Carlisle Floyd is one of America's foremost composers. Though he has also written in other forms, he is renowned for his operas, for which he also writes th elibretti. The most famous and popular is his third opera, Susannah, premiered in 1955 and the second most performed of all American operas. Updated and set in Tennessee, it is loosely based on the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders. The work is rooted in vernacular folk melodies and hymns and contains soaring melodic beauty.

This concert film made in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1976 captures a memorable performance conducted by the doyen of American composers, Aaron Copland (1900–1990). It includes some of his greatest and most attractive music, from the patriotic flourish of Fanfare for the Common Man and the spirited orchestral fantasy El Salón México, to the colloquial warmth of his suite from the opera The Tender Land. Of particular importance is the collaboration with the great Benny Goodman in the masterwork he commissioned and premiered, the Clarinet Concerto.

REVIEWS:

Copland was a precise, energetic, and alert conductor, smiling happily at the orchestra after each piece and enjoying himself enormously in the performance of the Hoedown from the ballet Rodeo. It’s a great watch, and a rewarding listen as well.

– Gramophone

Aaron Copland had an easy presence on the rostrum, totally free of histrionics, while getting a ready response from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I guess the timpanist would have liked a retake of the opening Fanfare for the Common Man where he had intonation problems, but elsewhere the orchestra are immaculate, Copland’s face displaying his total pleasure in each of the performances. The recorded sound is very good for that period, with a reasonably good internal balance, while visually it has sharp-edged colors.

– David’s Review Corner (David Denton

Also available on Blu-ray

Based on real events and drawing on Georg Büchner’s revolutionary play, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck turns a grimly tragic narrative of violence and murder into one of the most powerful and original operas of the 20th century. Berg’s uncompromising portrayal of brutality and madness generated much controversy, but the significance of Wozzeck was soon recognised; its compelling lyrical expansiveness, large-scale dramatic gestures and remarkable musical structures producing music of overwhelming emotional intensity. The Financial Times declared this to be "a beautiful, moving, engrossing production… this is a consummate Wozzeck, blending clarity, lyricism, compassion and crushing force."

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REVIEW:

Marc Albrecht embeds Wozzeck within a lineage of lyrically sprung, dance-driven operas from Weber’s Oberon to Der Rosenkavalier, taking in Lortzing and Die Fledermaus along the way. The singing is accomplished with style, especially the astonishingly secure Captain of Marcel Beekman and the engagingly sinister comic turn of Willard White as the Doctor. Even were it not among the most beautifully played and sung accounts on record and film, this Wozzeck would command attention for Krzysztof Warlikowski’s staging.

– Gramophone

Also available in DVD!

The award-winning Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has become one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras on period instruments. These concerts reveal some of the foundations of Beethoven’s genius, and capture vital performances from the 2020 SWR Schwetzingen Festival, the biggest radio festival for classical music in the world. Robert Schumann pointed out similarities between Méhul’s First Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth, and these third and fourth concerts in the cycle also include a tempest by Holzbauer that precedes Beethoven’s by half a century, plus the little-known Le portrait musical de la nature by Justin Heinrich Knecht, a work that also anticipates Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. The first and second concerts are also available on Naxos.

Also available in DVD!

The award-winning Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has become one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras on period instruments. These concerts reveal some of the foundations of Beethoven’s genius, and capture vital performances from the 2020 SWR Schwetzingen Festival, the biggest radio festival for classical music in the world. These first two concerts of four see Beethoven’s revolutionary development through his first three symphonies set against C.P.E. Bach’s novel orchestration, Mozart’s pre-echo of a theme from the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, and Paul Wranitzky’s richly narrative Grande Sinfonie caractéristique, a work banned by the Viennese authorities of the day. The third and fourth concerts are also available on Naxos.

Also available in Blu-ray!

The award-winning Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has become one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras on period instruments. These concerts reveal some of the foundations of Beethoven’s genius, and capture vital performances from the 2020 SWR Schwetzingen Festival, the biggest radio festival for classical music in the world. These first two concerts of four see Beethoven’s revolutionary development through his first three symphonies set against C.P.E. Bach’s novel orchestration, Mozart’s pre-echo of a theme from the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, and Paul Wranitzky’s richly narrative Grande Sinfonie caractéristique, a work banned by the Viennese authorities of the day. The third and fourth concerts are also available on Naxos.

Also available on Blu-ray

Johann Sebastian Bach was undoubtedly the greatest musical thinker of his age. Dubbed ‘the Old Testament of music’ by the conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow, the Well-Tempered Clavier is acknowledged to be one of the most significant works ever written for the keyboard. Each of these 24 preludes and fugues encapsulates its own mood, and Bach’s delight in mixing technical strictness with freedom of expression has made this work an indispensable element of Western culture for centuries. Sir András Schiff is heralded as one of the finest Bach interpreters today, and this first complete performance at the prestigious BBC Proms was summed up as ‘stupendous’ by The Independent.

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REVIEW:

That he played the one hundred and ten minutes of the First Book from The Well-Tempered Clavier from memory was a feat in itself; that he played it without a blemish was remarkable, and that he imbued it with such happiness was something to remember. Played without an interval, and with both feet firmly planted on the stage, we come as near to Bach’s harpsichord as you can get from a modern Steinway concert grand piano.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The Places
The Canton of Ticino (German Tessin) is the only Swiss canton to have Italian as its official language. It is bounded on three sides by Italy and boasts spectacular mountain scenery, with waterfalls, rivers and lakes. The capital of the canton is now Bellinzona, but was earlier shared with Locarno and Lugano. A feature of the landscape lies in the great lakes that are within its territory, including part of Lago Maggiore, into which the Ticino and Maggia flow.

