Product Details

• Actors: Katia & Marielle Labeque, Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico
• Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: December 11, 2001
• Run Time: 68 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005R5HB
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,246 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glittering jewel, December 11, 2002

By 

Tim Brain (WA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bach & Vivaldi Concertos / Antonini, Katia & Marielle Labeque, Il Giardino Armonico (DVD)

No idea about the previous reviewer's concerns re the frailty of period instruments used here, which lend a most delightful, stately aura to the whole proceedings. Far from walking on eggshells, the first rate performers relish these demanding works as if discovering them for the first time. The titanic voice of Bach's pen soars as a result. Camera work, lighting, atmosphere, sound- immaculate. Check the final Concerto in A Minor with flashing strings perched above four dueling keyboards in ten minutes of the most exquisite Bach you may ever see.

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Exciting music---but exhausting for the listener, July 23, 2002

By 

Jeffrey L. O'Key "heavy water" (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bach & Vivaldi Concertos / Antonini, Katia & Marielle Labeque, Il Giardino Armonico (DVD)

It's a dream come true to have these duo piano compositions by Bach available on DVD. The Labeque sisters perform them with panache. And the DVD quality is strictly first-water (afterall, it's produced by Image Entertainment, the same folks that brought us the Bach Brandenburg Concertos performed by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra---which is only the best DVD in the DVD universe). And the setting of the DVD is gorgeous: the Vienna Musik Verein. Everything combines to give an impression of elegance and sumptuousness. The problem is where you'd least expect it: in the historical instruments that are played. Now I'm a fan of ancient instruments, but something is amiss here. The instruments are so frail looking, and the stage is so crowded when they get around to the concerto for two pianos and two harpsichords, that the sympathetic listener is irresistibly drawn into pulling for the performers to not only negotiate the complexities of Bach's scores, but to overcome the obstacles presented by the ancient instruments themselves. This concern for the performers and their superannuated instruments detracts from just kicking back and enjoying the music. Out of pity for the listener, beauty needs to seem a little more effortless. It shouldn't require the listener to cross his fingers during the cresendos. That said, the saving grace of the DVD is it's clarity, both aural and visual. Definitely worth owning---once you have the Brandenburg Concertos and Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations, where clarity of image is matched by effortlessness of performance.