DVD Videos

This DVD presents a wonderful recording of the opening concert of the Salzburger Festspiele from 2012 – an annual highlight on the Classical Music calendar traditionally performed by the vibrant heart of the festival: the Wiener Philharmoniker.

The program from 2012 was Russian themed with a focus on the most profound questions of human life with excellent interpretations of Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Modest Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony.

The concert is conducted by Valery Gergiev, general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, winner of the Herbert-von-Karajan Award and the Polar Music Prize. Russian tenor Sergei Semishkur, soloist at the Mariinsky theatre, excels in his intense interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sound formats DVD: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.0, DTS 5.0

Region code: All (worldwide)

Subtitles: English, German, French

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 90 mins

C Major presents From the New World: a concert featuring Dvořák’s iconic Symphony No. 9 alongside works by Ives, Adams and Stravinsky.

The concert is performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons.

Andris Nelsons, Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is one world’s the most interesting up-coming conductors. He has appeared at Covent Garden, the Met, Bayreuth and the Wiener Staatsoper. He has also performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker.

PICTURE: 16:9, HD

SOUND: DVD: DTS 5.1, PCM STEREO

RUNNING TIME: 95 MINUTES

AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE

In celebration of the creation of 'Le Sacre du printemps' in Paris in 1913, Bel Air present a new edition in a DVD-book of a wonderful Stravinsky night at the Mariinsky with the original Nijinsky version of the 'Rite of Spring' and 'The Firebird' both conducted by Valery Gergiev.

The premiere of 'The Rite of Spring' at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris, on May 1913 caused a veritable scandal. The audience was shocked by the primitive violence of the ballet. It was so radically rejected that the ballet was taken off after eight performances. Although long forgotten, thanks to the relentless work of Millicent Hodson, Nijinsky’s original choreography was recreated.

'The Firebird' is a Russian folk tale in two scenes commissioned from the young Stravinsky by Diaghilev and premiered at the Paris Opera House in 1910. The ballet was an immediate success. The Ballets Russes enabled the choreographer Fokine to bring to this enterprise the right amount of novelty needed to captivate but not alienate the audience. It was a total success.

CONTENTS: DVD BOOK, 2 ballets 85 min.

Bonus: Documentary on the Ballets Russes (8 min), interviews with Millicent Hodson & Kenneth Archer (30 min), 36pp illustrated in 3 languages

Format: Colour, 16/9, NTSC, Sound: PCM Stereo - Dolby Digital 5.1.

Conducted by Grammy award winning Paavo Järvi the Orchestre de Paris exquisitely performs three landmark pieces of orchestral music.

Both of Stravinsky’s ballet scores and Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune are well suited for a DVD recording. The wildly varying moods under Järvi’s expert guidance are superbly caught in this high quality production.

The orchestra undertake international tours and aims to reach all genres of people. Järvi became the Music Director at the beginning of the 2010/11 season, and after just seven months his contract was extended to the end of 2016.

Set Designer George Tsypin

Costume Designers Martin Pakledinaz & Helen Siebrits

Lighting Designer James F. Ingalls

Iolanta is a one act lyric opera, sung in Russian, by Tchaikovsky. Performed in the style of a nineteenth-century Italian melodrama, the scenes have a recitative introduction followed by a single arioso, aria, duet or chorus.

Persephone is a three act melodrama, sung in French, by Stravinsky. It is a story of regeneration, symbolised in Sellars use of dancers from the Cambodian dance company, Amrita Performing Arts.

Peter Sellars, one of the most innovative creators on today's stage, has linked these two productions by using the same stage setting, instantly archaic yet modern, and lit by rich colours to define the journey from darkness to light.

‘Luckily for all of us, it wasn’t enough for Leonard Bernstein to compose music and conduct orchestras. He felt equally compelled to talk about music – to try and explain what made it tick, what made it good, and what made it affect us in all the ways that music does. The other piece of good luck was that Leonard Bernstein and television came along at the same time. They were born for each other.’ (Jamie Bernstein)

The films on this DVD are taken from the ‘Symphonic Twilight’ series of TV programmes made in the mid-Sixties that were the brainchild of Humphrey Burton, then the newly appointed Head of Music and Arts Programmes for the BBC.