The Music
Robert Schumann was born in 1810 in Saxony, studied in Leipzig, lived in Dresden and, in 1850 moved to Düsseldorf as director of music to the city. He died in 1856, after a severe mental breakdown, from which he never recovered. In 1840, in spite of the objections of her father, he married the young pianist Clara Wieck, daughter of his former teacher. It was particularly after this marriage that he turned his attention to larger scale compositions, of which his Piano Concerto is an example, inspired by his wife. The other work heard here, the Intermezzi, Op. 4, dates from an earlier period, devoted in particular to the composition of shorter piano pieces, when a career as a pianist still seemed possible for him.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 51 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

The tour of Paris starts with the Eiffel Tower and includes the famous landmarks of the French capital, the Churches of Notre-Dame and the Sacre Coeur, the Opera Garnier and the great river, the Seine, that runs through the city. The tour ends with a nocturnal view of Paris and an excursion to Chartres, with it's magnificent cathedral. Music for the tour is by Beethoven, who at one time seemed to hope for employment in Paris. His 'Eroica Symphony' was at first intended as a celebration of his one-time hero, Napoleon, but reflected, in the end, his disillusion when Napoleon had himself crowned as Emperor. The music used also includes Beethoven's 'Coriolanus Overture', written, not for Shakespeare's play, but for a contemporary drama by Heinrich von Collin.

CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRIA

The Places
The tour starts in Steyr, in Upper Austria, bringing scenes associated with Christmas there, in Salzburg, the Salzkammergut and finally Switzerland.

The Music
The music chosen for this tour is principally taken from baroque concertos evoking Christmas.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

A 2020 Grammy nominee for best opera recording!

Also available on Blu-ray

Based on Oscar Wilde’s story The Birthday of the Infanta, Zemlinsky’s single-act opera Der Zwerg is the tragic tale of a dwarf who is presented at court, falls in love with the beautiful Donna Clara, but is ultimately forced to see himself as others see him and to die of a broken heart. Preceded by Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, Op. 34 (1930), Zemlinsky’s Romantic score is full of psychological intrigue. Is Der Zwerg a critique of society’s superficiality? Is it the composer’s self-portrait in his doomed affair with Alma Schindler? Director Tobias Kratzer’s stunning, transparent production creates a space in which each character is thrown into sharp relief in this ‘fine, noble and melancholy work’. (Bachtrack.com)

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Czech-born composer Jaromír Weinberger, best known for his opera Schwanda the Bagpiper, was forced to flee to America in order to escape Nazi terror. Frühlingsstürme, staged in 1933 but soon closed down by the Nazi government, was the last operetta of the Weimar Republic. It is filled with cultural complexity, combining serious operatic style with light comedy, and presents a thrilling story involving a doomed love affair set against war between Japan and Russia. This lavish production is staged by the award-winning Australian director Barrie Kosky.

Also available on Blu-ray

Weber’s ‘great heroic-romantic’ opera Euryanthe premiered in Vienna in 1823. It concerns the wronged Euryanthe, victim of a plot to establish her unfaithfulness, but her love imbues her with colossal strength which Weber characterizes with acute psychological insight. Through-composed and dispensing with spoken dialogue, its chivalric plot provides opportunities for a series of arias, ariosos, duets, cavatinas and choruses that contain some of his greatest operatic music. This production employs the opera’s original version with a few, very minor cuts.

Also available on Blu-ray

Czech-born composer Jaromír Weinberger, best known for his opera Schwanda the Bagpiper, was forced to flee to America in order to escape Nazi terror. Frühlingsstürme, staged in 1933 but soon closed down by the Nazi government, was the last operetta of the Weimar Republic. It is filled with cultural complexity, combining serious operatic style with light comedy, and presents a thrilling story involving a doomed love affair set against war between Japan and Russia. This lavish production is staged by the award-winning Australian director Barrie Kosky.

Also available on Blu-ray

Der fliegende Holländer is considered to be the first ‘true’ Wagner opera. The story of the phantom ship and its haunted master becomes a sensually charged drama with love and tragic sacrifice at its heart, and this original 1841 version leaves the ultimate redemption of its central characters unresolved. Wagner originally conceived the opera for Paris, so it is fitting that this production from the Theater an der Wien is driven by French director Olivier Py’s unique vision, with a staging that dispels many of the misconceptions surrounding Wagner’s art.

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REVIEW:

Played out in stylish black and white on Pierre-André Weitz’s ingenious, frequently revolving set, actors and set elements come and go to sometimes dizzying effect. There’s a dreamlike quality to the action—something only has to be mentioned and it magically appears. The graveyard that springs up at the Dutchman’s feet, the waves that appear at the end, the skull and skeletons, are all theatrical coups. It’s sometimes brain-taxing, yet never less than theatrically engaging and dramatically compelling.

As the Dutchman, Samuel Youn sings with incisive power and great attention to text. Ingela Brimberg’s Senta is viscerally felt with thrilling top notes, if occasionally strident, while Bernard Richter’s warm-toned tenor is spot on as Georg. Lars Woldt’s grasping bully of a Donald raises a nasty misogynist flag about the world in which his daughter is bartered and sold. François Roussillon’s astute video direction manages to focus the action without losing the appropriate sense of scale. Sound—especially orchestral detail—is excitingly meticulous.

– Limelight (Australia)