Music Is the Language of the Heart and Soul: A Portrait of Mariss Jansons and Mahler Symphony No. 2. Here's the content:
1. Portrait of Mariss Jansons. Documentary by film maker Robert Neumüller on the life and career of Mariss Jansons. Produced by Felix Breisach; camera by Robert Neumüller.
2. Mahler Symphony No. 2 with Jansons conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir in 2009 in Amsterdam. Ricarda Merbeth sings soprano and Bernarda Fink is the mezzo-soprano. Directed for TV by Joost Honselaar; camera by Marlies Puijk; lighting by Pascal Naber; sound by Everett Porter; edited by Ronald be Beer; produced by Ronald Kok.
Released 2012, the documentary has stereo and the concert has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C-
The concert portion of this disc is the same recording as found in the RCO 10-disc Mahler Box Set. While we liked the audio quality and the performance itself, we gave Symphony No. 2 a D+ for soft PQ, an extreme case of DVDitits, and lack of subtitles for the sung portions of the symphony. For this release, C Major has included German and English subtitles, which bumps the grade to C-.
The documentary is inconsequential. Jansons himself is charming enough as he reminisces about his youth, his parents, and interactions with musicians and orchestras. But you learn from this little beyond what you can read from Jansons' Wikipedia page. The interviews with fellow musicians are nothing but laudatory praise—which is great for Jansons but doesn't make for compelling film making. It is nice to see different concert halls and European cities, including many scenes in Riga. But unless one has a keen interest in architecture or is a devoted Jansons fan, this documentary is not interesting.