BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Biography - Cast Programme Notes
Rating
Year Released	1990
Running Time	69:25 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Herbert Von Karajan
Studio Distributor	Sony Classical  Sony Music	Starring	Herbert Von Karajan Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Wiener Singverein
Case	Amaray
RPI	$34.95	Music	Ludwig Von Beethoven

    There is something very special about Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 that sets it apart from most pieces of classical music. Over the years there have been some utterly superb recordings of this great work, and to be fair Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra have been responsible for some of them. Indeed, their 1977 recording together still rates very highly in The Penguin Guide To Compact Discs, as does their earlier 1962 recording. To be fair though, their last recording made around the same time as this video is not amongst the very best around. My personal choices in this work are an earlier recording by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra made in 1959 under the baton of Andre Cluytens, or the recording made by Leonard Bernstein on Christmas Day, 1989 (just after the fall of The Berlin Wall) with combined forces from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Staatskapelle. What makes them so special? Well, this is one symphony that really needs to be felt, and both of those recordings really exude passion like few others. And that is the single greatest failing of this version from Herbert Von Karajan - it may be very well-played and all the notes are there, but it simply lacks the passion necessary to make the work really sing. After all, Schiller's Ode To Joy is a passionate work whose words should strike at the very core of any person's heart.

    Still, the likelihood of someone having a video of the 1959 Andre Cluyten performance is nil, and I doubt that we will see the Leonard Bernstein version on DVD real soon (it has been available on VHS), so this is a more than acceptable substitute. Not absolute top drawer stuff by any stretch of the imagination, but at least a better-than-average effort that will please all but the most fastidious.

Video

     The image is reasonably sharp, but suffers somewhat from the usual problems we would expect from a seventeen year video transfer. The depth of field here is not great and so most of the image is out of focus, unless it is the focal point of the image. Consequently, we get to see a lot of nice sharp images of Herbert Von Karajan against a sadly diffuse background and a marginally lacking foreground. When the viewing field is opened up a little, the images tend to be a lot better with much better overall focus and detail. Detail, however, is nothing exceptional irrespective of where the focus lies, whilst shadow detail is at best acceptable. There appears to be something of a problem with grain in the transfer which mitigates against the clarity of the overall transfer. There does not appear to be any significant problems with low level noise in the transfer.

    There is not much of a palette of colours offered here, since everyone wears a black suit with a white shirt and a dark tie. Still, the blacks have a nice depth to them even though they tend to be a little too deep compared to the slightly anaemic skin tones on offer. The instruments certainly do not display much in the way of colour tones either. I suppose it conveys the overall feel of the musicians well enough, but a little relief would have been nice. There is something of a problem with flare in the transfer as a result of the lighting reflecting off instruments and at times this is not handled too well. Oversaturation of colour is definitely not an issue here, nor is there any hint of colour bleed.

    There are no problems with MPEG artefacts in the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts are confined to some minor aliasing problems, mainly on the string instruments. Film artefacts were absent from the transfer.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There did not seem to be any problems with audio sync in the transfer, and when the vocals did come in the fourth movement they were clear and easy to understand - my German is certainly improving as a result of listening to this symphony for so many years!

    Whichever soundtrack you choose to listen to, just remember to crank it up! Not that we have any audio demonstrations here, but rather this music deserves to sing and it does that best with the audio level cranked up. There is certainly nothing much wrong with this well-engineered Dolby Digital soundtrack, with the bass channel being thankfully restrained. I must admit to dreading the thought of thunderous drums, but was pleasantly surprised by how well they were handled in the overall sound mix. Surround channel usage could perhaps have been a little better, but the overall sound is quite immersive and is quite reminiscent of the multi-directional sound that one hears at a live concert. This is perhaps a less analytical digital soundtrack than some I have heard, with the result that the various instruments present a nice overall soundscape without any instruments being especially digitally isolated in the mix. The Linear PCM 2.0 soundtrack is not in the same league and sounds just like a compact disc recording. Of admirable quality, even though well overshadowed by the Dolby Digital soundtrack.
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Biography-Herbert Von Karajan

Programme Notes

    A good video transfer.

    An excellent audio transfer.

    A somewhat underwhelming extras package.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
23rd September 2000