Using water as a musical instrument, this extraordinary piece uses innovative techniques to explore the musicality of the sounds of water. Soloist David Cossin displays remarkable genius as he deftly creates unique, sensuous, organic, and sometimes distinctive accompaniment of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer, reflecting his personal combination of Chinese and Western musical tradition.

The Places: The musical tour of Spain starts at the present capital, Madrid, the principal city of Castile. From Madrid it is not too far to the plains of La Mancha, a region always remembered for it's association with the great hero of Miguel Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, whose windmills, mistaken by him for giants, form a characteristic element in the landscape. The varied history of Spain is seen in the city of Cordoba, once capital of a Moorish kingdom, and the gardens of the Alcazar of the Christian Kings. The Music: The music chosen for the tour of Spain may be characteristically Spanish in it's rhythms and turns of melody, but is all the work of foreigners, two of the composers, Chabrier and Massenet, French, and two of them, Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian. For France, geographically adjacent to Spain, there was an obvious connection with Spain, which continued to exercise a certain fascination over it's neighbor. Russian composers in the 19th century embarked on the creation of a new national music, but at the same time drew on remoter countries for inspiration, whether on the different regions of the vast Russian Empire or still further afield.

A Musical Journey - Norway

The Places
The legendary Norwegian figure Peer Gynt is widely known through Henrik Ibsen’s play that follows Peer’s unscrupulous adventures, a work that enjoys still further fame through the incidental music written for it by Edvard Grieg. Parts of the Norwegian countryside are identified with some of Peer Gynt’s adventures.

The Music
Greig collaborated with the greatest of Norwegian dramatists, Henrik Ibsen, in his music for the play Peer Gynt, from which he drew two orchestral suites. Grieg also worked with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, providing incidental music for the historical play Sigurd Jorsalfar.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 54 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

The tour starts with views of Catherine the Great's Palace at Tsarskoe Selo and leads eventually to the resort of Pavlovsk, after scenes from Ukraine. The music is taken from two of Rachmaninov's four piano concertos. The Second Concerto is among the most popular in romantic repertoire, while the Third Concerto is among the most challenging.

Written in 1944, Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony is one of his greatest and most complete symphonic statements. At it's premiere he himself called it "a symphony of the grandeur of the human spirit". The first movement couples considerable strength with unexpected yet highly characteristic twists of melody. After a violent scherzo followed by a slow movement of sustained lyricism, with a fiercely dramatic middle section, the finale blazes with barely suppressed passion. The Year 1941 is another wartime work, a symphonic suite written in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Marin Alsop has been Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007, a relationship now extended to 2015. Currently Conductor Emeritus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, since 1992 she has also been Music Director of California's prizewinning Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Celibidache conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica di Teatro della RAI in Turin in 1969.

Ian Hart, Tim Pigott-Smith, Claire Skinner, Jack Davenport, Frank Finlay, Fenella Woolgar, Lucy Akhurst, Leo Bill, Peter Hanson, Robert Glenister, Anton Lesser. Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / Sir John Eliot Gardiner

By the time the first public performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 (Eroica) took place in Vienna in 1805, a privileged few had already heard the work at a private play-through at the Lobkowitz Palace in June 1804.
Nick Dear’s award-winning period drama, starring Ian Hart as Beethoven, brings to life the momentous day that prompted Haydn to remark ‘everything is different from today’. Filmed in 2003.

Running time: 129 mins
Region Code: All regions
Picture format: 16:9 Anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM Stereo/DTS
Surround Menu language: EN
Subtitle languages: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT

R E V I E W S:

"You could not hope for a stronger cast." -- The Times

"A clever and beautifully made dramatisation." -- Sunday Times

"This was thrilling stuff, as exciting visually as it was aurally." -- Sunday Telegraph

"Ian Hart is brilliant as Beethoven, a volatile, magnetic figure of genius and uncouth charm…not to be missed." -- Daily Mail

Eroica is a semi-authentic dramatized account of the circumstances under which Beethoven’s Third Symphony was unleashed upon an Austrian aristocracy ill prepared to comprehend it, worried over the politics of the French Revolution, and yet somehow aware that it spoke of a world to come that would no longer be theirs. In this effort, the production is a smashing success....

The backdrop is a first rehearsal of the “Eroica” at the Lobkowitz palace. In a large drawing room, the musicians and illustrious guests assemble. The musicians are none other than the members of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, gussied up in full 19th-century Austrian costume. It must have been a real challenge to play in those ruffled cuffs, vests, and heavily adorned jackets, but they manage quite well. For the sake of authenticity, I presume, the female members of the ensemble have been sent packing....

