Chanticleer-Magnificat (DVD-Audio) (2001) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Featurette-Chanticleer Trailer-John Tavener-Village Wedding Audio-Only Track-Also Available (DVD-A) Credits Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	67:31 (Case: 69)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Joseph Jennings
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Matthew Alber Christopher Fritzsche Jay White Jeffrey Keim Philip Wilder Kevin Baum Michael Lichtenauer Matthew Oltman Eric Alatorre Thomas Bold Joel Diffendaffer Tim Krol
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	Josquin Desprez Vasily Titov John Taverner

    Chanticleer are a 12 man choral group from San Francisco, founded in 1978 by the late tenor Louis Botto. Specialising in a capella music (literally: at the chapel) their repertoire includes mediaeval madrigals, present day jazz and religious works. Named after the 'clear-throated rooster' from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales they span the full vocal range from bass to soprano and are recognised as leading exponents of a capella. Whilst this form of unaccompanied music includes barber-shop quartets, do-wop bands and even chanting Tibetan monks, the present DVD-Audio, Magnificat, covers liturgical chants from a variety of middle age sources, all concerned with adoration of the Virgin Mary. In addition to the famous Ave Maria, there are versions of the four principal Marian antiphons, namely Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina cælorum, Regina cæli and Salve Regina. Originally released as a CD, it spent 14 weeks in the Billboard Classical Charts, reaching as high as #4.

    The works are anonymously ascribed to the Gregorian Order or else to Mediaeval composers such as Vasily Titov (1650-1715), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), and the earliest by John Taverner (1490-1545). The Gregorian chants are sung in single melodic unison whilst the other composers tend to have more complex contrasting and competing polyphonic melodies. Personally, I enjoyed the Gregorian chants but found much of the rest hard going and at times a little hard on the ear. There is absolutely no doubting the polished, superb performance of Chanticleer - whether you find this enjoyable, or not, depends on your appetite for this particular fare.

Video

Audio

    There are two tracks on this single sided, dual layered disc - the high resolution DVD-Audio recorded as MLP 5.0 channel at 96kHz / 24 bit resolution and a Dolby Digital 5.1 version recorded at 48/24 and 448kbps. Unlike many DVD-Audio releases there is no high resolution stereo version - I don't consider this a big issue as the surround mix is very conservative. If you must listen to the feature in stereo, you'll have to output via your 2 channel outputs, reconfigure your multi-channel setup to two main speakers or listen in stereo via the digital output which will downsample to 48/24 resolution.

    This recording makes substantial demands on your system and unwelcome resonance and ringing occurs if your speaker placement and levels aren't just right. There is a low level background hiss audible on the first track suggestive of an analogue master. There is also extraneous noise at 0:39 (someone tripping over  a wire maybe) and also a click between the 1st and 2nd chapters. Whilst most of the recording was superb I did find the four voice polyphony in the 2nd track (Ave Maria, Mater Dei) overcooked and tending to distortion. There was also an unwelcome harshness and frazzle to the alto choruses, also in the 2nd track. By way of contrast, the Gregorian monophony was superb and I found the last two tracks by Josquin Desprez immersive and almost imparting a religious experience by the purity of sound.

    No surprises with the Dolby Digital track: the sound was thinner and flatter but some of the stridency from the second track was also reduced - quite passable and pleasing to listen to but lacking the depth and dynamics of the high resolution track.

    Overall, the surround arrangement was unobtrusive and used to add rear reverberation to enhance the atmosphere of openness in a pleasing manner. Only occasionally did the mix throw a tenor or bass vocal to the right corner - excellent mixing. There were attempts on the 1st track to convey a moving choir, entering the church main door and progressing to the altar, passing by the listener but this didn't work on my system - the front speakers were initially mixed too high and the transition from rear to front was too fast, giving the impression of a rear to front fade rather the intended effect. Tracks 7 and 8 worked rather better where the chorus was split between left and right transepts.

    The subwoofer slept throughout the performance, which is how it should be. I wondered whether the recording was in fact 4.0 as favoured by many classic labels but the centre channel is definitely utilised so I guess we call it 5.0 surround.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The mediaeval icons and paintings depicted on each work on the DVD-A format were of superb quality and great interest.

Chanticleer

    Biography and photos of the singing group lasting 3:51.

Music Video - The Wedding - John Taverner

    Yep, a music video of John Taverner's The Wedding set in contemporary style - quite watchable filmed in delicate pastel-tinted black and white in 1.33:1 ratio NTSC. Recorded in stereo 48/16 LPCM sound.

Also Available

    Samples of nine other DVD-As from the Teldec stable recorded in 96/24 PPCM and 44.1/24 PPCM - mostly about a minute of duration and of great interest - a good test section for your sound system.

Booklet

    28 page colour booklet in English with a brief history of Chanticleer, producer's technical comments, notes on all the composers and the lyrics in Latin with their English translation - a superb effort.

    As is usually the case with DVD-Audio, this is a multi-region disc and is the same in all countries of release.

    The video stills are superb and of reference quality.

    The audio quality is very good - outclassing CD and DVD-V - but falls short of perfection and needs a good sound system to present this demanding art-form at its best..

    The extras are very satisfactory and in particular the booklet is essential reading before and during the listening sessions. Unusually, all extras, save the video stills, are available in the DVD-V version.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall