Customer Reviews

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2/ Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If speed is what you're after, then this performance is for you. Most pianists these days like to take this concerto at breakneck velocity, which is unfortunate. This frequently happens when the recording is of a live concert, as is the case here, and most of Rachmaninoff's lush romanticism is lost in a tidal wave of notes, especially in the second movement. I'd recommend a videotape of a live performance by Alexis Weissenberg and Herbert von K. Weissenberg allows the second movement to flow at a relaxed pace and is not shy about letting it stretch to nearly 15 minutes. It is the only performance I would have of the Rach Second.

These performances are truly extraordinary. Zenziper, virtually unknown in the U.S., turns out to be a tremendously expressive musician. The experience of the music is aided greatly by his visual demeanor. The orchestra, composed mostly of young Russian musicians, plays with great dedication and youthful passion which is again enhanced by the visual presentation. The monologue by Zenziper, available on the DVD, is rambling but highly philosophical and is filmed with artful cinematic values.

All in all, a wonderful experience for a music lover not available on conventional CD.

Others have mentioned the slightly excessive use of head shots, but other than that slight downside this DVD is amazing. The audio quality is fantasic. If you like to listen to Rachmaninoff, than this is a MUST-HAVE!!! If you have a 5.1 Dolby Digital Decoder system with good speakers, you are in for the best DVD you will ever purchase.

The Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of the most beloved concertos of all time. For fans of this work, this will be an enjoyable addition to your collection. I don't know the soloist Zenziper that well. He delivers with a solid, but not flawless preformance. Some may be turned off by his facial expressions, but it is a very emotional piece afterall. If you haven't seen it, I would recommend the Rach 2 performance by Andrei Gavrilov under the direction of Ashkenazy in Moscow as the best choice available. Gavrilov's interpretation of the Rach 2 has no equal in my opinion. The video and audio technical qualities of this DVD are excellent.

Great music. Interesting pianist. Spectacular conductor. Vibrant instrumentalists. - What a treat for the eyes too: the wonderful camera work makes this more absorbing to look at than the most breath-taking adventure... It's a pity we don't have more of this! What about Tchaikowsky's 4th and 6th Symphonies? What about so many other great works? - When you consider the millions of dollars that go into the recording of tons and tons of the ugliest and most uncivilized kind of trash these days (people have the nerve to call it «music»), and when you compare that with the extremely few DVDs that exist featuring good music (just look at the list, and you'll see), it makes you wonder whether we're not headed towards a new age of barbarism. We will still have the kind of great music that's on this DVD, but who's going to be there to listen to it? And if there's nobody to listen, then who's going to pay to have it recorded?

I have owned this DVD since it came out and am still disappointed with it. While it's great to have this concerto on DVD, the performance of it is quite poor. The camera work and the DVD itself is quite good, giving good shots of the performer's hands. Still, he makes SEVERAL noticable mistakes in his performance. I couldn't imagine him getting much of an ovation at a major symphony hall. The performance of the symphony, though, is quite good. I'd recommend it. Overall, it's a DVD worth having, but not worth getting giddy over.

rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto is one of my favorite piano concertos. if you like rachmaninov this is a must for your DVD
library, and you might also enjoy the naxos musical journey DVD
of rachmaninov's piano concertos nos. 2 & 3.

Zenziper's high ideals, as espoused in his own rambling and pretentious blather (was it bad editing or is he really so tangled up in his own vague idealism?), did not seem so apparent in his performance of the concerto, which, though adequate, was rather straightforward and uninteresting. His tone was often harsh, and his distracting facial contortions did not translate themselves into an enlightening interpretation, difficult enough in a work as frequently performed as this. If his technique was secure, that is no ticket to a great performance. I would recommend finding any number of better performances on disk and sparing yourself the sight of the pianist's painful grimaces, the sort of thing which I believe expends energy best devoted to the music.

Zenziper is one of the best pupils of Sokalov. He has a beautiful tone which sometimes reminds us of Gilels or even Arrau. But he is not a metronone as Gilels sometmes was, nor is he as organic or dramatic as Arrau.

Here we have a portrait of Zeniper which is, I'm afraid, without much depth. He talked about how he sees himself and what he is, whether as an idealist or realist. On music, he reads beyond the notes, looking for the "clear tragedy" or "focal point" etc; and through music, he wants to "influence" and "do something for mankind" (one wonders if it's a matter of translation, these ideas are rather vague). He sees composer's role is to discover the "eternity" of life...

The sound of this DVD is very nice but the photography is not so good. In comparison with other DVDs, we don't have too much head, nor too little hands. But the overviews/close-ups of the members of the orchestra is a mess: for close-ups, mostly we only see their profiles in a formless cluster which was rather unnecessarily.

However, these Russian musicians did grasp the very esssence of the music of their motherland and the collaboration bewteen the piano and oprchestra was excellent.

I liked very much this DVD. Well, it is not difficult for me to like the pieces of Tchaikosvsky and Rachmaninov. They are my favorites composers. The player in No. 2 concerto is plenty is sensibility and vigorous emotion. The solemnity of Symphony No.5 is well demonstrated by the orchestra with many young people doing a good job under secure direction of the conductor.