The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations Tour (1976/Eagle DVD)/Beethoven Symphonies 1 – 9/Abbado Blu-ray Box Set (EuroArts)/Bellini: Beatrice di Tenda/Pirolli
(Dynamic)/Cunning Little Vixen/Jurowski
(Opus Arte)/The Firebird/Rite Of
Spring/Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun, Stravinsky/Debussy, Jarvi
(Electric)/Peter Grimes/Britten/Ticciati
(Opus Arte/Naxos Blu-rays)/Wagner &
Me (2010/Stephen Fry/First Run DVD)
Picture: C/B-/B-/B-/B-/B/C+ Sound: B-/B/B/B/B/B+/C Extras: D/B/C-/C+/C/C+/D Main Programs: C+/B+/B/B/B-/B/B-
Now for
some new music releases that are in the Classical Music realm…
Outside
of the classic hit Good Vibrations,
it is a cheat to include The Beach Boys:
Good Vibrations Tour Rockumentary from 1976, but no doubt Brian Wilson was
influenced by such music and the vocal likes of The Lettermen. Lorne Michael produced this special in the
early days of his Saturday Night Live
success and some of its cast members even helped, but as issued by Eagle, it is
a sad, short, mixed look at the band when they decided to become an oldies
nostalgia band suddenly emphasizing Americana, theirs and otherwise.
At this
point, they were making big money touring though no radio station would play
any of their new songs as they had signed with Warner Bros. after years at
Capitol Records, save the hit Wishing You
Were Here with Chicago where they were not even really credited.
Brain Wilson was along for the
ride, but he was not in the best of health, so we get many moments of him being
interviewed in bed! It is sad to see how
badly he was doing, especially since no one totally knew just how bad and the
nature of how bad he was health-wise, but the money was hard to resist.
Each song
performed is followed by an interview and/or non-music moment for the short 50
minutes here as the band performs hits like the “title” song, California Girls, I Get Around, Surfin USA
and Fun, Fun, Fun. Unfortunately, performances can sound muddied
and even a bit off, they are not with the energetic zing of the original hits
and so, the band plays the songs as older men and that does not always
work. That makes this a time capsule of
the band at what looked like might be their last hurrah.
It wasn’t
and they continued. Brian Wilson
survived though Dennis Wilson shockingly did not and now you can see what
really happened in what was a middle-point for their careers. For more on the band, try this amazing
documentary Brian Wilson – Songwriter:
1962 – 1969, at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10556/Brian+Wilson+%E2%80%93+Songwri
Most
impressive this time out is Beethoven
Symphonies 1 – 9, a new four-Blu-ray box set featuring conductor Claudio
Abbado covering every classic thoroughly, at length and as well as any
conductor around can. As you know, we
are fans of Abbado and his past releases on Blu-ray have been some of the best
outright Classical concerts we have seen in the format, which you can read more
about from this growing selection list:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=abbado
These
Beethoven programs are mostly recorded in Rome at The Academia Nationale,
though the Ninth was taped at Philharmonie in Berlin, this is a strong, fine
set that is as good as any representation of these classics out there in any
format making it also one of the most deluxe Classical Blu-ray boxes on the
market. It is worth every penny and fans
will want to catch up with it, but it is also a great intro (or
re-introduction) to the works and I was very pleasantly content with the
results.
Beatrice di Tenda by Vincenzo Bellini is only the
second work by the composer we have covered following Norma, which we came
across a few years ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7643/Vincenzo+Bellini%E2%80%99s+Norma
This 1833
penned-work, conducted here by Antonio Pirolli, is even less-known and seen, so
having it on Blu-ray is a big plus in this work about power, the public,
disposability, love and politics, so it would be nice if this helped lead to
its rediscovery and repopularity, but it makes for a solid Blu-ray.
Now we
get to Leos Janacek’s Cunning Little
Vixen in this new release version conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Dennis Russel Davies conducted the first
Blu-ray we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9307/Humperdinck%E2%80%99s+Hansel+&
This new
version from Opus Arte is its pier, though the image quality is a tad shy of
the competing release. Taped at
Glydenbourne, it sure sounds as good and is also very much worth the time of
anyone interested or wanting to see a performance of the work they can rely on.
