THIS IS A STANDARD DVD WITH AUDIO ONLY (NO VISUALS). IT IS NOT A DVD-AUDIO AND WILL PLAY ON ALL DVD PLAYERS.

String Quartet No. 2 (1983)
FLUX Quartet
Tom Chiu, violin
Cornelius Duffalo, violin
Kenji Bunch, viola
Darrett Adkins, cello

Feldman's monumental String Quartet No.2 is in one unbroken movement. The FLUX Quartet performance is complete, lasting a total of 6 hours 7 minutes and 7 seconds. Available in 2 Editions: a 5-CD set OR complete and uninterrupted on 1-DVD!

In the 1970s Feldman took up the study and collecting of antique Turkish rugs, a highly evolved and exquisite folk art. The rugs are intricately patterned, symmetrical in basic design but with constant variation and displacement in the detailed execution of that design; strikingly and subtly colored, including fine variegations of principal colors resulting from the dyeing process. Analogies are clear to Feldman's music as it takes up large-scale patterning, partly working with his familiar subtle gradations of rhythm and instrumental color and ostinati, loops or extended repetitions of a sounds, partly - and especially in this second string quartet - continually finding new and surprising qualities of color. There are a number of sounds in this piece unlike anything one has heard from a string quartet.

Lasting more than six continuous hours, it is "a disorienting, transfixing experience that repeatedly approached and touched the sublime." - Alex Ross, in his review of the FLUX Quartet's New York City performance in The New Yorker.

String Quartet 2's score is 124 pages, at one tempo marking of 63-66 beats per minute - as such, a slow tempo. Feldman idiosyncratically sets the bars, so one page may last as little as about half a minute or as much as nearly seven minutes.

"A very exciting quartet composed of four young men...who have lots of ideas and clearly enjoy making music together," - Anthony Tommasini, NY Times, the FLUX Quartet has performed to rave reviews at many music centers around the world. FLUX have performed Quartet 2 in concert numerous times and know the score intimately. The FLUX Quartet's repertoire consists of notable pioneers as well as visionaries of tomorrow - from "classics" by Nancarrow, Ligeti, and Cage, to works by John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Oliver Lake, and tenor balloonist Judy Dunaway.

This deluxe set features liner notes by Feldman's colleague Christian Wolff, mixing personal experiences and recollections with analysis; and by FLUX founder Tom Chiu who writes of the "experience" of performing such a large-scale work.

One can experience the work uninterrupted - complete, with no need to change discs - on the DVD Edition; along with the thrilling realism of uncompressed 24-bit PCM sound. This audio-only DVD can be played on any DVD player (note: there are no visuals).

For ease of navigation, both the DVD and CD versions have many track points (approximately every 5-6 pages of the score) which allow you to navigate through the disc(s) and the piece. The tracks are identical for both the DVD and CD.

This historical recording session captured on DVD is the successful outcome of the mutual admiration of two great jazz artists: Claude Bolling and Stephane Grappelli. Here, the combination of the talents of Bolling's swinging 17-piece big band and the virtuosity of Grappelli's violin make a stunning visual document. Color, 53 minutes, in French and English.

This concert includes Anna Russell's uproarious analysis of Wagner's "Ring" Cycle as well as lectures on "How to Become a Singer," "Wind Instruments I Have Known," a hilarious parody on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and more!

This release presents the audiovisual work of 2016 Giga-Hertz Award winner Curtis Roads. Roads is considered one of the most innovative developers of the granular compositional technique and has not only caused a sensation as a composer, but also as an author and the editor of the Computer Music Journal (1978-2000). His music consistently embraces a technological, mathematically-based aesthetic. Roads aptly describes this style as pulsar and granular music, a music composed of many extremely short individual sound particles (grains or pulses). The result of his artistic work is an intense sensual experience, which can best be described as ordered complexity.

Emmanual Pahud, principal flutist of the Berliner Philharmonic, honors the 300th birthday of Frederick the Great with a concert recorded in the historic Royal Theater of the Neues Palais Potsdam. Trevor Pinnock is one of the pioneers of the modern revival of early music performance and he appears as a guest conductor with many world-renowned symphony orchestras and works by Frederick the Great, C.P.E. Bach, F. Benda and J.J. Quantz. "A fascinating snap-shot of the mid-18th century Berlin court." - BBC Music Magazine.

The sensation of this recording is the extremely clear, direct, warm and spacious sound. Thanks to the transistor-free tube technology which documents a musical delicacy we can rediscover this much-worn piece. Violinist Gaede and his Polish colleagues play not only with utmost precision and finely discerning dynamics, but also with bite and expression. (Audio)

FRANCE: A Musical Tour of the South of France

The Places
The tour opens with views of the Camargue, the marshy region near Arles with its wild life. Views of the Côte d’Azur are intercut with glimpses of the Munich Glyptothek with its collections of Roman and Greek statuary. Near Arles is the ancient Abbey of Montmajour and the fortified monastery and Abbey on Saint-Honorat, one of the Iles de Lérins. In Arles we see the Roman theatre and necropolis and, at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the remains of the ancient Gallo-Greek town of Glanum.

The Music
Music for the tour includes Debussy’s evocative Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, two Gymnopédies by Erik Satie and Ravel’s two suites from his ballet Daphnis et Chloé, followed by his Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Carlo Ventre, Lise Lindstrom, Bruno Caproni, Markus Brueck, Abutjun Kotchinian, and Jacquelyn Wagner star in this world premiere Deutsche Oper Berlin production of the Franchetti opera conducted by Renato Palumbo.

In Venice, with the carnival in full swing, the Duke of Pesaro arranges for his lieutenant Spadoni to abduct the beautiful Leonor. To make the young girl love him, he has hired Stradella, a famous singer and singing teacher. The Duke, however, is unaware that Stradella loves and is loved in secret by the beautiful girl. The lovers will be pursued by Pesaro's men all the way to Rome.

"Stradella" was probably composed between 1841 and 1842 (César Franck was just 21 years old) and is probably the result of his early experiences as accompanist to the Italian tenor Mario Bordogni. The opera has come to us virtually complete, as a piano score with some hints of orchestration. Luc van Hove orchestrated it and Stradella was thus staged for the first time at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie on 19th September 2012. Indeed the revival of this stunning opera provides an important tile in the mosaic of the artistic personality of one of the protagonists of 19th-century.

Paolo Arrivabeni,conductor - Jaco van Dormael, stage director, Marcc Laho (Stradella), Isabelle Cabatu (Leonor), Werner van Mechelen (Spadoni), Philippe Rouillon ( Pietro), Giovanni Iovino (Michael), Patrick Mignon (Beppo) Roger Joakim (Un officier)

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

VERDI; GIORDANO; MEYERBEER; PUCCINI; MASSENET; DI CAPUA; CARILLO; DE CURTIS; TOSTI: Franco Corelli, tenor; NHK Orchestra/Alberto Ventura; Live: Tokyo, August 11, 1971NTSC All Region; Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS; PCM Stereo 2.0; Color; 16:9; Aprox. 60 mins; Subtitled in Italian, English, French, Germa FRANCO CORELLI - THE 1971 TOKYO CONCERT.

This 2 DVD set delivers two documentary films of the city of Neuville's school, which was created in 1973 according to the principles and philosophy of Francoise Dolto. The school hosts forty students and ten adults to supervise them. It is meant to be an alternative to the traditional school system with an attention to the participation of the students and their emancipation as human beings. These documentaries - that one can watch as a proper fiction - have been made by Fabienne d’Ortoli and Michel Amram, one of the founders of this school. In French (NTSC System with English subtitles).

After winning a high-profile verdict, cocky, young small practitioners Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer) and Peter Bash (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) find themselves recruited by one of L.A.'s most powerful law firms. They bring their street-level sensibilities to big-stakes disputes in this crisply written TNT series from 2011-2014. Malcolm McDowell, Garcelle Beauvais, Reed Diamond, Kumail Nanjiani, Dana Davis co-star. 40 episodes on 8 discs. 27 3/4 hrs. Wiescreen; Soundtrack: English.

World premiered with a great success at the Vienna State Opera in 2019, Persinette retells the famous Rapunzel fairy tale. To the late-romantic music of Albin Fries, children's opera specialist Matthias von Stegmann takes us into the world rich in images, allowing us to sympathise and feel the excitement. Will Persinette escape her imprisonment in the high tower?

Originally released in 1995. Directed by Frank Scheffer, Andrew Culver. Starring John Cage.

These two wonderful quartets have been audiophile touchstones ever since the Amadeus Quartet (three of them, anyway) and Clifford Curzon recorded them for Decca in the 1950s. Those performances were full of personality, charm and fire, and the sound (at the time) seemed alive and rich in color (today, it sounds a little harsh and aggressive). Along the way there have been fine recordings by many illustrious ensembles, on both modern and original instruments, of which the best purely in terms of sound may have been the musically limpid RCA version with the Guarneri Quartet and Artur Rubinstein. Now, from the German audiophile label Tacet, comes a version that banishes the competition, combining the musical sparkle and sparkle of the early Decca version with the sumptuous sonic radiance of the RCA. The sound, in fact, is so clear and natural that it is like being in the room with the musicians. Operating at moderate speeds, the way the young Austrian pianist Markus Schirmer rolls out phrases as if they were pearls, the way he illuminates the music with a luminous inner elegance, and the way he occasionally adorns the music with ornaments of exceptional originality and delight, leaves no doubt that, for this one release at least, here is a major talent. This is not to say that the very excellent Gaede Trio takes a mere supporting role, for they play as gloriously as on their Tacet recordings of Mozart?s String Trio, KV 563, and their extremely gorgeous transcription of Bach?s Goldberg Variations. I reviewed the 44.1 CD version (numbered just plain 116), but it is hard to imagine anything more musically and sonically satisfying than this CD. Thomas Seedorf?s curious liner notes are quite endearing, especially in an English translation that seems like a gentle parody of German syntax. Ed.: I?ve just auditioned the surround DVD-A, and whether a listener would consider it more musically and sonically satisfying depends on how open they are to the alternative use of the acoustic space made by producer Andreas Spreer. He works from the idea that any sound-carrier is a synthetic product and feels that using the surround field to place the listener in the middle of the performance is more interesting and involving. Thus on the first of these quartets we have the viola at the center speaker, the piano on the right side, the violin on the left speaker and the cello on the left rear surround speaker. For the second quartet the violin/cello and the piano change places. Personally I?m beginning to get used to this, find it much more involving, and in fact find the standard frontal placement of instruments on other recordings a bit boring. But I can imagine some listeners might be freaked out. Laurence Vittes Total playing time: 54'51

A very special dance occasion in honour of a celestial alignment of events, the Gala des Étoiles celebrates the Ballet Corp’s time-honoured tradition of a Grand Gala at La Scala as it coincides with Milan’s tenure as host city of EXPO 2015. Symbolically espousing the spirit of the Universal Exposition by bringing together outstanding international talent, La Scala’s étoiles – Svetlana Zakharova, Roberto Bolle and Massimo Murru – extend Milan’s red carpet to a veritable constellation of guest dancers from around the world, including rising stars and luminaries of the ballet universe.

Two spectacular gala concerts from the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, are brought together here in their unforgettable glory. In the 1993 Winter Gala, world-leading singers (including Placido Domingo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Kiri Te Kanawa) and dancers (including Darcey Bussell, Lesley Collier, and Irek Mukhamedov) celebrate the music of Tchaikovsky, in highlights from such opera and ballet favourites as The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin, The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty. In the famously glittering 1996 gala concert, Domingo is joined by a cast of opera stars including Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and Susan Graham. Asher Fisch conducts this programme of great opera arias by composers including Bizet, Massenet, Gounod, Mozart and Donizetti.

The music chosen for this tour of European gardens and parks is matched carefully with the places chosen.

Garrick Ohlsson won the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition just four years prior the solo recital performances of Chopin and Liszt featured on this DVD. Ohlsson recorded the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under James Loughran at Royal Albert Hall in 1978. Since these youthful concerts Garrick Ohlsson has also recorded the complete works of Chopin to global acclaim and is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of Chopin.

Sound format: LCPM mono
Picture format: 4:3
Running time: 78’
Subtitles: n/a
Menu languages: English
Booklet languages: E/F/G
Region code: All Regions - 0

When I last saw Garrick Ohlsson live in concert in 2007, I was mightily impressed by the delicacy and contrast the ursine pianist brought to his performance of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. This DVD unearths performances given by a much younger Ohlsson some thirty years earlier, when he was less a bear and more a lion of the keyboard, complete with 1970s mane.

The main feature on this DVD is a BBC Proms performance of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto under the baton of that great Scottish Brahmsian, James Loughran, whose famous Halle recordings of the symphonies, last seen on Classics for Pleasure, have sadly been deleted from the catalogue.

Ohlsson, wearing a white coat like the leader of the orchestra and no one else on stage, strides out with Loughran to warm Proms applause. We are quickly underway. The first movement is nicely paced, flowing and big. Indeed “big” is the right word for this performance. Loughran knows what he is doing with this music. He draws a well blended, robust sound from the orchestra, right from the opening horn call. Ohlsson shares his dramatic conception of the concerto, moving from gentle rhapsodic playing to roaring climaxes with the ebb and flow of the musical narrative. The uncredited principal cellist brings grace and charm to the andante, which Ohlsson matches and exceeds, and the finale is smile-coaxingly playful, but never lightweight. The highlight of this performance is the second movement. Ohlsson is at his rhapsodic best here. There are occasional wrong notes and horn wobbles, but they matter little when the performance is as exciting as this one.

The 1974 recital is fabulously 70s, from the font that flashes onto the screen to announce the recital in time to the opening chords of the Scherzo to the wavy beige studio backdrop. Ohlsson’s Chopin is superb. The Scherzo sparks with nervous energy and, under Ohlsson’s fingers, rings more with tragedy than mere melancholy. The Polonaise that follows is big and appealingly playful, like Hans Sachs merrily mending shoes with a large hammer. Funérailles is dark and menacing, seemingly powered by Ohlsson’s relentless left hand. The size of Ohlsson’s mitts is astonishing. If ever hands were built for the piano, his were.

The booklet note by Jeremy Siepmann lionises Ohlsson and says little of the music or the circumstances of its performance.

The mono sound, clear but constricted, prevents a general recommendation when so much of Ohlsson’s fine playing is available on disc in stereo. However Ohlsson’s fans and those who would see the young lion in his pomp need not hesitate.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Also available on Blu-ray

A political prisoner awaits death in his cell. A woman puts herself in mortal danger to seek justice. With its atmosphere of revolution and tale of devotional romance and a dramatic rescue from captivity, Pierre Gaveaux’s Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal was the direct forerunner to Beethoven’s Fidelio. Having been entirely overshadowed by its famous successor and lain hidden for centuries, this both darkly somber and entertainingly celebratory opéra comique is seen here in an acclaimed modern premiere whose timeless and inspiring story of female heroism and political injustice is as relevant today as ever. The Washington Post wrote of this production: “Opera Lafayette’s smart, efficient production brought the brief opera comique fully to life with vivid playing and singing… events such as this… are a rarity anywhere and a gift...”

Larisa Tuisova and Alexander Rumiantsev star in the Latvian State Opera & Ballet Theatre production of the Khachaturian ballet. Bonus: Gayne: Act 4 (Timofeeva, Zhdanov), Spartacus:"Adagio" from Act 2. (Liepa, Plisetskaya), Gayne: "Adagio".

