Performers: Mstislav Rostropovich, cello/ National Orchestra of France/ Leonard Bernstein (Schumann/Bloch); Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan (Richard Strauss)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon/Universal
Video: 4:3 full screen color
Audio: PCM Stereo, DTS 5.1 surround
Extras: Documentary footage
Length: 131 minutes
Rating: ***1/2
This new performance/documentary DVD from Universal/DG is a mixed bag. The performances and informative documentary are superb from an artistic standpoint; however, the video quality suffers to some degree throughout. For example, the two performances conducted by Bernstein suffer the most from poor quality video, and that quality varies greatly throughout, from just relatively poor to downright awful. In really stark contrast, the Karajan footage is absolutely superb, a veritable model for archival concert material – and it dates from approximately the same time period as the others (it’s actually two years older)! The documentary, on the other hand, offers really quite good video quality (some of the archival footage is understandably lower quality), and it’s offered in a widescreen format, just not enhanced for 16×9, so it doesn’t fill your widescreen TV. I’ve seen quite a few online comments on the poor video quality of this disc – apparently, the same archival concert material is available on Japanese DVDs with superb video quality, so what gives, Deutsche Grammophon? The audio quality is superb throughout – I bounced back and forth between the PCM Stereo and the DTS surround tracks and finally settled on the DTS track, which helped me forget about the variable video quality.
While the performances are uniformly superb, the real heart of this package is the 29-minute documentary; it contains a wealth of classic archival footage. You really find out a lot about Rostropovich, the man, and you get to see a lot of really cool shots of him with Shostakovich, Nikita Kruschev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. You learn that the actual reason he was expelled from Russia was for his association with Solzhenitsyn, whom Rostropovich adored and invited to stay with him in his Moscow home. From that point Rostropovich was a marked man; all his concerts and engagements were cancelled, and in 1974 he was finally forced to emigrate from his homeland, and without his family. There’s remarkable footage of Rostropovich playing his cello at the base of the Berlin Wall as it’s being torn down – he regained his Russian passport and was finally rejoined with his family. And with the advent of perestroika, here’s Rostropovich again, as a large statue of Lenin is being taken down in Moscow – with the recommendation to the press that they replace it with a statue of Solzhenitsyn! Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov offers sensitive and enlightening commentary throughout.
Any lover of classical music will find this disc delightful, it’s just a shame that DGG didn’t do a better job with some of the performance video, especially if higher resolution sources are obviously out there. Highly recommended anyway.
— Tom Gibbs
