Salute to Vienna: A Strauss Gershwin Gala (NTSC) (1999) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio DVD Credits Trailer-Naxos Musical Journey; Video Essentials Trailer-StarGaze; More Tales Of The City Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	141:01 (Case: 140)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (77:19)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Humphrey Burton
Studio Distributor	Wild Releasing	Starring	Paul Groves Georg Lehner Eva Lind Herbert Lippert Elizabeth Norman Martina Serafin The Boys Choir Of Harlem Vienna Choir Boys Strauss Festival Orchestra Peter Guth John Morris Russell
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$39.95	Music	Various

    It has been a tradition for a number of years now for the city of Vienna, Austria to host a "New Year's Concert" on the eve of the year. These concerts tend to feature various singers and conductors performing a selection of light classical music (mainly featuring works by father and son, Johann Strauss Sr. and Jr.) accompanied by orchestra. In Australia, these concerts tend to be simulcast (a few months after the original performance date) by ABC TV and FM as part of the summer opera and classical music programme broadcast each Sunday from 8.30pm.

    Producer Attila Glatz (a Hungarian-born pianist and organist who now resides in America), together with his wife Marion, was so enamoured by these concerts that he decided to transpose them to North America. Since 1995, he has organised a number of "Salute to Vienna" concerts which are "re-creations" of the Viennese concerts but which are performed in North American cities featuring orchestras but imported Viennese soloists.

    These events became so successful Attila decided to go full circle by holding a gala "Salute to Vienna" concert back in the Musikverein concert hall (the venue for the original Viennese New Year's Concerts) on 20 September 1999. This DVD is a recording of that concert.

    Entitled "A Strauss/Gershwin Gala", this concert celebrates the music of both Viennese composers (the Strauss father and son, together with Franz Lehár) as well as American composers (George Gershwin and Aaron Copland). The year 1999 is also significant in that it is the centenary of the death of Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899).

    Hosted by famous actor Gregory Peck, the concert features a number of American and Viennese singers including Martina Serafin, Herbert Lippert, Eva Lind, Paul Groves, Elizabeth Norman and Georg Lehner, together with both the Vienna Boys Choir and the Boys Choir of Harlem. The conductors are Strauss specialist Peter Guth and American pops conductor John Morris Russell, who lead the 60-piece Strauss Festival Orchestra.

The concert programme includes:

    The songs performed in this concert will be well-known to anyone who is even remotely familiar with the music of Strauss or Gershwin. In my case, my parents own a battered LP of Strauss waltzes, so I did recognise many of the songs. The "French Polka" (Im Krapfenwaldl) features a number of imitated bird calls performed with tongue firmly in cheek by two members of the orchestra and I also enjoyed the "Drinking Song" (Annen Polka). In addition, we are treated to excerpts from operettas "The Merry Widow," "The Gypsy Baron" and "Die Fledermaus."

    The second half of the concert is quite different from the first, featuring music by American composers Gershwin and Copland conducted by John Morris Russell. In addition to two Gershwin medleys, we get to hear excerpts from the Gershwin musicals "Porgy and Bess" and "Of Thee I Sing." The highlight for me is Aaron Copland's finale from "Lincoln Portrait" featuring spoken dialogue by Gregory Peck. Listening to this reminds me how much today's film composers owe their inspiration to Aaron.

    Finally, the concert ends with three Strauss famous compositions: "On The Beautiful Blue Danube" Waltz, the "Champagne Finale" from "Die Fledermaus" and the "Radetzky March."

Video

    This is a full frame NTSC transfer. The original source appears to be video rather than film based, and the quality of the transfer is vaguely broadcast TV quality.

    Contrast and colour saturation appear to be inconsistent and prone to exaggeration. Detail and black levels for foreground objects tend to be quite good, but backgrounds tend to be muddy and indistinct.

    The transfer exhibits a number of artefacts, including shimmering, aliasing and Gibb's effect, and I suspect may be slightly over-compressed (two hours together with Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio tracks take up a lot of room, even on a double layered disc).

    There are no subtitle tracks.

    As mentioned earlier, this is a single sided dual layered (RSDL) disc. The layer change occurs in 77:19 and is at a reasonably well placed point in the concert, but does result in a slight pause.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this disc: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kb/s), DTS 5.1 (768 Kb/s), and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kb/s). I listened predominantly to the DTS track, but occasionally flicked over to the Dolby Digital tracks.

    This appears to be a stereo recording remixed into 5.1 surround, as the rear speakers are mainly used to convey hall reverb and ambience and audience noises are still directed to the front instead of being enveloping. I found the DTS track in particular very pleasant to listen to, although the extensive reverb of a large concert hall sounds funny in the small space of my living room.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track in comparison sounds slightly softer but still quite full bodied. In comparison to the DTS track, it sounds harsher and less natural, and the reverb in particular seem to cut off too abruptly. The Dolby Digital 2.0 track is by far the worst of the three, sounding fairly flat and insubstantial compared to the 5.1 tracks.

    Dialogue quality is obviously very good and there are no audio synchronisation issues. The subwoofer track is fairly minimal and mainly used to provide a low extension to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Audio Sync
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Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras on this disc are limited to trailers.

Menu

    The menus are full frame. The main menu and scene selections feature background audio and animation.

DVD Credits

    This is a single still crediting those involved in the production of the DVD.

Trailers - Naxos Musical Journey (2:19), Video Essentials (2:09), StarGaze (1:10), More Tales Of The City (2:38)

    These are trailers for other DVDs produced by DVD International. All the trailers are presented in full frame.

Booklet

    This is a four page booklet. The inside provides a track listing, musician credits as well as brief biographies of the artists, composers and short paragraphs describing the meaning of "polka" and "waltz."

    This disc is not region coded and appears to be the same around the world.

    Salute to Vienna: A Strauss Gershwin Gala will appeal to lovers of light classical music. It is presented on a disc with an acceptable video transfer quality and very pleasant sounding Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio transfers. The extras are limited to trailers.

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