The real art of this film lies in its silent acting. For long stretches, there is no dialogue at all. As the music unfolds, the actors in turn are shot up close, reacting to what they are hearing through intense facial expressions. Some are deeply moving, even disturbing, as in the Funeral March movement, where the camera focuses its lens on Count Dietrichstein. Here is the macho military man who has only words of criticism and disdain for Beethoven’s new symphony (which he maintains cannot even be called a “symphony”), fighting mightily to hold back his tears as the music recalls for him fellow soldiers fallen in battle....

I have complained in the past that in many instances DVDs of concert events have not yet figured out what to do with the visual dimension of the medium. This production offers a novel approach, and it is one that I really like. Part concert (Beethoven’s score is given in full) and part movie, it doesn’t really provide a lot of insight into why the “Eroica” is such a revolutionary work, but it does provide a magnificent snapshot of the cultural milieu into which the symphony was born, and the profoundly sublime to the profoundly ridiculous feelings it must have aroused in its first listeners.

Separate tracks in surround sound are included if you wish simply to listen to the symphony without watching the video, although even these tracks display a running score (ostensibly Beethoven’s original manuscript) interleaved with shots of the orchestra playing. I’m not going to rate the performance itself, because that is not the reason for buying this DVD. Gardiner and these same forces already recorded the “Eroica” on regular CD. The DVD is not the same performance.

This Prix d’Italia award-winning film from the BBC is urgently recommended.

-- Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

The Last Night of the Proms is one of the most famous musical events in the world,watched and listened to by millions. It celebrates British tradition and encapsulates the unique spirit of the BBC Proms, by featuring leading international artists in an all-embracing musical programme that introduces new works alongside much-loved classics. In 2000 Sir Andrew Davis made his final appearance at the helm of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was joined on stage by the outstanding young American violinist Hilary Hahn, and the internationally renowned British soprano Jane Eaglen. A world premiere was also given of a recently discovered piece of Shostakovich to make this finale of the BBC Proms 2000 a memorable celebration of the world's greatest classical music festival.

‘A fulsome farewell to Andrew Davis’s 11-year tenure as the Proms conductor par excellence.’ -- Gramophone

Also available on Blu-ray

Montano - David Ajao
Duke of Venice - Nadia Albina
Bianca - Scarlett Brookes
Roderigo - James Corrigan
Emilia - Ayesha Dharker
Citizen of Venice - Eva Feiler
Gentleman of Cyprus - Owen Findlay
Cassio - Jacob Fortune-Lloyd
Soldier - Guy Hughes
Gratiano - Gwilym Lloyd
Citizen of Venice/Messenger - Rina Mahoney
Iago - Lucian Msamati
Gentleman of Cyprus - Ken Nwosu
Brabantio - Brian Protheroe
Othello - Hugh Quarshie
Gentleman of Cyprus/Herald - Jay Saighal
Lodovico - Tim Samuels
Desdemona - Joanna Vanderham

Iqbal Khan, stage director
Ciaran Bagnall, set and lighting designer
Fotini Dimou, costume designer
Diane Alison-Mitchell (movement) and Kevin McCurdy (fights), choreographers
Music composed by Akintayo Akinbode

Recorded live at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 2015

Bonus:
- The Story of Othello
- Who Is Othello?
- Director’s Commentary
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English
Running time: 180 mins (play) + 13 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

La Scala Ballet’s new, modern-dress staging of the classic Roland Petit ballet on Victor Hugo’s timeless tale of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Two world superstars take the lead roles–Natalia Osipova (Bolshoi Ballet, now Royal Ballet) and Roberto Bolle (La Scala Ballet). Music is by the great film composer, Maurice Jarre, with costumes from international designer, Yves Saint-Laurent. This was a major worldwide live cinema relay from La Scala in spring 2013.

A bold reinvention of a 19th-century classic. Kader Belarbi's fresh scenario and choreography give this colourful yet ultimately tragic story renewed clarity and simplicity. David Coleman conducts a score based on Adolphe Adam's original work, but enhanced with music by composers from Massenet to Sibelius, as well as new compositions and orchestrations by Coleman himself. This is a version for the modern age....'simply magnificent: A miracle in two acts.' - Le Figaro.

SALZBURG

The Places
The places visited are associated in one way or another with Mozart. He was born in 1756 in Salzburg, where his father was a leading musician at the court of the ruling Prince-Archbishop, and remained there, with occasional breaks for foreign concert tours, until he was finally able to break free in 1781 and settle in Vienna, where he spent the last ten years of his short life.

The Music
The music chosen for the tour of Salzburg and its surroundings consists of two piano concertos by Mozart, written during his earlier successful years of independence in Vienna for subscription concerts at which he performed as soloist.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

The Places � The tour begins in the Salzkammergut, most of which lies nowadays in Upper Austria. It includes Hellbrunn Palace and the Residenz in Salzburg and the Styrian city of Graz. The Music � The music for our journey is taken from Mozart's Haffner Serenade, written in honour of a friend in Mozart's native city of Salzburg.

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

It is also available on standard CD.

Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales present a vivid mixture of atmospheric impressionism, intense expression and modernist wit, his fascination with the waltz further explored in La valse, a mysterious evocation of a vanished imperial epoch. Heard here in an orchestration by Marius Constant, Gaspard de la nuit is Ravel’s response to the other-worldly poems of Aloysius Bertrand, and the dance suite Le tombeau de Couperin is a tribute to friends who fell in the war of 1914–18 as well as a great 18th-century musical forbear. ‘It is a delightful and assorted collection…presented in splendid performances by the Orchestre National de Lyon led by their music director, the venerable American conductor Leonard Slatkin.’

Love conquers all, ruthlessly and irresistibly, as Emperor Nero and his mistress Poppea remove the obstacles to their union. At Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu David Alden's visually sumptuous production, with it's suggestions of a giant game of chess, puts the opera's potent blend of sex and politics in a context that sets ancient against modern, just as the action juxtaposes scurrilous comedy and stark drama. Monteverdi's magnificent score, meanwhile, accommodates intrigue, wit, nobility, tragedy and sensuality, and, led by the intense Sarah Connolly and the delectable Miah Persson, the cast brings both drama and music startlingly to life.

ITALY


 


The Places


Our tour of Italy stars in Verona, with its reminiscences of Romeo and Juliet. Then to Florence, for some 300 years, from 1434, the seat of the powerful Medici family, whose artistic patronage has left an impressive cultural legacy. The tour ends in the south, with Naples, originally a Greek colony and later a Roman port, and then capital of a kingdom, ruled by Normans and later from Spain. Briefly a Habsburg possession, from 1734 it belonged to the Bourbons, before the unification of Italy in 1860.


 


The Music


Tchaikovsky stayed in Florence on two occasions in 1878, after the disaster of his marriage, hastily contracted, had led him to seek respite abroad. A visit to Rome in 1880 led to the composition of the Italian Capriccio and his opera The Queen of Spades was written in 1890 in Florence, recalled in the same year in his Souvenir de Florence. The other music heard here is the Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet, written in 1869 and based on Shakespeare's play, set in Verona.


 


Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 72 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

A Musical Journey: Finland

The Places

Scenes of Finland and its capital Helsinki, the interlinked islands of Savonlinna, site of an ancient castle and Kerimäki, with its wooden church, suggest a vision of a remarkable country, moulded by its geographical features and its varied and long history.

The Music

Finland found its musical identity largely through the work of Jean Sibelius. The son of a doctor, Sibelius belonged to a class of which the culture and language was Swedish. He learned Finnish and acquired his knowledge of Finnish literature and legend at school, developed his understanding of music in Germany, principally in Berlin, and established himself as one of the most considerable of the late Romantic symphonists, exploring new possibilities in a vein that might have seemed overworked. Here and in his tone-poems, based largely on Finnish legend, he created a national music that has defied imitation in the very breadth of his conception of the symphonic form.

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

It is also available on standard CD.

PUCCINI, G.: Madama Butterfly (DNO, 2003) (NTSC)

Also available on Blu-ray

Henry IV is dead and Hal is king. With England in a state of unrest, he must leave his rebellious youth behind, striving to gain the respect of his nobility and people. Laying claim to parts of France and following an insult from the French Dauphin, Henry gathers his troops and prepares for a war that he hopes will unite his country.

Sound Format: 2.0LPCM, 5.1 DTS
Subtitles: English
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)

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

Also available on standard DVD

Written almost two centuries ago by Saverio Mercadante, coveted by many theatres of the day, Francesca da Rimini was, in fact, never staged. Every time it was scheduled for performance, something happened and it got canceled. A long series of incidents prevented it from reaching the stage for as many as 185 years. Its forgotten manuscript, which was only known for its ill-starred fate, suddenly re-emerged five years ago in Madrid, teh city where it was to have been premiered in 1831. The soprano Leonor Bonilla is quite impressive in the part of the protagonist: she portrays the character's psychological frailty as well as her determination wtih a steely vocal technique, spinning out incredible modulations, displaying strong and dazzling vocalizations, easily soaring into the high register and flaunting such an attractive, casual and poignant stage presence that she even dares moving some dance steps with the corps de ballet. Aya Wakizono is an admirable Paolo: endowed with a superb mezzo voice, she seeks and achieves consistency throughout the range, is virtuosic in the coloratura, and fluent. No less demanding is the part of the tenor Lanciotto, with its fearful leaps and ornamentation worth of the Neapolitan Rossini: Mert Sungu might in time get rid of a touch of harshness here and there, but already now he can tackle all the difficulties of the part with a timbric quality and an expressively worth of note...

