Customer Reviews

Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-6

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent DVD from start to finish. Its all well played, filmed, and recorded. With the Blu-ray version you can read the time on the first horn's wrist watch, in Roman Numerals! There are a couple of places where the sound is not quite in sync with the video. This is very minor, not distracting, and was probably due to some editing or patch work that needed to be done. You have to be watching very closely to spot it.

The best players are used throughout and are well guided by Maestro Abbado. Be sure to watch the last movement of the #2 concerto played a second time as an encore. Piccolo trumpet Reinhold Friedrich nails it both times taking the last note up to a high F during the encore!

This is a very exciting DVD. You will be as glad to own it as I am.

I have several Classical Music & Operas in my DVD collection. Enjoying all of them. I found the Brandenburg Concertos 1-6 BLU-RAY while browsing the internet and decided right away to purchase it assuming it would be superior to a DVD both in picture and sound. To my amazement, this Blu-Ray "knocked my socks off". I had recently purchased a largescreen TV and WOW, the PQ and the sound quality was superb. Claudio Abbado is one of my favourite conductors and watching the "super clear" expressions on his face and the faces of the musicians is really exciting to watch and hear. I would highly recommend this Blu-Ray DVD to anyone.

Claudio Abbado, surely one of the great conductors working today, formed a small orchestra, called Orchestra Mozart, in 2004. This group consists of several world-renowned instrumentalists and a number of exceedingly fine young players, mostly from Italy. Among the 'names' in the orchestra are Michala Petri, recorder; Giuliano Carmignola, principal violin; Reinhold Friedrich, trumpet; Jacques Zoon, flute; Alois Posch, bass; Alessio Allegrini, horn; and Ottavio Dantone, harpsichord. In their early seasons they concentrated on music by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. But in 2007 they prepared all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and toured them throughout Italy, with concerts in Bologna, Ferrara, Pisa, Prato, Reggio Emilia, Venice, Modena, Verona and Bolzano. This DVD is a live recording of the April 21, 2007 concert they played in the visually gorgeous and acoustically excellent Teatro Municipale Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia.

The players (except for cellos and harpsichord) stand for the performances. Consequently there is considerable swaying of bodies and generally greater animation of the instrumentalists. I mention this because in a visual medium like a DVD this makes for more engaging viewing. The video of this concert focuses almost entirely on the instrumentalists; we rarely see Abbado. I like this approach as I'm much more interested in what the players are doing. One does notice, though, that Abbado is conducting without score. And indeed he's not even conducting at all in the Sixth Concerto -- that's the one without violins; its group of seven players are truly a chamber ensemble.

The principals couldn't be better. I was immensely impressed, as I have been in other recordings, by Allegrini, who has to one of the finest horn players around. As well, I loved the blending of Petri's and Nikolaj Tarasov's recorders in the Second. That concerto was played last on the program -- the sequence was Concertos 1, 3, 5, 6, 4, 2 -- and in response to the enthusiastic applause of the audience, the group played the final Allegro assai of the No. 2 and this time Petri substituted a sopranino recorder for her usual instrument, a piquant touch. Carmignola's lickety-split violin obbligato in the opening Allegro of that concerto has to be seen and heard to be believed.

Dantone was superb in the supremely virtuosic harpsichord part in the Fifth Concerto. The audio didn't bring out the sound of his instrument as much as I would have liked, but I rather suspect it was true to the actual sound in the hall. And I did lean forward to hear it better, which one often actually does in live performances in my experience.

Abbado's approach with the concertos is to take them fairly briskly. He does fairly often slow down slightly for cadences but there is not much else in the way of tempo variation. Usually, frankly, I felt he set the opening tempo and then these excellent musicians played as chamber musicians would, making subtle adjustments to the playing of their colleagues. This is not a criticism of Abbado; rather it is a commendation of his lack of ego and his willingness to let his musicians play together in their own way.

I cannot recommend this DVD highly enough. Often, when I've listened to or attended concerts featuring all six of these works I've lost attention somewhere along the way. This time I was energized for the entire 100 minutes of the concert. (Indeed, as I write this I'm listening again to the delightful No. 2.)

Time: 100mins; Format: NTSC 16:9; Sound PCM Stereo, Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1; Region: 0 (worldwide). The disc is also available in Blu-Ray format Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-6 [Blu-ray]

Scott Morrison

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"The Brandenburg concertos are the purest products of Bach's polyphonic style. Neither on the organ nor on the clavier could he have worked out the architecture of a movement with such vitality; the orchestra alone permits him absolute freedom in the leading and grouping of the obbligato voices."

The above quotation (by Albert Schweitzer) is found on the inner case containing this DVD that has not only the music of Johann Sebastian Bach's (1685 to 1750) six Brandenburg concertos or concerti but also shows the musicians creating this music.

