Celibidache

Remarkable, but mostly for Celibidache fans
This collection is primarily for Sergiu Celibidache fans, but also for those listeners who are interested in amazingly (at times excruciatingly) detailed and probing readings of these scores, readings that invariably reveal often unheard details - even to those who know the music very well. To my surprise, no Bruckner is included in the box: the composer most closely associated with this conductor who has given us memorable interpretations of his symphonies. But apparently another collection devoted to Celi's Bruckner as well as some individual DVDs are forthcoming. All in all, the video and (stereo) audio of these recordings (made between 1982 and 1994 [only the Strauss "Till Eulenspiegel" in 1965]) are somewhat dated, but mostly fine, with a few exceptions noted below.

DVD 1: Daniel Barenboim is the soloist in these technically quite good 1991 live recordings of the Schumann and Tchaikovsky (nr. 1) piano concertos with the Münchner Philharmoniker. The Schumann is...

A mixed bag, best for Celi afficianados.
If you have a spare 30 bucks, this is not the worst way to spend it. This release is actually five previously published dvds packaged in a cardboard slip cover - so, $6 a piece. Not bad.

Now to the subject matter. Celibidache was a conductor infamous for his glacial tempi, almost anal-retentive attention to minute details in balance and score, and insistence on three times the practice time as normally allowed.(Good thing he never got hold of the Mahler 9 last movement - after the first hour, we'd all be falling on our swords!) This resulted in the majority of his performances being with the Munich Phil., which was one of the few orchestras able to put up with him. Nothing if not opinionated about his peer conductors, it is said that he had few friends in that group.

There are four piano concerti in this set, all played by Daniel Barenboim. It should be said that Barenboim is able to coax the tempi upwards, so pianistically these are not particularly ponderous...



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Mozart's Last 8 Piano Concertos

Plenty of exquisite Mozart
When you buy this disk, you'll get an incredible amount of music for your money (255 minutes), originally filmed in 35 mm and transferred into very decent (stereo) audio and clear, but somewhat soft video. Be aware that these are not exactly "live" recordings made in the Berlin Siemens Villa - an ornate venue - from 1986-1989, at least not in today's common usage: there is no audience, everything is beautifully "staged" without the excitement (and obvious risks) of a concert/audience setting. Perhaps these recordings could be called dress rehearsals, if they were not quite so perfect. Let's call them meditations for piano and orchestra... Regardless of their original intent, they turn out to be an invaluable documentation of Daniel Barenboim at the apex of his powers as a pianist in intense (mostly unsmiling) collaboration with the BPO musicians (apart from the occasional token female still all-male at the time) who had just recovered from the Karajan decades and display both...

Simple Solution
I could not resist getting this blu-ray, which combines the programs from four laserdiscs that I have treasured for twenty years.
AUDIO--The LD audio was great, but the blu-ray audio is significantly better. Barenboim and the reduced forces of the Berliner Philharmoniker have never sounded better. This is a nice complement to Barenboim's recent release of the Beethoven Sonatas (DVD) and Concertos (blu-ray).
VIDEO--Though the blu-ray is promoted as coming from 35 mm film, in fact the laserdisc is in Academic Ratio, and the blu-ray must be masked, as they say. The picture is then blown up to fill the 16:9 TV screen. As a result the moving parts of the picture are really jumpy--things like fingers moving across the piano, hands conducting, strings bowing, all those things that draw your eye. Unfortunately there seems to be a mini-trend in Germany to mask and blow-up nice classical music programs. The same treatment was given to Bach's Matthew Passion, and I have recently seen a...

Mozart meets Hollywood (German version)
First of all, this is by far the most generous Bluray disc to date - 4 hrs. 15mins and all music - no documentary filler. This demonstrates how cheap the labels are with their releases - some with as little as 80 mins. Why aren't they utilizing the huge bluray disc capacity to give us more music? I think we all know the answer to that one - $$$!

Here we are treated to the last eight Mozart piano concerti played wonderfully by Daniel Barenboim at the height of his pianistic capability in the late '80's, aided and abetted by the Berlin Philharmonic on a diet. I am one who thinks that Barenboim's conducting has greatly improved over the last 20 years, whereas his piano playing may have suffered a bit. Here, he is slim, suave, debonair and perfectly coiffed. Quite the matinee idol!

The setting for this extravaganza is the Siemens-Villa,in Berlin, in what looks like a very large drawing room. Eighteenth century chairs and carved baroque music stands sit on the parquet...

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