Search - The Art of Conducting - Legendary Conductors of a Golden Era on DVD

Salute To These Great Music Makers

BLee | HK | 07/10/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As one of the contributors says, even though the 5 conductors may use the same brush, the same paints, the same canvass, when they play the same piece, the way they spread the paint and present the colours would make 5 different paintings...

The analyses in this DVD are quite brief indeed. Moreover, some contributors like the dancer on Mravinsky, or the violinist on Furtwangler, or the timpanist on Munch are unheard of by most viewers. YET, their comments are all very much to the point. In contrast to "Great Conductors of the Past", we have one of two whole pieces here for each of Mengelberg, Furtwangler, Kleiber, Munch, Celibadache and Mravinsky, not just short clips. And for the last two we even have clips in colour with nice sound.

It is especially of interest to note when listening to the music here, as Menuhin remarked, how Mengelberg delayed the harmonics to preserve the rhythm breathing life into the piece. Likewise, to see how Furtwangler embodied the finest German tradition in his music. Or else, how well Erich Kleiber, a structuralist, turned a German orchestra into a Viennese one. Here, we have Blue Danube to bring home the point. Other contributors also pointed out the way deployed by Mravinsky to preserve the freshness of his interpretation and Munch "twists and changes" a piece of music (particularly French music) in performance from what he had rehearsed as if the piece has a life and mood of it's own. And of Course, we could also see with great delight the essence of Celibidache as a mixure of "A Scientist, a Gypsy and a Philosopher" (Barenboim)...

Viewers trying to figure out the art of great conductors obviously know about music, even if not exactly with the process of making music with an orchestra. Giving the viewers a headnote on the conductor to be followed by these conductor's finished product, i.e. a passage of music or two, illustrating the characteristics of their creators is as much as one would expect. Further elaboration would be unnecessary for those in the know and too boringly technical to the less involved. The passages selected are very illustrative to say the least.

However, the analysis on Mravinsky is not quite forthcoming enough. We are told, "We don't discuss about him... whether he is good or bad. He is god to us..."! (Fortunately enough, we have a separate EMI DVD with a good portrait on this great Russian conductor.) On the whole, viewers shouldn't expect the picture or sound to be too good, but they are certainly good enough to make the point, or even enough to delight some viewers, if not all."