These concertos are considered by many the most beautiful and best known from the Baroque period (1600 to 1750). Baroque composers produced two types of concerto: the solo concerto and the concerto grosso. The concerto grosso was based on the opposition between a small group of instruments (the concertino), and a larger group (the tutti or ripieno).

Bach captured the spirit of the concerto grosso, in which two groups vie with each other in what might be described as "sonorous flights of fancy," in his six Brandenburg Concertos. This set was written for presentation in 1721 to the Margrave (military governor) Christian of Brandenburg, Germany.

Here are the particulars for what's presented:

ENSEMBLE: Orchestra Mozart (created in Nov. 2004 and consists of eminent chamber musicians and young instrumentalists)
CONDUCTOR: Claudio Abbado (who achieves the rare feat of ensuring that the performance has a common thread to it while at the same time allowing each top musician a chance to display his or her abilities to the fullest)
FEATURED PERFORMER: Giuliano Carmignola (who many say is the leading Baroque violinist of the present day)
RECORDED: Live at Teatro (theatre) Municipale Romolo Valli, Reggio Emilia (in Northern Italy)

These concertos are not presented in order but instead as follows:

(#1, #3 ,#5, #6, #4, and #2)

Concerto #3 is the shortest at about (10 minutes, 30 seconds) while concerto #5 is the longest at about (19 minutes). All concertos consist of three movements except #1 which consists of four.

Finally, the DVD (released Oct. 2008) is perfect in picture and sound quality. Technical specifications:

Picture format: NTSC, 16.9 anamorphic
Sound formats: LPCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Region code: 0

In conclusion, this is truly an unforgettable presentation of the Brandenburg concertos. Encore! Encore!!

(2007; 1 hr, 40 min; wide screen; 22 scenes)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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This performance of the Brandenburg concertos is STUNNING. Abbado's direction and every single performance in this production will leave you agog. I simply had never heard such a wonderful and flawless rendition anywhere, period. The video is simply gorgeous. The audio was also fabulous. As to the reviewer that commented that the audio is not high definition, that statement is absolutely incorrect, there is a 5.1 uncompressed PCM track which is absolutely perfect! Strongly recommended!

Enjoying this masterpiece over a lifetime, I never expected the added joys this exceptional Blu-Ray edition delivers. In addition to showing off the amazing video and audio resolution of the Blu-Ray format, the presentation is unique. The players stand, which allows us to see full body language unconstrained by being seated. The players move together, creating a visual flow of its own. Some players emphasize their lines like a batter leaning into a fastball. Everyone has a chance to shine, and the camera misses nothing. The cameras follow the musical lines so perfectly that I hear (by seeing) voices in the ensemble that I may have missed before. This is a perfect blend of individuals and ensemble, and Abbado shows what conducting is all about with his economical style. Experiencing Bach in this way--with the exceptional visual element--adds a dimension to hearing these works that I really can't believe.

This disk immediately became my favorite to show off my JBL professional sound system and Pioneer 60" plasma. People remark that it appears they are looking at it through a window. The photography is right up close and crystal clear. All the variety of skin tones, textures and colors of the instruments are breathtaking. The Orchestra plays the tight and complacated music with great energy and they seem to be absolutely having a blast. You're not going to believe the beauty of the hall in Reggio Emilia, Italy. It would be a delight to watch even with the sound turned off. The sound recording is a full surround but you still get the crisp edge of the instruments as if you were right on stage. Buy this one. The better your equipment the better your experience. Think you Mr Bach.

As one reviewer says below this is not 24 bit audio. It's PCM 16 bit 5.1. However, I find that it is one of the best discs I have in my collection for audio quality. I have over 200 SACD's and around the same number of DVD-Audio discs. I have been playing these 2 formats since their inception. This Bach Blu-Ray stands out as one of the best amongst the discs in my collection. Oh, and I also have around 100 Blu-Ray concerts, most of them in DTS MA 5.1 and this Bach disc in PCM still stands out from most of them due to the care taken. The video is acceptable. There are many concert BD's that I have that have better video. The audio is what stands out on this one for me.

this is a very nice presentation of the Brandenburg Concertos, I just don't like the faster tempos. I like to hear each instrument. It is worth the money. Purchase the Blu-ray because the image quality is spectacular.thank you

Not just Blu-ray with all its bells and whistles of good sound recording, but the blessed quality of the performance itself. I've never been a great fan of Abbado, but here, and reading all the related material of this great orchestra [Orchestra Mozart] with its slew of brilliant young artists - what a wonderful sight to behold, these youngsters carving for themselves this niche of high quality performance. Why, he is so secure and excellent in reading these concertos. This has made purchasing the Brandenburg Six all the more worthwhile.

I've had recordings in all formats - from vinyl, audio casette and CD [all by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Von Karajan], and to have a visual presentation of it now, by such a consummate group of performers, makes me want to get Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" in Blu-ray.