Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler DVD Audio

ok. so the search feature is broken right now so i'll ask what i'm sure already exists.

What good Classical DVD Audio would you recommend? I've just gone to amazon and discovered there are oodles of pages of DVD audio and as i don't want my spouse to injure me severely i should only buy a few...but which ones?

Well, with the lack of commercial success of DVD-As, there are relatively few worthwhile ones, at least compared to CDs. However, an excellent small collection is possible at reasonable cost. My first choice would be the superb Yablonsky Swan Lake . The great performances of the Beethoven 5th and 7th by Kleiber are on DVD-A. The fine Vaughn Williams choral Sea Symphony stands out. A colorful group of Stokowski transcriptions is performed by Serebrier . If you'd like to splurge a bit, this pricey(about $30 shipped from Amazon sellers) Ravel collection is superb.

I have to agree with John.
The commercial success sucked but the sound is quite amazing. Dolby Digital presents a slightly different soundstage IMO but the quality is otherwise quite equal.

I have a few outstanding performances on DVD-Audio:
1) Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique with Colin Davis
2) Bach: Selected organ works with Ton Koopman
3) Beethoen's Missa Solemnis
4) Bethoven's symphonies with Barenboim (many DVDs)
5) Shubert's String quintet and Rosamund Quartet ("Surround yourself with Schubert DVD)
6) Shostakovitch's Symphony #10
7) Vivaldi: L'Estro Armonico

I also have quite a few "Tacet" DVD-Audio. They are exceptional recordings, but the sound engineers there like to experiment and are place the listener in the middle of the players. IMO it does not improve much unless you have a room with 5 M80 placed in a circle around you. BUT, for me it was worth the experimentation.

Addendum: There is one DVD-Audio you DO NOT want to buy is Mark Sustrot interpreting "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" (Debussy), "Le martyr de Saint-Sébastien" (Debussy), "Ma mère l'oie" (Ravel) and "La valse" (Ravel). The recording is flat (goes from pianissimo (ppp) to less pianissimo (pp)) and totally uninspired.

so avoid french composers. check!
how bout in terms of Schubert, Bach (non organ)...is there such a thing as a Hovhaness Surround dvd?. oh and some good Requiems

Just the one DVD...

I have Schubert and Bach with Tacet. Excellent, but peculiar recordings.

Mozart's requiem with Harnoncourt is probably available through Teldec (now part of Warner Bros) who are the actual design of DVD-Audio!

Most (85%) of my high-res music is on SACD, so I have limited exposure (about 20 DVD-Audio) to the other format.

I nearly forgot a very important one: The DVD-Audio of Berlioz's requiem is phenomenal.
Conductor: Maurice Abrazel
Orchestra: Utah Symphony Orchestra.

In his requiem, Berlioz has 2 small brass orchestra placed in the back of the room, which is pretty cool in surround!