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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Bach - Organs, Toccatas & FantasiasA film by Bruno Monsaingeon
This 1990 programme can best be described as a musical journey through Baroque Europe in the company of Johann Sebastian Bach, as performed by Marie-Claire Alain. The legendary French organist Marie-Claire Alain plays some of the composer’s greatest organ music on the most magnificent and famous organs in Europe. As she plays she also gives a fascinating insight into their history, and shares her deep knowledge and passion for these instruments and the genius of Bach. Bach travelled little during his lifetime, but director Bruno Monsaingeon extends the geographical scope of Bach’s activities by including organs best suited to his music. The instruments featured here, at venues including Haarlem, Groningen, Rötha and Dresden, are ones which Bach himself would have played, or which were built to his specifications. Approx Duration: 55 mins Picture format: NTSC 4:3 FF Colour Region Code: 2,3,4,5 Audio: L-PCM Stereo Programme language: French Subtitles: English, French, German “...virtuosic performances and good insights.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2010 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Martha Argerich - Verbier 2007-2008
Bach, J S: | Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV826 Martha Argerich (piano) | Bartók: | Violin Sonata in E minor, BB28 Martha Argerich (piano) & Renaud Capuçon (violin) | Grieg: | Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36 Martha Argerich (piano) & Mischa Maisky (cello) | Lutoslawski: | Variations on a Theme by Paganini, for two pianos Martha Argerich & Gabriela Montero (pianos) | Mozart: | Andante and Variations in G for Piano Duet, K501 Martha Argerich & Stephen Kovacevich (piano) | Shostakovich: | Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 Martha Argerich (piano), Joshua Bell (violin), Henning Kraggerud (violin), Yuri Bashmet (viola) & Mischa Maisky (cello) |
A collection of the most wonderful performances given at the Verbier Festival (2007 and 2008) by the legendary pianist Martha Argerich, featuring some of the most talented musicians of today. Martha Argerich proves once again her great pianistic technique in a wave of virtuosity, performing emblematic works of the greatest composers ever. Moreover, she is accompanied by the best and most renowned cellists, pianists and violinists one can imagine: Stephen Kovacevich, Mischa Maisky, Renaud Capuçon… NTSC · 16:9, PCM Stereo Region Code: 0 Booklet notes: English Running time: 125 mins FSK: all audiences “…Argerich's matriarchal presence casts a benign glow over the proceedings, and her keyboard wizardry remains as abundant and remarkable as ever.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Arranged for 16 Strings, 4 Winds, Harpsichord and Organ
Live Recording from The Radialsystem V Berlin, 2007. When the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin selected The Art of Fugue for a programme to mark its 25th anniversary, the decision was not based simply on the magnificent piece of music with which Johann Sebastian Bach crowned his life’s work. For Stephan Mai, the ensemble’s principal violinist, Bach’s composition represents a “heavenly democracy”, in which “all players can think and speak as they please, aloud or quietly to themselves, for they will not interfere with anyone else. Each player is required at all times. Even during the pauses.” The Akademie für Alte Musik plays its own arrangement of Bach’s work, sharing out the 18 counterpoints among a number of spatially distinct instrumental groupings. During the recording of the concert given on 28 November 2007 at the Radialsystem in Berlin, the ensemble granted director Uli Aumüller complete freedom of movement and intimacy. “It is rare to find oneself as at ease between the active life and the life of contemplation as in Bach’s universe-filling music, the timeless diversity of which is simply incomparable in this performance of absolute conviction. […] At the end one is left speechless, fulfi lled and enriched by the sort of experience no solo performance could possibly extract from the work.” Klassik.com Sound Format: PCM STEREO DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC Picture Format: 16:9 Running Time: 82 mins FSK: 0 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Eugene Ugorski & Konstantin LifschitzLive from the Miami International Piano Festival, 2009
Eugene Ugorski (violin), Konstantin Lifschitz (piano) | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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Konstantin Lifschitz (piano) Bach's magnum opus, The Well-Tempered Clavier, is, for keyboard artists, a daunting master-piece exploiting the very limits of the instrument and those who brave its challenges. The young Russian pianist Konstantin Lifschitz has made Bach a specialty in his programming and his performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier - played from memory - in New York and Miami have elicited superlatives from the critics. In an interesting variation in performance practice, Konstantin Lifschitz combines the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier by following each prelude and fugue from Book I with the corresponding prelude and fugue from Book II, thus keeping the key signatures together and creating a steady progression through the scale to the end of the series. | | | This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched. |
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| |  | Paul Tortelier - Testament to Bach
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The most important work of the baroque keyboard repertoire, played by four world-class pianists. Each artist performs twelve Preludes and Fugues from the work at one of four exceptionally charming venues: the Palazzo Labia in Venice, the Guell Palace in Barcelona, the Wartburg in Eisenach and the New Art Gallery in Walsall. The performances were so recorded and impressively staged that the highly skilled visual direction literally opens up entirely new perspectives on Bach’s music. The complete Well-Tempered Clavier, which requires normally 4 audio discs, on only 2DVDs. “Here you are made more than conscious of a pianist in rapt communion with Bach’s spirit” Gramophone on Andrei Gavrilov “McGregor’s verve, energy and astounding technique are always at the service of the music and never vice versa. Her ability to inhabit so many sound worlds with the same intensity andcommitment is profoundly impressive” BBC “… extraordinary intimacy with the piano, which withholds no secrets of keyboard brilliance or expressive colouring from him, maximises the potential in the scoring …” The Times on Nikolai Demidenko “The pianist who will define Bach performance on piano for years to come” Stereophile on Angela Hewitt Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9 Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 121 mins (DVD 1) 139 mins (DVD 2) Audience: all “A novel and successful way to present the great 48: inventive camera-work in exotic locations allows us to savour four very different pianistic approaches. Pellucid Hewitt and visionary Gavrilov are the stars.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2011 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Stephen Kovacevich live at Verbier FestivalRecorded at Verbier Festival, July 2009