Can the dualism of life, nature and art be expressed in pure music? This is the question the multi-talented composer Flint Juventino Beppe - formerly known as Fred Jonny Berg - has set out to answer. The album Remote Galaxy is a journey in time and space, a journey given meaning by the album's music and philosophy. The music is uncompromisingly honest, with a genuine power of it's own. Using well-known acoustic technology, the composer takes US to some unusual and, for most of us, unknown places. Remote Galaxy continues the journey of 2L's Grammy nominated album Flute Mystery, and again the Philharmonia Orchestra is conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy to interpret these adventurous scores. The composer's deep spiritual interest in nature, philosophy and space is as central in the universe of Remote Galaxy as it was in Flute Mystery. Beppe's music leaves a unique fingerprint in the artistic world: there is quite simply nothing like it. The individual and inventive nature of his orchestral works demands a rich palette of instruments and an extended use of woodwinds, brass and organ. As solo instruments, the intense but delicate sound of the clarinet, the scope of the flute's range of expression and the special characteristics of the rarely used viola da gamba make for an inimitable atmosphere captured in 2L's innovative surround sound technology. With the introduction of height channels, acoustic reflections create a natural sound presence originating from both around and above the listener.

In its original form, Maria di Rohan was without doubt the most audacious result – pre-Verdi – of aesthetic transformation beyond the courtly dramas of “long Italian classicism”. The opera’s intrigue develops like an unstoppable machine: the fatal triangle formed by Maria, Chalais and Chevreuse being the work of Richelieu’s absolute power (despite never appearing on stage). Like trapped animals, the characters hopelessly search for a way out, and they devour each other in turn. Recorded at the Bergamo Donizetti Festival, October 2011, this is the first DVD release of Donizetti’s 1843 opera.

Schumann at Pier2 is not a usual concert film; it shows the 4 Symphonies of Schumann from a new perspective. Stars of the film are the conductor Paavo Jarvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and it's filmed at Pier2 a former dockyard in the harbor of Bremen.

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Also available on standard CD

This unique programme is the first time that all the ballet music from Verdi’s operas has been brought together in a singe recording. Although The Four Seasons from I vespri siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers) and the ballet scenes from Aida and Otello have survived, substantial pieces from Il trovatore and Don Carlo are more often cut, while the ballet from Jérusalem is all but unknown. José Serebrier’s recordings with the Bournemouth Symphony have resulted in some great successes with unusual repertoire. This release will be of interest both to opera enthusiasts and to those eager to explore Verdi’s neglected and relatively small body of concert music.

R E V I E W:



VERDI Complete Ballet Music from the Operas • José Serebrier, cond; Bournemouth SO • NAXOS 8.57218-19 (2 CDs: 115:22); NAXOS NBD0027 (Blu-ray audio: 115:22)


This pair of discs includes ballet music from Otello, Macbeth, Jérusalem, Don Carlo, Aida, Il trovatore , and I vespri Siciliani —much of it music we don’t get to hear in performances of these operas. The most direct competition for this set is the four-disc Chandos series featuring all of this music plus all the preludes and overtures, with the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Downes. If you have those discs, this would probably be a needless duplication. But comparing the performances demonstrates Serebrier to be the more interpretively interesting conductor. Downes’s performances are more than competent, and he does hold one’s interest throughout what is not always first-rate music. I reviewed the Downes recordings as they were released, in Fanfare 20:5, 21:6, and 23:5.


Serebrier, however, brings to the music a greater variety of color, more rhythmic energy, and a wider range of ideas about phrasing. The vitality of his rhythm is perhaps the most significant difference, and it can be heard everywhere, in slow or fast music. The extra lilt he brings, for example, to the waltz right after the introduction of the Don Carlo ballet brings a smile to the listener.


There are fine, comprehensive notes to accompany the disc, and Naxos’s recorded sound is well balanced and clear, if a bit closer-in than the Chandos. While not all of this music is at Verdi’s most inspired level, none of it is unworthy of our attention. Second-rate Verdi is still better than most composers’ gems! Serebrier’s colorful, charming, and highly committed performances, and the Bournemouth Symphony’s excellent playing, make this a highly recommendable disc.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel