The Art of Conducting-Legendary Conductors of a Golden Era (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	114:44
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Peter R. Smith
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Michael Letchford Sergiu Celibidache Wilhelm Furtwängler Erich Kleiber Willem Mengelberg Evgeny Mravinsky Charles Munch
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Various

    The Art of Conducting originated as a two-part TV series, then was adapted for release on home video as a two hour documentary entitled Great Conductors of the Past. This turned out to be so successful that they decided to make a "sequel." The Art of Conducting – Legendary Conductors Of A Golden Era was never shown on TV and has always been intended as documentary for release on home video. This time round, the narration is by Michael Letchford.

    The format of the documentary is very similar to the previous disc. We get rather lengthy excepts of historical footage of various conductors rehearsing and performing with their orchestras. In between are sandwiched brief excerpts of interviews (historical and contemporary) with musicians discussing or reminiscing about those conductors.

    Some of the conductors featured in this documentary are the same as the previous ones (eg. Wilhelm Furtwängler, Erich Kleiber and Herbert von Karajan) but others are new. Apart from Karajan, there seems to be a tendency to pick conductors from a generation that modern concert-goers would probably not have had the opportunity to see in action - which means the footage is often in black and white with mono sound.

    The conductors, orchestras and musical excerpts featured in this documentary are:

    Interviews include:

• Vic Firth (timpanist, Boston Symphony Orchestra)
• Yehudi Menuhin (violinist and conductor)
• Otto Edelmann (singer)
• Peter Andry (recording executive)
• Bernard Haitink (conductor)
• Daniel Barenboim (pianist and conductor)
• Walter Barylli (concertmaster, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Alexander Barantschik (violinist)
• Yuri Grigorovich (chief choreographer and artistic director, Bolshoi Ballet)
• Evgeny Mravinsky (conductor)

    Some of the film footage looks a bit odd, such as Mengelberg's performances which were specially recorded in Paris in a concert hall dressed up to look like the Concertgebouw, and Furtwängler's Till Eulenspiegel with dancers making an appearance in the middle of the performance. Others are decidedly haunting, such as Celibidache's Egmont recorded in the open air in a bombed-out Berlin in winter just after the Second World War.

    I found the Celibidache excerpts quite interesting as there is a chronological progression from him as a young man just after the Second World War to an old man in the 1990s and it was very interesting to see his mannerisms and looks mature and yet somehow remain the same.

Video

    This is a 1.33:1 full frame transfer of variable quality.

    The contemporary interviews are in colour and recorded onto videotape and look fairly good apart from minor edge enhancement and Gibb's effect ringing. The historical footage tends to be in black and white and range from quite good to terrible and grainy.

    Interestingly, the black and white footage causes the Digital Reality Creation (DRC) circuit in my projector to comb in DRC Progressive mode. This occurs in various places including Chapter 14 during the dance sequences and also in the baton movements. The combing is not inherent in the source because the alternate DRCx4 mode does not show any signs of combing.

    There are also occasional instances of pixelization, such as during Chapter 15.

    There are a number of subtitle tracks available: English, French, and German. I turned on the English subtitle track briefly. Accuracy is slightly below average and it would be fair to say that the subtitling is paraphrasing the dialogue in many instances as opposed to transcribing the dialogue. Captions are also burned in to the video stream (mainly identification of musical excerpts and interviewees). Interestingly, there is no captioning or translation of non-English dialogue unless the English subtitle track is turned on.

    This is a single sided single layered disc containing almost two hours of programming, so it is definitely packed.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    The audio track is broadcast TV in quality and is recorded at a fairly high level (about 2dB louder than normal).

    Some of the historical footage features audio that has rolled-off high and low frequencies, wow and flutter, strident midrange and distorted highlights. For example, Chapter 32 has severe phase shifts in the upper frequencies from analogue tape misalignment. I also noticed numerous (and annoying) crackles and pops in Chapter 10 and also in the end titles. The contemporary interviews feature better sonics.

    Dialogue in general is easy to understand, apart from some speakers who have a strong accent. I did not notice any audio synchronization issues.

    Most of the audio is monaural in nature and there are very few stereo elements present. The surrounds and subwoofer are not utilized.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Unlike the previous title (Great Conductors Of The Past) which had an extensive featurette containing additional interviews, this DVD does not contain any extras apart from the booklet.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static.

Booklet

    This is a fairly thick 36 page booklet containing:

• Chapter listing - including detailed description of historical footage excerpts and contributors
• Description of interviewees
• A lengthy essay by Alan Sanders (English, German and French versions)
• Black and white photos of conductors

    This title is yet to be released in R1 (its announced release date is 19 November 2002) but it appears to be similar in terms of features and content to the R4 release (which is actually multi-region coded for Regions 2-6).

    The Art of Conducting – Legendary Conductors Of A Golden Era is the "made for video" sequel to Great Conductors of the Past.. It features historical footage of great conductors in performance and rehearsals as well as contemporary interviews.

    The video quality is variable depending on the age of the source.

    The audio quality is also variable.

    There are no extras apart from a 36 page booklet.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall