"Actor: The Choir"

• Monteverdi: Vespers Of The Blessed Virgin | DVD | (03/03/2003) from £13.28   |  Saving you £0.71 (5.10%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Monteverdi's 'Vespers Of The Blessed Virgin' performed by the Monteverdi Chior and The English Baroque Soloists. Standing out among the excellent soloists like Ann Monoyious Michael Chance Mark Tucker and Alistaire Miles is the young Bryn Terfel. The archiecture of St. Mark's Venice is used to spectacular advantage with singers and their accompanists isolated at some distance from the main chior and orchestra.

• Carefree | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A lawyer sends his girlfriend who cannot decide whether to marry him to a psychiatrist to help her increase her confidence. However she falls hopelessly in love with the charming psychiatrist who is uncertain of his best course of action... This delightful film features a superb score from Irving Berlin including the songs 'I Used To Be Colour Blind' 'The Yam' and 'The Night Is Filled With Music'.

• Roger Waters - The Wall - Live In Berlin | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £30.00   |  Saving you £-15.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Time: In 1989 the Berlin Wall for so long the symbol of the cold war came crashing down. 12 months later this defining moment was marked by one of the greatest rock concerts of all time. The Place: Postdamer Platz sat between the two Berlin walls which divided the city. For decades people had died trying to escape Communism to Capitalism. In 1990 this extraordinary concert would open up this historic landmark. The Performances: Special Guests: Bryan Adams The Band: Rick Danko Gareth Hudson Levon Helm Paul Carrack Thomas Dolby James Galway Jerry Hall The Hooters Cyndi Lauper Ute Lemper Paddy Maloney Joni Mitchell Van Morrison Sinead O'Connor and Scorpions.

• Handel-Messiah | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-3.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Kings College Choir Cambridge: Handel - Messiah (Pal)

• Bach: Cantatas | DVD | (02/11/2001) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Taking the Bach Cantatas as a basis for a year-long pilgrimage in 2000, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner led the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists on an emotional and artistically triumphant world tour to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. Many of the Cantatas were performed in religious buildings throughout Europe and even in New York, at appropriate times in the liturgical calendar. These performances feature Cantatas 179, 199 and 113, all composed for the 11th Sunday after Trinity, in marvellously dramatic interpretations by the Choir and soloists including soprano Magdalena Kozen, alto William Towers, tenor Mark Padmore and Stephan Loges. Gardiner’s mission to expose the delicacy of emotion at the heart of Bach’s deceptively simple melodies pays dividends in settings which range from baroque German cathedrals to the austere bleakness of Iona. Filmed by BBC Wales, the concerts create a moving spiritual journey in which the music itself is allowed to take centre stage thanks to the passion of the performances and, above all, to Gardiner’s vision of Bach’s continuing relevance in the modern world at the beginning of a new millennium. On the DVD: thanks to the crystal clarity of the PCM Stereo soundtrack and Surround Sound, it’s possible to reproduce at home the distinctive acoustics of the different venues where the cantatas are performed. The picture quality (anamorphic 16:9 ratio) makes for the standard television viewing experience but it’s the music which counts. Extras include a 60-minute documentary explaining Gardiner’s vision for the pilgrimage, with further performance extracts, giving a sense of the sheer size and ambition of the project--not least the logistical issues of moving a large group of performers around such a diverse range of locations. It also shows the extent to which the performers become absorbed by Bach’s music and through it, discover new aspects of their own spirituality. Extensive booklet notes include full texts of the featured Cantatas and the double-sided disc allows viewing in PAL or NTSC format.--Piers Ford

• Handel: Messiah (Handel: Messiah (Staged Version) | Blu Ray | (30/08/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Christmas Oratorio - Johann Sebastian Bach | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Christmas Oratorio, Bach's six-part cantata cycle, was presented by The Monteverdi Choir under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner at the Heiderkirche in Weimar in December 2000 as the culmination of a year-long pilgrimage. Gardiner's mission had been to perform Bach's complete canon of liturgical cantatas, in appropriate religious settings, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. This is a magical record of a splendid musical occasion. Although the Oratorio is seasonal, the tale and the manner of its telling repay repeated listening regardless of the time of year. The commitment of Gardiner, his singers and musicians is deeply moving and is heightened by the splendid Baroque surroundings. The story, related largely by tenor Christoph Genz, is a rich tapestry of musical textures, ranging from the celebratory pastoral opening to the poignancy of many of the solo passages (soprano Claron McFadden's bell-like tones soar, in particular). In one of the accompanying brief documentaries, Gardiner says that at a time when we're weighed down with wallpaper music, Bach provides a means of escape through his sacred music. The proof is in the holistic nature of this piece, with its combined senses of nature at work and order, represented by the discipline of the music itself, of almost mathematical proportions. Sublime. On the DVD: two discs each contain three parts of the Oratorio with a short documentary providing some useful background to Gardiner's pilgrimage and an exploration of his belief that through music, "Bach tells us what it's like to be a human being as part of the universe." The picture format is 16:9 and provides ample digital quality; the setting inevitably imposes its own limits on the viewing experience. The segment for the "Third Day of Christmas" features a choice between the concert camera and the conductor camera so you can vary the picture, but this is really just a gimmick soon forgotten if you're mainly interested in the music. You can listen to the soundtrack in LCPM stereo (best), AC3 Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 surround. --Piers Ford

