Customer Reviews

Rachmaninov - Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 - A Naxos Musical Journey

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

 

 

Take a journey to the great cities and country landscapes where Rachmaninov grew up -- Russia. Naxos videographers capture the beauty and culture that inspired Rachmaninoff to write with such emotion, passion, and romanticism. Pianist Bernd Glemser delivers a commendable performance with the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor (the most popular of Rachmaninoff's compositions). However, it is the Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (technically more difficult than Concerto No. 2 - and gaining in popularity after the release of the movie "Shine") where Glemser truly shines - accompanied by some impressive visuals. If your DVD player has DTS capability - set it up accordingly, as the sound reproduction is both dynamic and spacious. No, you will not see Glemser, the orchestra (Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra), or the conductor (Antoni Wit), but you be graced by the beauty that inspired the genius of Rachmaninoff.

The audio of this DVD is very poor. The performance itself is too slow. The pianist are not the best Rock 2/3 players. Far from William Wolfram. Obscure orchestras which is OK if they're good. The dynamic range is much less than my other recordings. I have compared various sections with the CDs from better recordings and pianists. I cannot listen to the Naxos dvd after knowing what it should sound like.
The video is well done and offers beautiful images with good production values.
I suspect Naxos took an obscure, existing, poor audio recording they had access to and put it to video.
I would suggest one should research the artists and orchestras before buying any of these musical journeys. I won't buy another untill I know who the performers are.
I watch mine while listening to an audio CD.

i, too enjoy viewing the orchestra on my dvd concerts. i also enjoy the video scenes on the naxos musical journey dvds. the scenes of the homeland of the composer are beautiful and perhaps may have influnced the composer in his music.

It's great to have some Rachmaninoff available on DVD - I only wish that they would have been a little more daring with their 5-channel mixes. I can not easily tell the difference between this DVD and a stereo recording. It's like stereo with a little ambience in the rear channels. And since this is straight up DVD, not DVD-Audio, they could have replaced the nature videos with some performance footage.

Be aware that this DVD features wonderfully recorded and performed music, but the video is all travel log of Russia; you will see no performers. And for me, the rewarding part of Rachmaninov is watching hands hard at work.

To those who love Rachmaninov, the music speaks for itself. However, I became terribly dissapointed when I discovered that the DVD only contains pictures of different landscapes and "poetical" motives, accompained by the music.

To be honest, I looked forward to enjoy the music performed live in a concert hall or something in that direction.

So why by a DVD, when you can purchase an ordinary CD performed by better known orchestras and solo artists to a lower price?

However, if you like to stair at the TV, watching russian landscape with a casual russian appearing from time to time while listeing to Rachmaninov, this is a great chance.

BE WARNED! If you think this is a video recording of an orchestral performance, you will be sorely disappointed, as I was. It is merely a SOUNDTRACK of Rachmaninoff, with pretty travelogue visuals glued on. There are NO VISUALS OF THE ORCHESTRA AT ALL, no shots of musical craftsmanship, pianist fingers skimming over the keys, musician faces concentrating, cellist fingers sawing, lips pursed on the oboe, impassioned conductor guiding the orchestra through the moves to bring an art object into being, etc. -- nothing of that. It is merely a travelogue plus audio CD. You may as well play the CD in your car, while driving through your own visuals. For me this Naxos purchase was a total waste.