Beethoven and His Contemporaries, Vol. 2

Beethoven and His Contemporaries, Vol 2 concert. Performed 2020 at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen. Bernhard Forck conducts the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Directed for TV by Alexander Radulescu; produced for TV by Harald Letfus. Released 2021, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

The program follows:

Luigi Cherubini, Lodoïska - Overture
Étienne-Nicolas Méhul, Symphony No. 1
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Ignaz Holzbauer, Symphony in E flat major
Justin Heinrich Knecht, Symphony in G major: Le Portait musical de la Nature, ou Grand Simphonie.
Beethoven Symphony no. 6

Here’s a trailer for Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Alas, there are strong suggestions here of DVDitis throughout:

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Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.