Mahler Symphony No. 9

Mahler Symphony No. 9 concert. Daniel Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin. Directed for video by Andreas Morell. Also features The Mahler Project documentary. Released 2016, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

This was recorded in 2009 and first came out in DVD in 2011. A review on the Arkivmusic website states, "The video production is evenly divided between orchestra and conductor with a few distant shots of the entire stage." This is exactly how a good DVD of a symphony was made in 2009. It's also a most succinct description of DVDitis. Caution advised as this DVD now receives a new Blu-ray cloak.

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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.