DVD Videos

Lovingly restored, using the finest state-of-the-art technology, classic archive features great performances from legendary artists, offering a unique historical glimpse into our classical heritage. Part of the new 3 DVD batch of Classic Archive releases, sourced from the BBC Archive.

This DVD presents a unique chance to see Leonard Bernstein conducting Bach's Magnificat and Stravinsky's Mass.

Recorded in 1977 in Saint Augustine's Church, London, it is an intimate and moving recording, presenting two of the most important pieces in the choral repertoire.

Bernstein is joined by the distinguished soloists Anny Mory, Patricia Parker, Rodney Hardesty, John Mitchinson and Paul Hudson, accompanied by the English Bach Festival Choir & Orchestra.

Beautifully filmed by Humphrey Burton.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3

Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Original Languages: Latin, English

Subtitles: Latin, English, German, French

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 54 mins

German FSK: 0

How can you combine the Liebeslieder-Walzer of Brahms with Pétrouchka, Stravinsky’s ballet music? Quite simple: you focus on the inherently representational character of these pieces and create a synesthetic conception, as producers Johannes Lederer and Gyula Rácz do on this DVD.

The music of Pétrouchka is illustrated, not as it usually is by ballet dancers, but by the musicians and the music itself. The movements of the performers, their piano- and drum-playing hands, the operating instruments, the hammers striking the strings, the pedals and the sledges are one part of the visualisation. In addition, there are colours and animations showing the precise musical development of the composition, generated by a special computer program.

While Pétrouchka is visualized with technical elements, the realization of Brahms’ Liebeslieder-Walzer centers on nature and feeling. The lyrics and the emotion of the music are presented with paintings, impressions of nature and human portraits.

Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps was inspired by prehistoric rituals as well as by a dance performed for the Slavic god Yarilo. Here the story is transposed to the realm of Santeria – one of the few still practiced archaic religions. The material world is represented as an emotionally impoverished big city, while the spiritual world is symbolized as a tropical island where the Santeria rituals are still practiced. The coupling of Stravinsky’s revolutionary music with the ancient rituals and symbols of the Santeria religion creates a framework for the story of three individuals, oppressed by the pressures of everyday life, who experience personal sacrifice and transformation in the course of a Santeria ceremony.

Nudity and sexual content

Film 1 : The Final Chorale tells the story of Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphonies for Wind Instruments”, a piece he composed in 1920 in memory of Claude Debussy. Using for the first time a “montage” technique juxtaposing short musical sequences and blocks of sound, Stravinsky constructed his work as a bold and majestic piece with complex tempo relations which, until today, still strike musicologists, musicians and audiences alike by their originality. The chorale at the close of the piece explodes in an apotheosis of eclecticism. Frank Scheffer tells this neo-classical musical adventure in a moving documentary, taking the structure and character of the composition as the basic form for the style and editing of the film. His narration includes interviews, archival material on Stravinsky and performances by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.<br><br>Film 2 : Written in 1909, Five Orchestral Pieces is one of Arnold Schönberg’s most famous compositions, representing the revolutionary step from tonal to atonal music. In the composer’s own words, it was just "No architecture, no build up, just an uninterrupted flow of colours, rhythm and moods".

Conductor Michael Gielen rehearses and performs Schoenberg's Op. 16 with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. Each of the five movements is interspersed with interviews as Gielen, Carl Schorske and Charles Rosen who discuss various aspects of Schoenberg's life and works. Rosen also performs the last movement of Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11.