Thread: Classical Concert Video Recording thread

Is Classical video recording still not much popular to be collected? With advance of DVD to BluRay system, the audio quality for video recording is hopefully advanced also. Like in general live concert video there will be additional aspect here, the visual artistic aspect. So do you looking positively for this? As long as I remember the classical concert recording is very less 'catchy' and very much dull compared to other genre.

So, what is your current purchases and by you choose the visual version to audio only version? What is your favorite video recording also ?

Meanwhile I like to limit the talks to classical concert only, if Opera counted then it will be more wide thing to talk, it will close to a movie then.

I'm a fan of classical-music "concert" videos. Own quite a few on DVD and the old Laserdisc format. My current pick of the litter is this EuroArts DVD of Mozart works performed in Prague by the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim.

Video quality (widescreen) as seen at 1080p (upscaled by my OPPO DVD player) on my 46" Samsung HD LCD is top-notch, crisp and richly colored. DTS 5.1 sound is also first class. The venue is stunningly beautiful, and shown to good advantage. Camera-work is for me just about ideal, with a good mixture of orchestra long-shots, section and player closeups, conductor/soloist views, and shots of the hall. As for interpretation, my one nitpick is that symphony no. 35 lacks fire, especially in the finale. Otherwise I think these performances stack up well against the competition.

Here are Youtube snippets featuring the first movements of symphony no. 36 and the first Horn Concerto. Audio and video quality are of course much degraded, but at least you can get a feel for camera work and interpretation, as well as a look at the hall.

And yes, we should exclude discussion of opera-video here, as such a thread already exists in our Opera forum.

-ToneDeaf&Senile-

so far I have Midori Live in Carnegie hall, but that really old classic video. then Lang Lang's Mozart concerto which much newer (2006), recorded from China CCTV concert. I watched many DVDs from the library but so far their cinematic artistic are very poor and boring. I am looking for really profesional concert DVD, something like you meantioned above. I guess the nature of Classical concert where the audiences are quite make the visual recording can't do much about it, since movement of cameraman can produce noises.

I'll recommend two further fairly recently recorded (2001, 2006) concert videos, again on the EuroArts label. Both are widescreen (16:9) and offer a choice of audio formats (DD5.1, DTS5.1, PCM stereo). I'm not quite as taken with them as with the above mentioned Mozart concert, but both are enjoyable.

The first is another of EuroArts' Berlin Philharmonic "European Concert" series, this time from Istanbul. Mariss Jansons conducts.

Here's a Youtube clip of the second movement of Haydn's "Surprise" symphony.

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The second is an all Schumann program filmed in the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig.

Besides the works featured on the cover, the disk contains performances of various Schumann piano works as orchestrated by other composers.

• Adagio & Allegro brillante (from Etudes symphoniques, Op 13), orch. Tchaikovsky.
  
• 4 Pieces from "Carnaval" Op 9, orch. Ravel.

For some reason I'm not yet overly fond of this interpretation of the symphony, but like the other pieces well enough.

Here's a very brief, visually degraded, snippet of the opening of the Piano Concerto.

-ToneDeaf&Senile-

hello!
I am trying to record a classical concert with 2 canons 550d and a small ZOOM H1 microphone recorder.
I was thinking putting two cameras aside and the ZOOM in the middle for best sound capturing.
The concert is mainly piano with a singer, and the small hall is for around 50 people..
and good tip/advise would be great!

-ty in advance