In his booklet notes for this DVD, Burton reveals himself to have been instrumental in bringing Bernstein the conductor to the wider British public, who knew him foremost as the composer of West Side Story. In 1965 Burton persuaded Bernstein to conduct the LSO at the Royal Albert Hall and the resulting Mahler 8 was a spectacular occasion, broadcast to the nation.

The following year, they put together these programmes, filmed specifically for the new television audience. The works Bernstein chose to record are twentieth-century orchestral masterpieces, for which he is known to be a champion. His recordings of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony for CBS Records and Deutsche Grammophon were acclaimed by critics worldwide, and his interpretation of The Rite of Spring in 1959 elicited an enthusiastic ‘Wow!’ from Stravinsky himself! They are accompanied on this DVD by an in-depth interview, given here as a bonus and subtitled in French and German.

Sound format: Enhanced Mono

DVD format: NTSC

Picture format: 4:3

Running time: 83’

Subtitles: F/G

Menu languages: English

Booklet languages: E/F/G

Region code: 0

Territory Restrictions: None

In 2011 the Berliner Philharmoniker and their musical director Sir Simon Rattle welcomed in the New Year with a gala concert programmed with ‘Dances & Dreams’.

Spinetingling and inspiring performances of music by Dvořák, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Brahms are complemented by the extraordinary talent of the multi-awarded Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin. Kissin’s musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have placed him at the forefront of today’s pianists, and his passionate performance of the renowned Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg is mesmerizing.

Kissin's musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have placed him at the forefront of today's pianists.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9

Sound formats: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0

Region code: All (worldwide)

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 89 mins

This DVD explores the interaction between the members whilst performing these four key 20th Century works for String Quartet.

The quartet firmly believes that music should be seen as well as heard. The mechanics of playing and the communication of the players are what create the art.

The Kreutzer Quartet comprise Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), Mihailo Trandafilovski (violin), Morgan Goff (viola) and Neil Heyde (cello).

The Kreutzer Quartet has forged an enviable reputation as one of the Europe’s most dynamic and innovative string quartets. The ‘Independent’ newspaper summed up their playing as ‘Passion, Grace and Steel…’.

They are the dedicatees of numerous works, and over many years forged creative partnerships with composers including Sir Michael Tippett, David Matthews, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, and Haflidi Hallgrimsson. They have a particularly strong relationship to a cross-section of leading American composers, having collaborated intensively with the great George Rochberg in the last few years of his life, as long as working closely with figures as Elliott Schwartz, and the prolific symphonist Gloria Coates.

As recording artists they have won critical acclaim for their discs on the Naxos, Metier, and Chandos labels. Their work in collaboration with art galleries has garnered much attention, and large audiences, particularly their annual residency at the Tate Gallery, St Ives. In 2008 they appeared at several Festivals including the Venice Biennale, and the Montpelier Festival. They are ‘Artists in association’ at York University.

Double sided DVD - one side NTSC, one side PAL

In this celebrated Glyndebourne Festival production, David Hockney’s designs for director John Cox reinterpret the Hogarth etchings that inspired the opera’s libretto, written for Stravinsky by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

In 2010, this revival under Glyndebourne’s Music Director, Vladimir Jurowski, captured the opera’s neo-classical spirit and its juxtaposition of whimsy, cynicism and compassion, prompting the Financial Times to call it, ‘‘as enjoyable a performance of Stravinsky’s opera as any that has come along".

Extra features:

Documentary includes interview with David Hockney Introduction to the Rakes’s Progress Running time 150 mins

Region Code All regions

Picture format 16:9 Anamorphic

Sound format 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Menu languages EN

Subtitles EN/FR/DE/ES

Founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Frederick Ashton created more than 100 ballets over a 60 year career. Showcasing three of his shorter works, this disc reflects the breadth of his sophisticated, elegant and widely popular style.

Les Patineurs evokes the Edwardian skating rink, with all its youthful charm and humour, in contrast to Scènes de Ballet where sharp geometric shapes and the music of Igor Stravinsky are combined to create perhaps Ashton’s most modernist work.

Divertissements, a collection of eight short dances, features some of Ashton’s most lyrical choreography, including pas de deux set to Romantic masterpieces by Tchaikovsky and Massenet.

Extra features:

Interviews with dancers from Les Patineurs

Running time 96 mins approx

Region Code All regions

Picture format 16:9 Anamorphic

Sound format 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Menu languages EN

Subtitles EN/FR/DE/ES