Variations (Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 / Brahms: Handel Variations, Op. 24 / Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988)

Truly remarkable
This DVD, in the space of a few days since purchase, has become one of the favorites in my growing collection. It offers three great works for the piano played by three artists who understand them and have the technique to do with this fiercesome music as they wish. Each work presents enormous technical difficulty, as well as severe intellectual challenges. Andras Schiff, who plays Bach's Goldberg Variations, fulfills this job description most successfully of all. I have never enjoyed Glen Gould's coldly technical approach to this work and much peferred the humanity that Roslyn Tureck brings to it. Schiff's interpretation and playing style are closer to Tureck, but he adds a poetic dimension that is not present in the latter's otherwise admirable performances, as well as investing the work with a wonderful spirituality. Daniel Barenboim's is a more aloof performance. The Diabelli Variations are Beethoven at his most austere, and they go on a long time. I have never heard them in...





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Mahler: Autopsy of a Genius

good idea, not so good finished product
On the face of it, this seems like it couldn't lose - narrated by Mahler's most comprehensive biographer, interviews with noted Mahler conductors - what could go wrong? As it turns out, plenty!

It's done purely chronologically, but anyone who loves Mahler's music or done any reading about him will already know 90% of this.If you want to experience how this should be done, get the Michael Tilson Thomas Keeping Score set, which contains a very good Symphony #1, and whole movements from #5, 7 and 9. His analysis his impeccable, and I did learn a LOT from his set, especially the use of recurring motifs. Plus the sound and photography are top-notch.

Back to the current release. Euroarts lifted sections fron their own Abbado Mahler set (which has excellent sound and picturebut the quality is awful on this disc. Sound is only offered in stereo, no surround. Berstein's set is sampled also, but the sound and picture is dated on the original anyway. Boulez #2 is also...

Mahler--Dissected
This engaging and picturesque biograghy of Gustav Mahler deserves praise and appreciation. That the world's foremost expert on his life narrates and that some of the finest Mahler interpreters conduct, serve to enhance the marvelous vistas depicted in this documentary on Mahler's life. While reviewing the details,
struggles, triumphs and anguish of his life, we follow him via stunning photograghy from his birthplace in Iglau, to Vienna, the Dolomites, and finally to New York City. While excerpts of most of his symphonies are
depicted, intelligently inserted to fit his life story, it is surprising that no real mention is made of his Eighth Symphony and his tremendous success at its premiere in Munich. Yet, who can truly argue with the rest? To listen to his music conducted by Bernstein, Abbado, Boulez, and Harding while hearing directly from Henry-Louis de la Grange is an opportunity not to be missed. They dissect Mahler's life and creative output with loving care. We are...

A fascinating look at the man himself
For so many people, Gustav Mahler is a love-hate thing - you either are enthralled by his music, or you strongly dislike it. I fall in the former camp in that I just can't get enough of it. So for me, this documentary (being focused on bringing the truth of the man to light, rather than the idolized image) was right up my alley if it lived up to its description. And it most definitely does.

The film includes interviews with Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Danielle Gatti, Thomas Hampson, and others, and each has something unique to add to the depiction of Mahler being presented. Fascinating are descriptions and images of areas in which he spent his childhood, as are the images of his summer home where he composed and the artifacts that remain as physical evidence of his presence - his glasses, baton, scores, and manuscripts. It is enlightening to hear stories of his time in Vienna as well as New York, and the film paints a picture of a man determined to express how he...

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