"Actor: Peter Schreier"

• Bach-Christmas Oratorio | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £15.85   |  Saving you £1.14 (7.19%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The pinnacle of Baroque Christmas music Johann Sebastian Bach's beloved Christmas Oratorio is performed in the splendour of Waldhausen church - with distinguished soloists Peter Schreier and Robert Holl the Tolzer Knabenchor and Vienna's Concentus Musicus under the baton of acclaimed Baroque specialist Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

• Bach - St. Matthew Passion (Richter) | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £22.53   |  Saving you £-0.54 (-2.50%)   |  RRP £21.99

• Wagner - Das Rheingold | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £13.28   |  Saving you £0.71 (5.35%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This film is the one existing record of Karajan's Salzburg Ring on video. Made in 1978, with imagination extra film sequences to complement the original stage production for the Easter Festival, it brings to life the epic grandeur of Karajan's concept, with the fallible gods, headed by Thomas Stewart's nobly-sung Wotan, depicted in all their mythic majesty.

• The Creation | DVD | (15/05/2000) from £6.61   |  Saving you £13.38 (202.42%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Haydn's oratorio Die Schöpfung ("The Creation") recounts Genesis via Milton's Paradise Lost, translated into German and reworked into the finished libretto by the Baron van Swieten. It is an intensely felt masterpiece, Haydn later saying, "I was never so pious as during the time when I was working on The Creation: I fell to my knees daily and asked God to give me the strength for a favourable completion of the work." The music alternates thrilling choral writing with moving solo parts, and bass Rene Pape and soprano Edith Mathis are especially fine. This DVD release presents a 1992 performance originally shot for video in an unnamed but beautiful and ornate Baroque location. The notes record that at the public premiere in Vienna in 1799, a small book containing van Swisten's libretto was given to each member of the audience "So that ever'body unnerstands what the music wanted t'say." It is ironic that this release contains neither the libretto nor subtitles. This is a musical drama, and the text is vitally important for more than superficial appreciation, such that those unfamiliar with the work may find greater reward in John Eliot Gardiner's 1997 CD version. On the DVD: The disc contains a clean, sharp 4:3 ratio transfer from the original video programme with minimal evidence of grain. The sound is stereo PCM and generally good, though in some of the more full-blooded passages the recording of the choir is a little constricted and even harsh. There are no extra features of any kind, though being Region 0 the disc will play in any DVD machine. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Sherrill Milnes: An All-Star Gala | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £16.39   |  Saving you £0.60 (3.66%)   |  RRP £16.99

  I PAGLIACCI: Prologue (Leoncavallo) Sherrill MilnesUP IN CENTRAL PARK: Close as Pages in a Book (Romberg/Fields) Julia Migenes and Sherrill Milnes.COSI FAN TUTTE: Un'aura amorosa (Mozart) Peter Schreier.O TOD WIE BITTER BIST DU: (Brahms) Sherrill Milnes with Jon Spong piano.LA TRAVIATA: Pura siccome un angelo (Verdi) Mirella Freni and Sherrill Milnes.DON CARLO: Dio che nell'alma infondere (Verdi) Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes.OTELLO: Credo in un Dio crudel (Verdi) Sherrill Milnes.

• Mozart: Requiem In D Minor KV 626 | DVD | (03/09/2005) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (-8.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Mozart's last work The Requiem Mass in D Minor K626 receives a strong performance from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra And Chorus under Mozart specialist Colin Davis in a classic recording made in 1984.Popular legend has it that the Requiem was commissioned by a mysterious stranger fuelling Mozart's obsession that the piece was his own Mass. However the probable truth is much less dark that one Count Walsegg who had a well-known penchant for commissioning works which he then attempted to pass of as his own commissioned it upon the death of his wife. Mozart died is 1791 before completing the piece. It was later completed by one of his students Franz Sussmayer at the request of Mozart's wife Constanze.

• Mozart - Die Zauberflote, Fur Kinde (Levine, Vpo) | DVD | (02/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Mozart's The Magic Flute (for Children). Recorded live at the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, 26th August 1982.