Customer Reviews

Grieg - Piano Concerto / Symphonic Dances / In Autumn - Acoustic Reality Experience [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was awaiting my FIRST BluRay Classical title with great anticipation. I was rewarded with GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT.

This presentation fails to deliver on almost all counts. The one redeeming virtue is that the performance at least is credible. But one expects a DTS HD Master Audio (lossless) recording to sparkle. It does not. The soundstage is flat and one dimensional. In a good recording you can hear the SPACE between the instruments it is readily discernable. Here everything sounds crushed together. The sound generally stays between the speakers and is TOTALLY lacking in any spatial depth, either side to side or front to back. What is done to fool some into believing there is dimensionality is that a great deal of unnatural electronic reverb has been added.

Here are some troubling facts about this recording that are listed in light hard to read small print on the disc & back label. This is a Naxos recording (CNAX 6110060 SA.) done in the SACD format in 5.0--NOT 7.1. It literally sounds like the producers of this BluRay took the Naxos recording and shoved it through a DTS HD MA processor, slapped a BluRay label on it and marketed this as a real lossless recording. The whole project is done on the cheap--and it looks like it AND sounds like it.

For those who are used to quality recordings please note:
There are NO program or liner notes--you have have no idea WHO these artists are and if you would like to know a little something about the selections--too bad.

There is NO menu when playing the disc. There is NO program listing since there is no menu. To me this is indicative of the haphazard, get-it-out as cheap as you can way this BluRay is presented. I will not buy another product from Surround Records, and I was so looking forward to hearing REAL lossless from my BluRay.

This recording is excellent, it has some of the best recorded piano sound that I have heard. The orchestra also performs well and is recorded well. I too have several of the recordings in this series and use them to demonstrate my surround system.

I agree with one commentator that the quality varies somewhat from recording to recording but heartily agree that this is one of the best in the series.

A word of caution, however, this series does require specialized equipment for playback. Blu-ray is essential and either a player that decodes the new uncompressed audio formats or a receiver/preamp that will. One had best do one's homework to confirm that playback is possible on your system.

I noticed in one review a comparison with the quality of the SACD recordings; I have an extensive collection of SACD and admit they are very good, especially the ones recorded by Telarc; I do believe that the sound quality on the DTS HD Master Audio is better.

What I think is happening here is the proverbial learning curve; the early SACD recordings do not sound as good as the newest ones. Likewise I believe the quality of the Blu-ray music recording will improve as the recording engineers learn to take full advantage of the technology's potential.

In the meantime this recording is surely a winner; I really bought it for the Piano Concerto but have found the other selections, all new to me, to be well done and enjoyable.

The recording has almost no information on the performers. Here is some information on them:

Håvard Gimse was born in 1966 at Kongsvinger, Norway and has established himself as one of Scandinavia's leading international pianists. After gaining his Diploma at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste in 1995, he continued his studies with Jiri Hlinka in Norway.

Norwegian conductor Bjarte Engeset gained his Diploma, (with the highest possible score), at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1989, where he studied with professor Jorma Panula. In 1991 he was chosen as a member of the Tanglewood Music Center Seminar of conductors where the teachers included Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski and others.

Formed in 1891, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is one of Europe's leading orchestras. The Orchestra performs across Scotland and internationally and has a very busy schedule of recordings, education and community programmes. The RSNO is a charity and is one of Scotland's National Peforming Companies, supported by the Scottish Government.

As you can see both the pianist and the conductor seem well positioned to perform Grieg and they do turn in notable performances. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra gives a thoroughly professional performance as well.

It doesn't matter if you use this disc primarily for "quiet listening" so long as you also can pay attention and come away with a renewed admiration for Grieg's music. You may discern a more vivid and realistic rendering of piano timbre, an increased sense of a three-dimensional soundstage, and the illusion of more "air" around the instrument. The engineering is outstanding, but with DTS-HD surround format you can really wallow in the rich, warm sounds that Ruud draws from my PS3. I bought several disc of this series and it has ranged from good to fabulous, and there's no question that this disc belongs firmly in the latter category.

This recording was originally produced by Naxos for DVD-Audio. It was recorded at 24bit resolution. I have it on DVD-A and i can confirm it's excellent. Note: because it uses the BluRay's DTS-HD lossless format, it preserves all the 24-bit detail of the original. I think it's great to see these recordings coming to BluRay. I hope a lot more DVD-A recordings come over to BluRay so that these pristine recordings are not wasted, and that people who never managed to experience stunning 24bit DVD-As (I have about 200 DVD-As), will now be able to do so on BluRay. This recording was originally produced by Naxos for DVD-Audio. It was recorded at 24bit resolution. I have it on DVD-A and i can confirm it's excellent. Note: because it uses the BluRay's DTS-HD lossless format, it preserves all the 24-bit detail of the original. I think it's great to see these recordings coming to BluRay. I hope a lot more DVD-A recordings come over to BluRay so that these pristine recordings are not wasted, and that people who never managed to experience stunning 24bit DVD-As (I have about 200 DVD-As), will now be able to do so on BluRay.

Blu-ray Audio truly encompasses dynamic range to the extreme.
The 7.1 DTS-HD surround sound is absolutely outstanding. This recording is the perfect balance of refined elegance, brilliant sound and virtuosity for me.

Pianist Håvard Gimse imbues Grieg Piano Concerto with all the color, dynamic range, technical control, insight, and tender loving care he can muster, and Gimse wrings every drop of poetry from their often unassuming outward appearance. And that's saying a lot, since Gimse is one of the most cultivated, musicianly pianists on the scene. Top class sonics of DTS-HD Master Audio further enhance my recommendation.

This dvd is a stunning disappointment. A great concept, it sets photographs of lakes, rivers, mountains and forests to the music of Grieg. The photographer travels to all the right places, composes all the right camera shots, but then uses the wrong camera, producing motionless still shots. HD media needs motion -- slow panning, the rustling of trees, rippling of water. Instead I got still-life photos, with distant snow on trees flickering like cheap Christmas tree lights. The photographer needs to watch Sunrise Earth, buy a real HD camera, and go re-shoot the same scenes. The result would be stunning success.

This recording sounds terrible. The bass is muddy and the deep lows are missing. This one is a real loser.

Quoted from another Blu ray forum, written by Kilian.CA and slightly edited:

This is very similar to the putative Rachmaninov 2 & 3 by the same companies: just a re-release of the same in SACD and DVD-A previously released in 2004 on Naxos, now with an up-mix of 5.1 to 7.1. Not a big deal really.

If what we're getting is mere re-release of previous SACD and DVD-A tracks on BD then the future doesn't look very promising.

These initial batch of Naxos re-releases are not only up-mixed but some (including the Greg, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov discs) were originally recorded and mastered in 48kHz 24-bit so they are upsampled to 96kHz for the BD. (You can go to Naxos' website and check on their DVD-A listings. There are graphics of the back of the DVD-A showing the recording info.) It doesn't exactly admit this on the BD. What a marketing scam! Caveat emptor!

First, I have a PS3 connected to my receiver with a HDMI cable and the PS3 Blu-ray output set to PCM. I have a high quality (Definitive Technology) 7.1 speaker system to get the entire effect, but the sound quality is just not very good. I agree with one of the other reviewers that the bass is lacking and the sound quality is not crisp and very detailed. The recording sounds as if it was recorded 25 years ago when CDs first came out. I am very disappointed with the lack of detail, depth and overall quality of the recording. I would not buy this disk.