Claudio Abbado & Lucerne Festival Orchestra – Gustav Mahler’s
Symphony No. 9 (Accentus Music) + Aribert Reimann – Medea: World Premiere
(ArtHaus/Naxos Blu-rays)
Picture:
B- Sound: B Extras: C Concerts: B/B-
Continuing
our look at Classical Music on Blu-ray, we have two more interesting releases
to enjoy. One is a continuing series of
performances by conductors and the other is a debut Opera work.
Claudio Abbado & Lucerne Festival Orchestra
– Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 (Accentus Music) is yet another exceptional volume of
Abbado handling a classic work with such ease, it brings new life to it. His performances of Mahler Symphonies 1, 2,
4, 5 and 6 are already on Blu-ray, as this link will show:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10551/Michael+Nyman+Collections+(DVD/C
I am
again impressed and happy to recommend the disc, which has a Multi-Angle
Feature: Conductor’s Camera that is a nice twist on the standard approach of
these releases that is not a mere gimmick, but a new way to look at his work in
progress and make the arts more involving.
You might want to start with this Blu-ray from all the Mahler Blus he
has had issued to date.
Then there
is Aribert Reimann – Medea: World
Premiere with the Orchestra Der Wiener Staatsoper, turning up in 2010 and
captured in HD. Started in 2006 and
based on Grillparzer’s Medea, then evolved into a four book (read act)
piece that is pretty impressive, though it did not stay with me as much as
expected and though it has some powerful and impressive moments, was uneven at
times. Still, it is too rare that a new
Opera is written (ask Roger Waters) and this is worth a serious look for all
major Opera fans.
The 1080i
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on both Blu-rays have good color, but
also some softness and motion blur inherent to interlaced HD, but the Abbado
video is different in that the blur is not as often, but worse when it
happens. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
lossless 5.1 mixes on both Blu-rays sounds good, have fine soundfields and even
appropriate ones when they are reproducing the concert hall sound which happens
more in Medea than in Abbado.
Once again, we get pretty state-of-the-art recordings, though none are
extraordinary, they are all exceptionally clean, professional recordings. PCM 2.0 Stereo versions are also included,
though they cannot match the DTS-MA mixes.
Extras include the usual informative booklets inside each case, while
the discs have trailers for other Blu-ray releases.
- Nicholas Sheffo
