Sibelius - Violin Concerto / De Falla - Nights In The Gardens Of Spain DVD

Advantages: Wonderful performance of the Korngold Violin Concerto
Disadvantages: Content repetition, speech over music, disappointing extras, etc

...of the documentary covers a concentrated period of Hilary Hahn's touring life. We start with her about to go onstage at Berlin's famous Philharmonie Hall with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin to perform the Korngold violin concerto conducted by Kent Nagano, there's a taste of that kind of frisson before a performance but straightaway the main issues with the DVD for a potential buyer become obvious. Looking at the DVD one can see that one of the main extras is a complete performance of the Korngold, so why on earth do we find that during the documentary itself - the Korngold also appears almost in its entirety? OK, the 3 movements are separated with documentary coverage of Hilary Hahn, but in total we hear about 16 minutes of the 26 minute long concerto... that's 16 minutes of totally duplicated material! I could understand if perhaps only... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Enchanting and charming tales for the young ones
Disadvantages: Will be watched over and over andover.....

...Well. As planned My son received the new "in the night garden" DVD entitled "Hello Igglepiggle" courtesy of Nana. To be quite honest, I was quite glad as with all children's dvd, they are played over and over again until we as parents hum the tunes or actually know the words that follow. This dvd still has all the charms of the previous dvd but with differrent stories(hooray). All the main characters are back again but the main one seems to be Igglepiggle. A quick run through of some the new episodes. Igglepiggle's blanket walks about itself: The now famous red blanket is left but is seen in the garden walking around to the amazement of the regulars(and amusement of my son who sees it as a peek a boo finish) simply to find out the Makka Pakka is under it. Jumping for everybody: Its jumping time for Upsy Daisy and soon... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: J. S. Bach; all musicians and vocalists; Karajan.
Disadvantages: Karajan's big, ponderous sound and historical inauthenticity, for some.

...choose to take it for what it is - and still enjoy some first-rate performances of two works that again serve to remind us of the towering genius that was Johann Sebastian Bach. Four-and-a-half stars (rounded off to five). = DVD Notes: (This DVD is available for purchase at few places. Here's one, sendit.com, for £10.99/ list is £14.99: http://www.sendit.com/video/item/7000000062208.) This being a musical performance DVD, some criteria rated above do not apply, but Ciao forced me to make a selection, anyway! = NEW YEAR'S EVE CONCERT 1984 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 - 1750) Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo in E Major, BWV 1042 I. Allegro 7.54 II. Adagio 7.02 III. Allegro assai 2.39 Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin Magnificat, BWV 243 Judith Blegen, Soprano Helga Müller Molinari... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful