Nathan Milstein (EMI Classic Archive Series) (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Classical	Bonus Track-Mischa Elman Plays Fritz Kreisler Trailer-Classic Archive Collection - A Preview Booklet DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	85:20 (Case: 91)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Patricia Foy Georges Croses
Studio Distributor	Ideale Audience EMI Music	Starring	Nathan Milstein Mischa Elman
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Johann Sebastian Bach Ludwig Van Beethoven

    Nathan Milstein was born in the Russian city of Odessa in 1904. As a youth he was taught by the same violin teacher as David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan. He later became a pupil of Leopold Auer in St. Petersburg, the legendary teacher of violinists Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman and Efrem Zimbalist amongst others. He rose to prominence in Russia during the early years of the Soviets. Travel restrictions had yet to be strictly enforced and in 1924 he obtained a passport to tour overseas. Following the death of Lenin and the accession of Stalin, conditions in the Soviet Union deteriorated and Milstein never returned to his homeland, settling in the United States.

    There he continued a concert career for more than sixty years, only ended by a broken arm in 1987. While he never achieved the fame and adulation of his compatriot Heifetz, he was highly regarded as a violinist, particularly in the solo violin works of Bach. He died in 1992 at the age of 87.

    This disc contains performances recorded for television in Britain and France during the late 1950s and 1960s. Like others in this series (of which this is the 13th volume), the source material is not of the best quality, being recorded on kinescope or primitive video tape. The interest lies in seeing and hearing a performer of the past in action, not in the visual and sonic quality, so allowances do need to be made.

    There are several performances here that are incomplete. I presume that this is due to the need to fit the material into a predetermined television timeslot, not that movements were deleted for this DVD release. So we miss out on the middle movement of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, and we only have the final movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto. Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 is also represented only by the first movement. The remaining pieces are short single-movement works, probably the sort of thing that would be included in a concert as encore pieces. Valuably we have two examples of Milstein's Bach, in the lengthy Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 and the shorter Preludio from the Partita No. 3 for solo violin.

    Needless to say the performances, recorded between 1957 and 1968, are nearly flawless, and these films give a good impression of what he must have been like on the concert platform. The direction of these pieces is very good, concentrating on his technique in shots that are held for long periods, and also show some of the work of his accompanists.

    The works are as follows:

Video

    All of the material is shown in the original television aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and there is no 16x9 enhancement.

    As mentioned above, considerable allowance must be made for the quality of the source material, as while it is viewable, it is not very good. Most of the items are somewhat blurry, with little in the way of fine detail. The kinescope process with which most of these recordings were made literally involves pointing a film camera at a television monitor. This can result in distortion of the image, which is noticeable in the Bach works, where there is an unnatural bend in the violinist's bow. Happily most of these films do not have this distortion.

    All works on this disc are in black and white. Contrast levels are just adequate, and there is not much in the way of shadow detail. Any dark areas tend to be just black. There are no pure whites.

    There appear to be no artefacts introduced as a result of the transfer. However, the source material has numerous artefacts. There is a noticeable glitch like a video tracking error at 1:55 in track 2 (the Mozart Rondo). Microphony occurs several times, and there is often chroma noise in the background of shots. Fast motion tends to look very jerky. There is a thin film of grain over the image. Despite these problems, I did not find my enjoyment of the programme lessened to any great extent.

    The disc is single-layered and there are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sole audio track is Linear PCM 2.0 mono.

    The audio is as good as you could expect from old television recordings. Bass tends to be overemphasised and a little boomy, and while strings can sound a bit wiry, in this case the violin comes across well. There is some audible background hiss, especially during the Falla piece. I have some recordings on CD of Milstein from the 1940s and early 1950s, and without exception these sound better than this DVD, but of course the interest in this material lies in seeing the performer as well as hearing him, and sonic considerations do not weigh as heavily as normal. There is nothing in the audio here that would deter anyone but those who demand reference quality sound.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Mischa Elman Plays Two Pieces by Fritz Kreisler (5:37)

    Kreisler was the pre-eminent violinist of the first half of last century, and he also composed a lot of smaller pieces to play as encores at his concerts. Elman was a compatriot of Milstein, though a decade older, and here he expressively plays Kreisler's Preghiera in the style of Padre Martini and Schön Rosmarin in a BBC recording from 1962. Elman speaks briefly to introduce the second piece. The film is very grainy. A short bonus.

Classic Archive Collection - A Preview (9:37)

    Nine short excerpts from other titles in the series, each running about 1 minute. There is also a text listing of earlier releases.

DVD Credits

    Seven pages of credits detailing the origin of the recordings and DVD production credits.

Booklet

    A twenty page booklet with detailed track listings, and a two page essay by Nalen Anthoni which is repeated in several languages. There are also several photos of Milstein and one of Elman.

    This series is manufactured in the EU in both PAL and NTSC formats and distributed worldwide. This means that the Region 4 release is identical to the releases in other countries in content, and may differ only in television format. Therefore there is no reason not to buy locally, unless you can get a better price overseas.

    An excellent introduction to this Russian violinist, though I would have liked some more substantial complete performances.

    The video quality is not very good, but as good as it could be given the source material.

    The same statement applies to the audio quality.

    The extra is nice but very insubstantial.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall