Carl Schuricht-A Portrait (1957) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Classical	Main Menu Audio & Animation Music Highlights-Mozart-Haffner Symphony (finale) Music Video-Stravinsky-The Firebird (Suite) Gallery-Photo-A Life in Pictures Booklet Music Highlights-CD References
Rating
Year Of Production	1957
Running Time	41:33 (Case: 80)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Rolf Unkel
Studio Distributor	Haenssler Classic Select Audio-Visual Distrib	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$49.95	Music	None Given

    This DVD contains a brief film biography of the conductor Carl Schuricht and (apparently) the only surviving TV footage of him conducting. It appears that the biography was made in 1957, a decade before the conductor's death at the age of 86, though I suspect at least some of the audio excerpts of his performances have been updated with more recent transfers of the same material.

    The film could hardly be described as an in-depth biography. It is more like a run through of the events in his life, fleshed out with extracts from the musical performances contained in full as extras on the DVD, and a litany of awards and citations that he received. There is film footage of the conductor but mostly it is told with photographs and interviews with colleagues, for example the composer Boris Blacher, the violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan and the soprano Maria Stader, all of whom speak of Schuricht in glowing terms. There is also some audio of Schuricht discussing his life and career.

    Perhaps there is not a great deal of interesting biographical material about the conductor, whose life appears relatively undramatic compared to that of some of his contemporaries. Even so there is one potentially compelling thread in this documentary that is not explored in great detail. Schuricht's wife was Jewish and under the Nazis she had to be smuggled into concerts. They eventually migrated to Switzerland in 1943, but how they managed to get out of Germany is not covered.

    Schuricht was a pupil of composers Engelbert Humperdinck and Max Reger and held posts at Wiesbaden and Dresden before Erich Kleiber's unexpected death in 1956 led Schuricht to lead the Vienna Philharmonic on their first US tour, to general acclaim. His conducting style included much attention to detail while maintaining the overall structure of works, but lacked the kind of interpretative style that made his contemporaries famous in their day: conductors like Walter, Furtwangler and Klemperer for example. In more recent years Schuricht has come back into fashion to an extent and Hanssler Classics and others have reissued many of his recordings on compact disc. This DVD is an appendix to the Hanssler set.

    Overall, while the main documentary is relatively brief and a bit of a let down for those wanting to know more about this artist, the extra material is generous and overall the DVD represents good value. Those collecting his recordings on CD will probably have the audio excerpts already but for the rare footage should investigate this release.

Video

    The film is in black and white and is in an aspect ratio of 1.26:1, which appears to be the original aspect ratio. The video format is NTSC, the de facto standard of classical music on DVD these days.

    Virtually all of the footage dates from the 1950s and was shot on 35mm film for the most part, with some lesser quality footage in 16mm.

    The film footage has good if not exceptional contrast and a satisfactory greyscale. Blacks and whites are average. There are a number of small flecks, dirt and dust and the occasional scratch, but nothing seriously disturbing. Overall this is a good transfer with no noticeable film to video artefacts.

    Optional English subtitles are provided in clear text. These are generally good, though there are a couple of spelling mistakes. The most glaring of these occurs when Ernest Ansermet's surname, rendered accurately several times before, appears as Encermé.

    The disc is single-layered.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    The film was made for German television I believe and the only soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0 mono. All of the narration is spoken in German, without the option of an English language track.

    The audio is average monophonic quality, with some slight sibilance and distortion on the higher frequencies. The musical excerpts from time to time sound like they have been replaced with newer masterings of the original recordings, as they sound a lot better than the rest of the audio. It is also possible that the narration is new, but I have not been able to find any information one way or the other.

    The music is by various composers and all from performances conducted by Schuricht.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Main Menu Audio and Animation

    Some music of Brahms and a slowly cycling background.

Mozart-Haffner Symphony (finale) (4:17)

    It is not billed as such on the disc menu but this is just the final movement of Mozart's Haffner Symphony, in reasonable sound and slightly less reasonable video. It appears to have been recorded for television in 1956 at the Mozartfest in Ludwigsburg.

Stravinsky-The Firebird (Suite) (19:43)

    A more substantial extra is this performance, shot on film, of Stravinsky's suite from his great ballet The Firebird. The performance is not as abandoned and frenetic as more famous accounts but it is still very well done. This footage was shot in 1957 and most of the time the camera is focussed on the conductor.

Photo Gallery-A Life in Pictures (2:42)

    A series of briefly presented stills and several posters advertising performances.

Booklet

    An eight-page booklet which contains just a page and a half in English, including some text about the conductor and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

CD References

    This rather substantial bonus takes the form of a gallery of a number of CDs from the Schuricht collection. Each has a screen showing the cover and a list of the disc contents. The music can also be accessed from a listing of composers. For each CD one track is included as audio only. Some of these selections are surprisingly lengthy. The selections are

• Beethoven: Allegro con brio from Symphony No 7
• Beethoven: Presto - Allegro Assai from Symphony No 9
• Brahms: Allegretto grazioso from Symphony No 2
• Brahms: Langsam, marschmässig from Ein Deutsches Requiem
• Bruckner: Bewegt, nicht zu schnell from Symphony No 4
• Bruckner: Scherzo from Symphony No 5
• Bruckner: Adagio from Symphony No 7
• Bruckner: Allegro moderato from Symphony No 8
• Bruch: Finale from Violin Concerto No 1
• Haydn: Allegro from Symphony No 95
• Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (excerpt)
• Mozart: Molto allegro from Symphony No 40
• Mozart: Allegro from Piano Concerto No 9
• Pfitzner: Overture to Käthchen von Heilbronn
• Mendelssohn: Overture to Ein Sommernachtstraum
• Wagner: Karfreittagszauber from Parsifal

    This Hanssler Classics DVD seems to be the same the world over.

    Not the best musical documentary ever made, but certainly the best there is on this cult conductor.

    The video quality is very good considering the age of the material.

    The audio quality is unexceptional.

    A substantial quantity of extra material.

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