Avie — New Titles/Journal

Pieces performed are:

Mahler Symphony No. 10 (Clinton Carpenter version)
Qigang Chen: Wu Xing (Five Elements)

Lan Shui conducts the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 2009. TV direction by Ruth Käch. Released 2010, this disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio surround sound. Grade: F

Mahler only completed the first movement - the famous Adagio - of what was intended to be his 10th symphony. This recording is of a Symphony No. 10 as completed by Clinton Carpenter. This title remains (October 2017) the only video of a Carpenter version of Mahler 10. Qigang Chen is a native of China who became a French citizen. He is a prolific composer, and Wu Xing (Five Elements ) is one of his better known works.

What's New

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.