HDVD Arts

This website is about high-definition video recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, painting, and sculpture. We call these recordings "HDVDs." Below this welcome are hundreds of stories about HDVDs. But first check out the Index of Titles/Alphalist to the left, which is the best thing about this site.

With the help of confrere William Alexander Huang, we have set out standards for grading HDVDs of symphonic orchestra recordings. We just applied those standards to a re-review and re-grading of the three New Year's Concert discs we now have. (Check the Alphalist for the new grades, etc.)

At long last, we now have two HDVDs about fine-art paintings; both dealing with the art and life of Vincent van Gogh. The better title is called simply Vincent Van Gogh. It offers 2 and 1/2 hours of wonderful images of paintings and drawings with expert discussion from art historians at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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Friday

Sep162011

Mahler Symphony No. 10

This concert title has:

1. Mahler Symphony No. 10

2. Qigang Chen: Wu Xing --- Five Elements (short bonus composition)

Mahler only completed one movement of what was intended to me his 10th symphony. This recording is of a Symphony No. 10 completed by Clinton Carpenter. Wu Xing --- Five Elements is a modern piece by a Chinese composer who now lives in the West. 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

Singapore, a tiny polyglot nation of 5 million souls, has one of the most successful economies on earth. It has a symphony orchestra that is working its way up playing western classical music. Now the SSO has the first HDVD with Avie Records, an upstart label that serves musicians who keep ownership of their recording. We wish these audacious folks well. Still: we have to be honest. This recording reveals that the SSO has yet more steep slopes to climb before it can compete with groups like the Berlin Philharmoniker, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the Saito Kinen Orchestra from Japan. Technically, this disc also falls short of current standards. The video is too soft. It suffers from dumb stunts like pointing the cameras into bright lights to burn out the sensors for a "psychedelic" effect. The sound recording is pitifully weak. The result is a recording of the Mahler 10 that is painful to hear. The short Wu Xing --- Five Elements was fun. But even it is marred by a strange cropping of the video that ruins most of the recording. So this gets a "F" grade even at the moderate price point for the recording. You might enjoy this if you have a connection to Singapore or you are interested in the "Clinton Carpenter" version of the Mahler 10.

Henry McFadyen Jr.

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Mahler Symphony No. 10