This series of TV programmes presents the very best of the 16th Verbier Festival with worldwide renowned artists such as Susan Graham, Martha Argerich, Stephen Kovacevich, Yuri Temirkanov and Philippe Jaroussky. Stephen Kovacevich, distinguished highly regarded American pianist and conductor, is famous for his tremendous interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann which are renowned. He has conducted many of the world’s finest orchestras, for example the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, London Mozart Players, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra or Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He has won unsurpassed admiration for his interpretations of the piano oeuvre by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Schubert for the thoughtful and intense creativity; his concert appearances are always unique. Kovacevich made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11. When he was 14, he already played Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major and Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. His international reputation has been built both on his concert appearances, renowned for their thoughtfulness and re-creative intensity, and on the highly acclaimed recordings he has made throughout his career. 'In a period when Beethoven interpretation has become fairly standardized, Kovacevich remains a free spirit, making a profoundly personal response to the music and playing in an improvisatory style, which fits descriptions of how Beethoven performed his own music.' Boston Globe Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9 Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1 Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Running time: 95 min FSK: 0 “Filmed in his seventieth year, this recital is proof that pianist Stephen Kovacevich is still very much in his prime...And the unfussy camera-work is just what we need to savour the mechanics of his art: most of the shots are of his hands in close-up, showing the surgical precision of his finger-work. The film draws us intimately in.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 **** “The [Bach] Partita is quite outstanding while the Schumann, with each little poem gratifyingly linked without pause, is charmingly characterised...If you need an illustration of masterly production on the piano, look no further.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2010 “The positive aspect of this aprticular DVD is what it reveals about Stephen Kovacevich's personal approach...His interpretation of Bach's Partita No. 4 in D major is exemplary. There is absolutely no attempt at harpsichord imitation...He plays the music as if Bach intended it for the modern piano...it is a great privilege to hear him play these works.” International Record Review, December 2010 “[The Diabellis are] custom built for Kovacevich. Nothing this artist does is less than compelling...Martial Barrault's camera angles achieve a nice balance to catch both an overall picture and a close-up of his hands.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | A Ballet by John Neumeier
Peter Schreier (Evangelist and tenor arias), Bernd Weikl (Jesus), Mitsuko Shirai (soprano), Marga Schiml (alto) & Franz Grundheber (bass) Hamburg Ballet, St.-Michaelis-Orchester, St.-Michaelis-Chor, Knabenchor Hannover & Knabenchor St. Michaelis, Günter Jena Live Recording from Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 2005. Choreography, Staging, Scenography by John Neumeier. “I am both Christian and a Dancer” 'John Sebastian Bach‘s Matthew Passion has deeply moved me. Bach‘s musical incarnation of the Passion in both its general and personal aspects created the need in me to fi nd a choreographic equivalent. I am both Christ and a dancer. My whole life, all my thought and feeling are the dance, and choreography is my real language. That is why I have attempted to express my own religious convictions and experiences in choreographic terms and to organize them in artistic form. In my entire career as a choreographer, I have never known a period in which I enjoyed such complete harmony with the dancers, as I have enjoyed throughout the creation of the St. Matthew Passion. It was a period of learning from one another, of experiencing instinctively together the emotion of text and music, of positive cooperation and concentration. Even if this ballet had never got beyond rehearsals and had never been performed, the process of its creation will remain the most profound experience of my working life.' John Neumeier „One‘s imagination can feast on this ballet and its implications, one can become personally involved, but it is difficult if not impossible to imagine any other company performing it. It is the unique expression of this man and this company he has forged.“ Dance Magazine BONUS: Includes a Multi-Angle-View Sound Format: PCM Stereo Picture Format: 16:9 DVD Format: 1 x DVD5, 2 x DVD9, NTSC Running Time: 211 mins FSK: 0 “Neumeier, who bows out here as Christ-like dancer, sees this as his finest achievement. Balletomanes may agree; music lovers might be baffled by choreographed Bach.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2011 *** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Bach: Magnificat & CantatasLive Recording from The Kloster Melk Benedictine Monastery, 2000
The programme of this concert, recorded at one of Austria‘s finest baroque monasteries, is dedicated to the works which Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for Advent, two of his finest cantatas and his Magnificat. The performances of these three works are excellent. Not only are the choir and orchestra of the quality one expects from a conductor such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, but the soloists including Christine Schäfer and Ian Bostridge are all top-notch as well. A must-have disc for collectors of Bach DVDs. Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0 Picture Format: 16:9 DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC Subtitle Languages: DE, GB, FR, ES, IT Running Time: 82 mins FSK: 0 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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