In this DVD-A the strings surround the listener with a realistic lifelike presence. It is an effective recording method that makes the musical experience that much more immersive and enjoyable. The goal, as always, is to approach the impact of live music and the Tacet engineers have succeeded. (Audiophile Audition)

With a good surround sound system you will close your eyes and imagine yourself seated in the midst of the performers at a live concert. This is a splendid sonic experience. (Audiophile Audition)

John McEuen, co-founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, brings this traditional country band into your living room. The music was recorded in HD-Audio at 96 kHz/24-bit PCM and users can select from 3 different audio mixes: 5.1 "Stage", 5.1 "Audience" & 2.0 Channel Stereo. This is a DVD- Audio/Video disc. One side is in DVD-Audio format and the other is DVD-Video. Bonus material includes 40 minutes of interviews, live footage and behind the scenes video.

Placing the musicians around the listener has a very unusual effect, because the music besets your body and binds it; you sit in the middle of the musical action and you are under attack from all sides. You physically feel the vibration because it physically spreads through your body. But that is not all: your ears bathe in a sea of fairy-tale colors of the most sublime culture. 4009850011835 TCET118DVA 19542065 .00 26.99 .28 TACET RECORDS DVD AUDIO CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 02/15/2003 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/2/3/3/7/1997332.jpg 4 1 N HAYDN / AURYN QUARTET AURYN SERIES 20: AURYNS HAYDN OP 71 These and other Haydn recordings by the Auryn Quartet convince listeners and indeed make them enthusiastic by their instrumental sovereignty and refinement in their reaction to the given movement characteristics. This is doubtless one of the most important contributions to the Haydn Year" (+�sterreichische Musikzeitschrift)

On this recording, the essence of these works has been understood and realized in exemplary fashion. (Der Schallattenmann)

• Vladimir Fedoseyev conducts the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra in performances of Tchaikovsky and Miaskovsky. • Alexander Khyazev is the featured performer in the Miaskovsky's Cello Concerto. • Mr. Fedoseyev has been the orchestra's principle conductor and artistic director since 1974, and its music director since 2006. • Filmed live in concert at the Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, in March 2009.

Mozart's Flute Quartets appear on this DVD with excellent sound, and with the instrumentalists situated around the listener, which has become the trademark of the TACET label. The result is a chamber music tonal picture in which all the instruments are of equal importance and the flute does not force itself to the fore. Musically the recording is also remarkable; (crescendo) TACET's creative use of this multichannel medium takes Mozart's lovely Baroque background music out of the soporific and into the energetic. And the playing is first rate. (Audiophile Audition)

(...) But what insights into the chemistry, the constructional and structural wonders of these Pr�ludes do Koroliov's musical-pathological dissections allow? They lead into the inside of this texture, invalidating all that one has experienced for frightful - and then again delightful - moments of thinking and feeling. In a peaceable way, they force one to unbiased expose oneself to a strange experience, yet, in the next moment, a familiar experience once again. (Klassik. Heute. De)

This DVD marks the first complete recording of Xenakis' four string quartet, including the late quartet Ergma.

Pianist Aki Takahashi follows up her acclaimed first disc of Xenakis piano works with this second volume, this time works for piano with instruments.

I am quite old now, and so when I have the opportunity to do something, I take it immediately, rather than hesitating, as I don't have much time left. John Cage said this about his first and only film, produced the year he died.

Originally created as an invitation by Rolling Stone magazine in 1977, as part of a gala issue celebrating the magazine's move from San Francisco to New York, which featured literary and art contributors honoring it's new home. Cage constructed his waltzes as a series of 49 multi-colored triangles superimposed on the Hagstrom map of New York City, each point derived by the use of chance operations. Wanting to celebrate Cage's memory, Don Gillespie decided to collect the sights and sounds from the locations specified in "49 Waltzes." This ambitious project of filming Cage's 147 specific locations in New York's five boroughs took one year to complete.

Directed by Arne Arnbom. Starring David Tudor, Carolyn Brown, Barbara Lloyd.

V4: BEST OF JAZZ IN BURGHAUSEN

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Mode continues it's Xenakis Edition with the second volume dedicated to his electronic works.

This 2012 Frankfurt Opera production of Richard Wagner’s second of four “Ring” operas, Die Walküre, features the Frankfurter Opern und Museumsorchester led by conductor Sebastian Weigle. The cast of singers includes Frank van Aken as Siegmund, Amber Wagner as Sieglinde, Susan Bullock as Brünnhilde, Terje Stensvold as Wotan, Ain Anger as Hunding and Martina Dike as Fricka. Mr. Weigle is the General Music Director of Frankfurt Opera, a position he’s held since 2008/9.

The pianist performs works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Liszt live in 1962 at the Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow Philharmonic conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin. B&W.

The pianist performs works by Rachmaninoff and Schumann/Liszt in these 1958 and 1972 live performances at the Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow Philharmonic conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin. B&W.

Included in these 1960, 1965, and 1972 B&W mono performances are works by Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 8. Job • Adrian Boult, cond; London PO • ICA ICAD 5037 (DVD: 73:05) Live: London 12/10/1972

To my knowledge, this is the first time this entire concert has been issued intact. Previously the Eighth Symphony appeared on a DVD (now out of print) with a performance from a concert eight months earlier of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with these same forces and violinist Nathan Milstein. That disc was given a very tepid review by Jerry Dubins in Fanfare 31: 1, criticizing the Beethoven as “off skew” due to intonation lapses by Milstein and lack of proper synchronization between the audio and visual tracks, and a “solid but less than rafter-ringing” rendition of the Eighth Symphony. Here the symphony opens the concert, given to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. While I would agree that it does not equal Boult’s own studio recording with the same orchestra for EMI made almost four years before, it is still an estimable reading in Boult’s distinctive style, which in this particular work is far more low-key and introspective than in the hands of some other conductors. A significant factor in the lesser degree of impact is the recorded perspective, which is rather distant; even turning up the volume knob on my stereo receiver could not give it a presence equal to the studio version. A remarkable feature is that this performance differs notably in conception from that set down by EMI, as can be seen by the respective timings—11:09, 3:55, 8:35, and 4:44 for the studio account versus 10:44, 4:11, 7:26, and 5:47 here, with the 10:44 of the first movement including almost a minute of introductory applause. The change in proportions—significantly faster in the first and third movements, and markedly slower in the fourth—gives the piece a rather different feel, though even after several hearings I am not sure how to describe it, as the variations between the two do not follow a consistent pattern. That there is a substantial difference is a sufficient point of interest in and of itself for admirers of this conductor’s art.

With Job the competition between the 1970 EMI studio version and this live performance is much closer; the overall timings and conceptions of the two are virtually identical, and here the live performance has more presence. This video version does offer one advantage its studio counterpart lacks; at the start of each section, it displays for several seconds the corresponding (and striking) drawings from William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job that inspired the composer. Boult had a unique and authoritative association with this work; in 1934 the composer dedicated the work to him, and he made four studio recordings of it before any other conductor made even one. That alone would make this an invaluable historical document; that value is increased by the fact that, apart from the aforementioned Beethoven concerto and a Beethoven romance for violin and orchestra with Yehudi Menuhin, this disc contains what are to my knowledge the only commercially released filmed performances of the man who ranks alongside Thomas Beecham as one of the two greatest British conductors of the last century.

The film quality itself is excellent for its vintage; images and colors are as sharp and clear as the analog film technology of the periods allows, and there are no signs of film deterioration. Camerawork is discreet, appropriate in focus, and free from the jittery itch of some current film producers to jump about every few seconds. Boult himself, 83 at the time, comes on stage slowly but not at all stiffly. Like Charles Munch he favors a fishing-pole length baton, but unlike the French maestro his movements are restrained, economical, and graceful rather than feverishly energetic, the very image of English patrician nobility. But do not mistake a lack of theatrical demonstrativeness for artistic dullness; this is music-making of great integrity and conviction. To fans of Vaughan Williams and Boult alike, this release is unhesitatingly recommended, particularly for the fine account of Job.

FANFARE: James A. Altena

VENICE, NEW YEAR'S CONCERT 200

Also available on Blu-ray

The Verbier Festival is one of classical music’s greatest events. In celebration of the festival’s 25th anniversary, this unique concert brings together 36 classical stars in an unprecedented evening of ingenious programming and captivating performances. The line-up includes the world’s greatest violinists, violists, cellists and pianists as well as other leading performers conducted by Valery Gergiev and Gabor Takacs-Nagy. Founder and director Martin T:son Engstroem writes: “We started this incredible adventure in 1994, and 25 years on, our Festival has become one of the world’s most important cultural events. But it is not just another festival; our vision right from the beginning was to build something which combined important musicians with a very visible youth and learning element. This is what we set out to do and this is what we achieved.”

Classical Music

Also available on Blu-ray

Shakespeare provided lifelong inspiration for the towering operatic genius that was Giuseppe Verdi, but just three of the Bard’s plays ever emerged fully-fledged from the composer’s pen. This trio of landmark productions, featuring a veritable constellation of singers, conductors and directors, are united here under the banner of Verdi’s Shakepeare Operas: Macbeth, which lifted the young composer out of his hard-working ‘galley years’, propelling him to international fame and universal acclaim, and Otello and Falstaff, his final two crowning operatic achievements. Simon Keenlyside and Liudmyla Monastyrska are imposing as the Thane and his Lady in Phyllida Lloyd’s sumptuous production of The Scottish Play for The Royal Opera, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, while José Cura interprets the Moor in a profound, intense staging by Willy Decker at Barcelona’s Liceu. By the end of his dramatic opera career, Verdi claimed he had ‘earned at last the right to laugh a little’, and Richard Jones’s Glyndebourne Festival production of Falstaff radiates humour, tinged with bitterness and wisdom and brought to life by an international ensemble cast with Christopher Purves in the title role under the inspiring baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Catalan (Otello), Japanese (Macbeth)

Running time: 170 Minutes (Macbeth), 23 Minutes (Bonus), 151 Minutes (Otello), 136 Minutes (Falstaff)

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS