Mahler Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) & Richard Strauss Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration). Neeme Järvi conducts the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in a live performance in 2012 at Victoria Hall in Geneva. Paul Groves (tenor) and Thomas Hampson (baritone) are soloists. Directed for TV by Jason Starr; produced for Blu-ray by Allan Altman; executive producer was Edward Cardona. Sung in German. Released 2013, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
This is our first HDVD from Video Artists International or VAI. (They published Blu-rays with Jerome Rose playing piano, but we excluded them because the sound was stereo only.)
Das Lied von the Erde consists of the following songs that take about an hour to perform:
Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde
Der Einsame im Herbst
Von der Jugend
Von der Schönheit
Der Trunkene im Frühling
Der Abschied
Das Lied was included as part of the Mahler Symphony Box set published a while back by the Concertgebouw Orchestra. But the bone-headed folks at RCO Live (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) didn't include subtitles in German or any other languages (along with other problems). So we gave that effort a D+. VAI says they will provide subtitles in German, English, French, Italian, and Japanese for this product.
We don't normally associate VAI with recordings that have strong commercial appeal. But the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande has a distinguished history, and both Groves and Hampson are fully qualified. This was available early in the U.S. and Amazon.com customers are giving it 5 stars. So maybe VAI has a winner here. It appears this will not be carried by Amazon in Germany and France, possibly due to copyright problems.
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