In this biographical and musical road movie by Andy Sommer, Antoine Wagner heads to Switzerland on the trail of his great-great-grandfather, renowned composer Richard Wagner. In order to apprehend the composer's complex personality, Antoine Wagner returns to sites where his ancestor lived, meeting historians, musicologists, musicians, and enlightened amateurs, and exploring the landscapes that inspired Richard Wagner in one of his most artistically rich periods.

As the 2011 Proms seasons rapidly approaches, this DVD whisks us back thirty seasons to two fine Proms given by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and the BBC Symphony Orchestra which, by coincidence, also hail from a season exactly twenty seasons before my first teenage Promenade. That first taste of the Proms magic also featured the BBC Symphony in Russian classics and was to be conducted by another great Russian maestro, Yevgeny Svetlanov; alas, he was ill and died the following year and I never got to see him. Rozhdestzensky is still with us but, for some reason, only a very occasional visitor to the UK and more's the pity; in his excellent booklet notes, David Nice asks 'Is Gennadi Rozhdestvensky the greatest ever conductor of ballet scores?', and, on the evidence of this Nutcracker, which is ideally paced at every turn, it's hard to disagree.
 
Although proportioned something like a conventional concert programme, this selection of performances actually derives from two 1981 Proms, during Rozhdestvensky's relatively brief tenure as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony. The 2nd Act of the Nutcracker was filmed at the end of July and was preceded by a choral version of Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain (the choir can be seen seated behind the orchestra during the Tchaikovsky), Prokofiev's Ugly Ducking and Scriabin's Prometheus. The Glinka items are extracted from a daring programme, mixing Viennese waltzes with double piano concertos, including Bartók's Concerto for two pianos and percussion. A punchy and swift performance of Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila opens the programme, followed by three wonderful dances from his opera A Life for the Tsar, the second of which has an energetically skipping rhythmic quality and which I recall fondly from its use in the climactic ball sequence from Alexander Sokurov's film Russian Ark, a remarkable single-take trawl through Russian history.
 
One of the advantages of seeing rather than merely hearing a performance such as this is the chance it affords to study the conductor's technique, and Rozhdestvensky's manner throughout the programme is minimal but precisely calibrated. The camera frequently cuts to an inert Rozhdestvensky, apparently doing nothing at all, but he is the master of conveying a world of meaning with a raised eyebrow and his hands can suggest a sculptor at work when he wishes. As already noted, tempos are perfectly judged in the Tchaikovsky, treading a fine line between grandeur and excitement and the BBC Symphony Orchestra's playing is every bit as plush and lively as one would expect from a Russian orchestra. Rozhdestvensky's speeds are adjusted for the concert hall: some of them would be tricky to dance to, such as a sweeping but forward driving Pas de deux (The Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy). It's only a shame that we couldn't have the complete ballet; Rozhdestvensky in the full score does appear on a pricey Melodiya set (MELCD1000665), but it's terrific to have at least half and it's a performance I can imagine returning to often.
 
-- Andrew Morris, MusicWeb International


Gennadi Rozhdestvensky at the BBC Proms
Mikhail GLINKA (1804-1857)
Ruslan and Lyudmila – Overture [5:53]
Three Dances from A Life for the Tsar [16:27]
Pytor Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
The Nutcracker – Act 2 [42:40]
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
rec. 27 July 1981 (Tchaikovsky), 14 August 1981 (Glinka), Royal Albert Hall, London
Producer (original broadcast): Rodney Greenburg
Picture format: 4:3/NTSC
Sound: Ambient Mastering/LPCM Stereo
Region: 0 (worldwide)

SCHUMANN'S GENOVEVA - A MODERN-DAY DRAMA OF THE SOULOn 25th June 1850, Schumann, Robert's only opera, Genoveva, received it's first performance at Leipzig State Theatre. It was a much-awaited event, as Schumann, widely regarded as the leading German instr