much of the fact that Munch hardly ever played this music, so the conductor's most ardent admirers will no doubt need to acquire this DVD to round out their collected discographies. The Overture receives a scintillating performance, right from the whip-crack of the opening staccato chords. I was less impressed by the other two selections from the ballet, though the adagio shows off the orchestra's flute, bassoon, cello and harp. The mono sound does their magnificent playing full justice.
 
The picture quality of the monochrome source tapes is variable. The Prometheus footage has a tendency to fog and fish bowl curvature. The opening of the Fourth Symphony is disfigured by static lines. The camera work itself is conventional, but the editing strikes a fair balance between footage of the orchestra and the man on the podium. Fortunately the mono sound is clear and carries fair detail. Only at the close of the 5 ^th does the music sound a little cramped in its single channel.
 
Anyone with an interest in Munch and his magnificent Boston band will find this DVD fascinating.
 
-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

One of the 20th century most admired and respected violinists, Isaac Stern's career as a solo artist, chamber musician, and much else (he led the movement to save Carnegie hall) was remarkable. These albums, of his live performances is an eloquent testament to his musical insights, technical command and his gorgeous, luminous tone. Isaac Stern was born in 1920, in Krzemieniec, now in Ukraine. A year later his parents came to San Francisco. Violin lessons began at eight, with Naoum Blinder. Two years later he made his debut, playing Bach double concerto with his teacher. His Town Hall debut in 1937 was followed by a Carnegie Hall debut in 1943. He was the first American artist to tour the former Soviet Union-and as a result became a deeply respected figure there. The campaign to save Carnegie Hall began in 1960. The Six-Day War of 1967 saw his iconic performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Leonard Bernstein on Mount Scopus. His involvement with Hollywood, which began in 1948 with his performance in Humoresque, was followed up in 1971, when he played on the soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof. His travel to China in 1979 led to a resurgence of classical music in that country. He recorded prolifically and received countless honors and tributes. Isaac Stern passed away at the age of 81 in 2001.