Beethoven Symphonies 1-9

Beethoven Symphonies 1-9 (or Beethoven Complete Symphonies) box set. Philippe Jordan conducts the Orchestre de L'Opéra National de Paris in all nine Beethoven symphonies. Other performers featured in Symphony No. 9 are Ricarda Merbeth (Soprano), Daniela Sindram (Mezzo-Soprano), Robert Dean Smith (Tenor), Günter Groissböck (Bass), and the Choeurs de L'Opéra National de Paris (José Luis Basso Chorus Master). Grade: NA

Richard Osborne in the December 2016 Gramophone at pages 51-53 condemns this box for weak sound quality. The presentation of technical information about this box seems confusing. Nobody seems to want credit for the video. One has to wonder if sloppiness in the cover also suggests carelessness in the recordings. Can you sometimes judge the book by its cover?

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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.