Paavo
Jarvi conducts three classic in this 74-minutes long release of The Firebird and Rite Of Spring by Stravinsky and Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun by Debussy that are no bad,
though not always the epitome of the works as I have heard them over the
years. Some will prefer his more
thoughtful approach and the orchestra is in fine form, but this one did not
always deliver and with the room on the disc, maybe another classic should have
been included.
Ironically,
when we covered Jarvi doing a Schumann Blu-ray, it also included Franz
Welser-Most conducting Debussy’s Pelleas
et Melisande, which you can read all about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11963/Les+Miserables+(1998/Sony+Blu-ray)
Our last
opera is the all English-language Peter
Grimes composed by Benjamin Britten and conducted by Robin Ticciati in what
is another pleasant surprise and a fine work rendered and realized
throughout. The title character is
accused of a murder he did not commit and personalities immediately get in the
way of truth throughout. Set in the
1980s, it has much to say and the cast is exceptionally good throughout.
Like
other operas here, the actual stage production is well done and produced, plus
it is well directed by Richard Jones with the Teatro Alla Scala and Italy’s Rai TV
Network co-produced. John Graham-Hall is
great in the title role and this is as highly recommended as any Opera we have
seen lately.
Finally
we have Stephen Fry exploring his love of a particular classical composer in
Patrick McGrady’s Wagner & Me
(2010) where he gets into detail about how much he loves his music, but has
major issues with how it becomes part of The Holocaust and Hitler’s drive for
power, made even more problematic still because of his Judaism.
For a man
known for comedy, and we do get some here, it is a sometimes different 89
minutes and we see Fry in not the best of shape and spirits all the time, now
rendered ironic by the fact that in June 2013, Fry (who starts drinking more
than his share of alcohol here) admitted he tried to take his life. That adds a sadly painful aspect to what was
already a struggle going on here, but I am glad Fry is not lost and we all hope
he finds the help he needs to get well again.
I have a feeling this exploration might have been more painful for him
than even I thought.
For more
on Fry, you can see him in action with his comedy partner Hugh Laurie at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5753/A+Bit+Of+Fry+&+Laurie+%E2%80%9
The 1.33
X 1 image on Beach comes totally
from 16mm film, but it is a little color faded and looks like an older video
master with softness and motion blur beyond what a 16mm shoot should ever look
like. The source material needs some
work. The 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image on all five Blu-rays have some motion blur and even
staircasing in moist parts, but Grimes
is more stable, cleaner, smoother and moiré solid than any other release on the
list. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X
1 image on Wagner has blur and
softness, but not as much as the Blus, yet the digitally-shot piece looks sadly
better than the Beach DVD.
The DTS
5.1 mix on Beach is a little better
than the weak Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo option with talking often sounding much
better than expected and even warmer than the music, while the DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the five Blu-rays are even a bit warmer
and richer and more, with Grimes the
sonic champ so well recorded. Of the
four Beethoven discs, the disc with Symphonies No. 2 & 5 is a little
harsher on the edges than the rest which are more impressive and sonically
superior enough. Symphony No. 6 was the
best of all. All Blu-rays also have a
PCM 2.0 Stereo option that is fine, but no match for the DTS-MA. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Wagner is the weakest here, not because
it is not a big music show (we get plenty of music), but because talking,
narration and discussion often get mixed into the music in ways that make in inaudible
no matter how you reset your system.
Extras in
all five Blu-ray cases include the usual nicely illustrated booklet on the music
including informative text, but neither DVD does, even a paper pullout. The DVDs have no extras, while the Blu-rays
all offer trailers on their discs, Vixen adds a Cast Gallery and Creating…
featurette, Grimes adds a Cast
Gallery and interviews featurette and Beethoven
has a Making Of featurette and all 9
shows offer the option of watching Abbado conduct through the rarely used
multi-angle function.
- Nicholas Sheffo