DVD Videos

Kirk Browning, Director

Famous violinist Itzhak Perlman and Eugene Ormandy, long-standing conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded this fantastic Russian program live at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, in 1978 and 1979 in extraordinary sound quality.

Modest Mussogorsky’s most famous piano composition Pictures at an Exhibition which is deemed to be one of Ormandy’s specialties is orchestrated in the acclaimed Ravel version.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, which is considered as one of the best known and technically most challenging works for violin, is performed by Itzhak Perlman - undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin – who has also been called “one of the greatest musical talents to emerge since World War II” according to violin expert Tully Potter, New Grove.

The concert is directed by the Peabody Award winner Kirk Browning, who is highly acclaimed for staging classical concerts due to his long-time experience as television director and producer.

Picture format: NTSC, 4:3

Sound formats: PCM-STEREO, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Region code: 0

Booklet Notes: German, English, French

Running Time: 89 mins

Recording Place & Date:

Avery Fisher Hall, New York, April 1975 (Symphony no. 4, Violin Concerto, Andante Cantabile)

Tanglewood, July 1974 ( Symphony no. 5)

Joshua Bell lights up the stage with this dazzling performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, the centerpiece of the Nobel Prize Concert© in honour of the 2010 Nobel Prize Laureates. Part of the official Nobel Week, this tribute concert opens with music by Beethoven that urgently evokes the spirit of freedom from tyranny. And closing the evening is a glowing account by Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic of Sibelius’s monument to orchestral majesty, the titanic Fifth Symphony.

BONUS: Interviews featuring Joshua Bell, Sakari Oramo and Mario Vargas Llosa, 2010’s Nobel Laureate in Literature

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9

Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo

Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Running Time: 91:25

Disc Format: DVD 9

FSK: 0

The Places

Our tour of Russia starts in St. Petersburg, including churches and palaces, and, above all, the River Neva, on the banks of which Peter the Great's city stands. We visit Tchaikovsky's house at Klin, near Moscow, and travel south to Ukraine to see Sebastopol in the Crimea and Odessa. Finally we return to St. Petersburg, seeing the surrounding countryside, the city by night, the bridges and the people.

The Music

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky succeeded in uniting strands of Russian musical nationalism with music in the cosmopolitan forms of his training. He spent his childhood and adolescence in St. Petersburg, later moving to Moscow and finally finding some refuge in the country at Klin, where his house is preserved. The music accompanying our tour is Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and his Serenade for Strings.

All his life, Tchaikovsky retained a great affection for his mighty fourth symphony. At the end of 1878, he wrote: “I adore terribly this child of mine; it is one of only a few works with which I have not experienced disappointment”, even referring to it later in his life as his “best symphonic work.” It is coupled here with another of his most popular works, the coruscating 1812 Overture.

Format: Black & White, NTSC

Language: English

Region: All Regions

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Number of discs: 1

Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Studio: Video Artists International

DVD Release Date: March 30, 2004

Running Time: 71 minutes

Hailed by the press as “the definitive video production” of Tchaikovsky’s music, this exceptional concert series, recorded live from the Alte Oper Frankfurt, features the leading Russian conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev and the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. Fedoseyev’s perceptive reading of the works of his fellow countryman, the masterly playing of the orchestra and guest soloists combine to produce performances which are revelatory in their execution and understanding of Tchaikovsky’s music and the Russian heritage.

They are joined by international guest soloists who include the brilliant Japanese violinist Kyoko Takezawa, Brazilian cellist and Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medallist Antonio Meneses, acclaimed Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev, soprano Lydia Shernikh and baritone Alexander Nenaovsky.