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Presto News - 11th August 2008Classical Television Broadcasts on the Internet |
 I know from the huge success of our recent DVD special offer that we have many customers who enjoy watching as well as listening to their classical music. So this week I want to take the opportunity to tell you about some of the free classical music television programmes which are currently available to watch via the Internet.  BBC iPlayer Since the BBC iPlayer was launched on Christmas day last year a small revolution has been taking place with regard to how people in the UK are able to watch television. In case you have so far not taken advantage of this service from the BBC (offered to UK residents only), it allows you to stream or download programmes from the BBC website for seven days following broadcast. Once a programme is downloaded you have thirty days to start watching it, and once you have started to watch a programme, it will continue to be available for the next seven days. It has been phenomenally successful with viewers now watching more than a million programmes a week in this way. It includes BBC3 and BBC4 so, from a classical music perspective, now is an excellent time to give it a go, as you will have many Proms broadcasts to enjoy. To get started, go to the BBC iPlayer website. You'll find full details of this year's Proms broadcasts here. For classical music particularly I’d recommend downloading (where you save a copy of the whole programme on your computer before you start watching it) rather then streaming (where the programme is fed into your computer while you are watching it), as the sound and picture quality are far better and you can also jump forward or back in big chunks (necessary for example if the performance you are watching starts with a piece by Hindemith!). First time users will be prompted to get the ‘download manager’ first (a piece of software that sits on your computer and manages all your downloads), and overall it is pretty straightforward to get the hang of. As mentioned above the BBC iPlayer is only available to people resident in the UK, but if you do not fit into that category do not despair as, wherever you live in the world, you can currently benefit from the offering on the DG website of concerts featuring some of their artists at this year's Verbier Festival. With performances featuring the likes of Mischa Maisky, Martha Argerich and Valery Gergiev there is some tempting things here. The performances are only available to stream so the quality is not as good as the BBC downloads but they are free so it is hard to grumble. There are five of them in total, all available until the end of August and you can find full details here. Of course one major disadvantage for many people with both of these is that you’ll have to sit at your computer screen to watch them, often accompanied by fairly basic speakers, but it is exciting to be able to do this at all, especially for free, and I’m sure that in years to come the whole set up of home entertainment and computers will become much more integrated at which point this will cease to be an issue.
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Chris O'Reilly - chris@prestoclassical.co.uk |
New Releases11th August 2008 |
This is just the pick of the recent releases. The New Releases and Future Releases pages are always available for browsing all the new and forthcoming releases. |
 Gustavo Dudamel - The Promise of Music (Documentary & Concert) - DVDSimón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Gustavo DudamelThe Promise of Music is a full-length feature film about the story of Gustavo Dudamel and his Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. The film documents Dudamel preparing his orchestra in Caracas for their upcoming concert at the Beethovenfest in Bonn. By following different musicians in their day-to-day lives, the film shows how classical music is changing the individual characters as much as their environment. The climax of the film is the Bonn concert, a stunning success with standing ovations given to every work on the programme, which included Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and repertoire from the orchestra’s Latin-American homeland. |
 Frantisek Tuma - Partitas, Sonatas and SinfoniasConcerto Italiano, Rinaldo AlessandriniAlthough the Czech born composer Frantisek Tuma may not be among the greatest composers of the eighteenth century, there is in his music the exotic atmosphere typical of the transition from the baroque to classical periods. This collection of music written for small ensembles is performed by acknowledged experts in this area of music, Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano. |
 Martha Argerich - The Solo Piano Recordings - |
 Glossa Cabinet Collection9 new re-issuesOne of the finest Early & Baroque Music labels around, Glossa's catalogue is full of gems. And now with a selection of them attractively re-issued at mid-price they are hard to resist! |
 Simon Rattle Edition2 new bargain priced re-issues take the series to 6 titlesAfter the huge success of the earlier titles in this series, in particular the Mahler and Sibelius boxes, this month EMI have collected together Sir Simon Rattle's Bartok recordings in a 4 CD box and his American recordings in a 7 CD box. |
 Mid-Price Opera Series5 new re-issues in this popular series from EMIFurther proof, if it was needed, of EMI's rich and varied recorded catalogue. Including Domingo and Scotto in Tosca, a Glyndeboune Cosi fan Tutte under Haitink, Gundula Janowitz in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Hermann Prey in Der Freischütz and Enescu's rarely performed work Oedipe. |
 6 Prokofiev Re-issuesScottish National Orchestra, Neeme JärviRather than package them as a box set Chandos have opted for six individual budget priced discs to re-issue their celebrated Prokofiev recordings under Neeme Järvi. Here you'll find almost every orchestral work of any note bar the symphonies, which presumably will follow at some point in the future. |
 Musique d'Abord - 12 New TitlesHarmonia Mundi's budget label continues with another fine batch of releases including a certain Paul Lewis playing Schubert, as well as discs featuring Isabelle Faust and William Christie. |
 Das Alte Werk10 more re-issues from the famed early music labelAnother superb batch of budget priced re-issues including Monteverdi from Nikolaus Harnoncourt, chamber music from Il Giardino Armonico, and Clementi from Andreas Staier |
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