DVD Videos

“Watching Boulez hone his interpretations is fascinating and the interspersed interviews, recorded at Berg's apartment in Vienna, are an effective complement. The VPO's approach to Boulez's own Notations is fascinating and the sheer beauty of their playing in what cannot be very familiar music to them is impressive.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2003

“What an advantage DVD provides in comparison with the Philips CD of this concert. Quite apart from the bonus of visual presentation, the DVD offers five numbers omitted from the CD – two of them by Josef Strauss celebrating his 175th anniversary, the polkas Arm in Arm and Im Pfluge and three Johann Strauss numbers, the Carnevalsbotschafter waltz, the Beliebte Annen polka and Perpetuum mobile.
Ozawa is at his most relaxed, naturally idiomatic in his often extreme use of idiomatic pauses and of warm rubato, reflected in his decision not to use a baton, relying instead on the inborn expressiveness of the Viennese players to mould in perfect time. In the Fledermaus Overture, for example, the switches of tempo and rhythm and the affectionate phrasing are immaculately achieved with a mere flutter of the fingers from the conductor.
Even by the standards of this celebratory occasion this was an unusually warm and happy event thanks to Ozawa. And more than anyone since Karajan in his one New Year concert, Ozawa controls the clapping of the audience, limiting it to the proper passages in the final Radetzky March. The direction can't be faulted.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Including: An der schönen blauen Donau, Radetzky-Marsch, Kaiser-Walzer, Lob der Frauen, Hungarian Dance no. 5&6, Aufforderung zum Tanze

“In the largely pre-TV 1940s the Central Office of Information leavened its government propaganda films with 'improving' cultural subjects, and so preserved images of legendary performers such as Dame Myra Hess, at her morale-raising wartime recitals in the... National Gallery, intense but graceful in Beethoven's Appasionata and a chunk of Mozart concerto. Equally poignant is Dennis Brain... debonairly playing a Beethoven horn sonata... Deservedly famous is The Instruments of the Orchestra, for which Britten created his Purcell variations. Sir Malcolm Sargent introduces the instruments as crisply as he conducts the wartime LSO...” BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 ****

“An absorbing nostalgic trip back to the 1940s; but more than that it is a very good tutorial for newcomers to orchestral music and to the ballet.” MusicWeb International