Search - Wagner: Orchestral Highlights [DVD Video] on DVD

Director Must Love the Conductor

Joseph Falotico | 08/01/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I was greatly disappointed in this DVD. It has great Wagner selections, well played and recorded. The thing that almost drove me out of my mind was the director's constant focus on the conductor, Klaus Tennstedt, mostly ignoring the orchestra and its soloists. The pleasure of watching music played on DVD is next best to being at an actual performance, where you scan the orchestra while listening. This DVD robs you of that. You might just as well listen to a CD. I gave it away to a friend who is more tolerant than I."

An idiosyncratic (but passionate!) stork?

Mr John Haueisen | WORTHINGTON, OHIO United States | 02/06/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"
Yes, some have suggested that Klaus Tennstedt resembles a crippled or spastic stork conducting a symphony orchestra. Yes, he does frequently push his glasses up, wipe his eyes, and use his suit sleeve to wipe off his copious perspiration. But perhaps all of this is because Klaus Tennstedt is so very much absorbed in the music that other factors don't matter.

In the recording studio, he is known to have refused to do re-takes--to re-record a passage because of a misplayed note. For him, the spirit and emotional impact of the music took precedence over a technical mistake. Not that his concerts are full of missed notes, it's simply that we need to appreciate his emphasis on bringing out the composer's intention as he sees it. Perhaps it's like a teacher's concern that the overall value of a student's composition is of more value than obsessing over a misspelled word.

So, if you don't mind watching a conductor whose occasional waves of emotion and conducting gyrations sometimes make even Leonard Bernstein look sedate, then you will be rewarded by some beautifully expressive music.

This Wagner concert provides a good idea of how powerful and expressive Wagner's music was even without the words in his operas. The Rienzi alternately moves one almost to tears and then to exhilaration. The Siegfried's funeral march from Gotterdammerung takes us through the mournful emotions of sorrow, almost sinking into an abyss of despondency. Of course, following Siegfried's funeral, the prelude to Die Meistersinger is so powerfully proud and strutting that, after the prelude, the concert is interrupted by bursts of cheers from the Tokyo audience. Before the final work is played, a bouquet of flowers is presented to the surprised conductor. Then, the concert wraps up with a "bubbling-with-energy" performance of the Ride of the Valkries.

Whether you want to see a unique or perhaps rather idiosyncratic but passionate conductor, or a program of the music that shows Wagner to be the master who forever changed the world of music, this program will not disappoint you.
Please don't let Tennstedt's at times awkward or clumsy idiosyncrasies keep you from enjoying the passion of his performances."

Great Wagner Selection

Hermann De Rodt | 01/28/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great musical masterpiece, nice Wagner selection, wonderful orchestra, world-renowned Director. The sound is perfect and well recorded. The poor film direction is something disapointing but -with such beautiful music- I can forgive that."