• Ave Verum-St.Johns College | DVD | (12/11/2007) from £17.19   |  Saving you £-10.20 (-145.90%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Tracklisting: 1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Ave Verum 3'37 2. Joseph Haydn - Insanae et vanac curae 6'48 3. Johannes Brahms - How lovely are Thy dwellings 5'28 4. William Byrd - Ave verum 4'18 5. Edvard Hagerup Grieg - Ave maris stella 2'55 6. Anton Bruckner - Locus iste 2'37 7. Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy - Denn er hat seinen Engeln 3'04 8. Franz Schubert - Where Thou reignest 5'42 9. William H. Harrus - Bring us O Lord God 3'39 10. Charles Villers Stanford - O! For a

• A Christmas Carol - The Northern Ballet Theatre | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Charles Dickens' immortal tale here revels in a delightful adaptation for dance drama in three acts by Christopher Gable distinguished choreographer actor and former Royal Ballet star who died in 1998. The work is laced with Carl Davis' sparkling Christmas music which also requires the dancers to sing at various points. The featured company is the renowned Northern Ballet Theatre who here dance with infectious ebullience and vivacity.

• The Red Army Choir Orchestra And Dance Ensemble - Live In Paris | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tracklistinig: 1. Titles 2. Russian National Anthem 3. Oh Fields My Fields (Song of the Plains) 4. Sacred War 5. In the Sunny Clearing 6. Kalinka 7. Cossack Dance 8. We Sing to Thee 9. On the Road (A Soldier's Song) 10. Smuglianka 11. Partisan's Song 12. Along the Peterskaya Raod 13. Dark Eyes 14. Navy Dance 15. Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (From Nabucco) 16. Bandit's Chorus (From Ernani) 17. Spanish Medley: Amapola/Valencia/Granada 18. Zaporogue's Cossacks 19. Excerpt from ""Bo

• Verdi: Otello -- La Scala/Muti | DVD | (19/09/2003) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (150.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Riccardi Muti conducts a performance of Otello at the La Scala Theatre before the start of a three year renovation project.

• Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust | DVD | (15/05/2000) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (-8.00%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This imaginative staging of Berlioz's dramatic symphony for chorus, soloists and orchestra relies heavily on the moving of massed choirs across a large stage. It has vivid lighting effects--rather too many of them using strobes--and monolithic multi-purpose sets, in particular a revolving glass drum which functions both as cinema screen and rostrum for singers, so that the final ride to Hell, for example, is sung by Mephistopheles and Faust above a cavalcade of projected horses, like the inside of a zoetrope. The three main soloists have voices on a scale that can compete with these flashy production values--White and Kasarova, in particular, sing at a level of intensity that would swamp anything less; the climactic seduction trio has rarely been sung so well or with such an overpoweringly polymorphous eroticism. Cambreling marshals his forces effectively, giving full rein to the work's showstoppers like the "Hungarian March" but not neglecting the subtler less kinetic Gluckian side of Berlioz's vocal writing. The DVD has subtitles in English, German and Dutch, and menus in those languages, as well as French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. --Roz Kaveney

• Little Drummer Boy | DVD | (21/10/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The heart-warming story of Aaron The Little Drummer Boy who comes upon the birth of baby Jesus and learns that the best gift is one given from the heart. Share the magic of this Original Christmas Classic.

• John Eliot Gardiner - In Rehearsal | DVD | (13/06/2002) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The In Rehearsal series continues to offer fascinating insights into the technique of conducting with this film about John Eliot Gardiner rehearsing Bach's Cantata BWV63 (Christen, ätzet diesen Tag). The venue is EMI's Abbey Road Studios, so there are the obligatory hackneyed shots of that zebra crossing at the beginning, but there's nothing else hackneyed about the rest of this engrossing film. The devil is in the detail: what Gardiner says about Bach and period performance (enlightening though it is) is less interesting than the way he says it. After one rousing chorus, for example, he leaves everyone breathless in silence while he digs some dirt from his fingernails before giving them a cool "Well done". A mild contretemps with the first trumpet leads to an interview in which the brass player nervously and darkly hints at even greater conflict under the surface of the rehearsal. It's remarkable to hear the sublime music-making that results despite, or perhaps because of, the tension: Gardiner continually urges the musicians to swing the beat and feel the pulse as if it were a dance, and they do. One quibble: the names of the soloists aren't credited anywhere, so here they are: Ann Monoyios, Sara Mingardo, Rufus Müller and Stephan Loges. On the DVD: John Eliot Gardiner in Rehearsal is presented in 4:3 ratio, with PCM Stereo sound format. The picture quality is clear without being lustrous, but perfectly adequate for the needs of the subject. The disc has subtitles available in English, German, French and Spanish. --Warwick Thompson

• Strauss: Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Opus Arte: OABD7104D) | Blu Ray | (26/03/2012) from £25.65   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Paul Mccartney - Ecce Cor Meum | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £18.88   |  Saving you £-4.89 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Paul McCartney performs his critically-acclaimed Ecce Cor Meum score. This performance recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS perfectly conveying the music as it was intended.

• We Want The Light | DVD | (22/10/2004) from £27.95   |  Saving you £-2.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This is a DVD about many things. It is about freedom and captivity about emancipation acculturation and assimilation; it is about the roles played by Moses and Felix Mendelssohn in the dream of fruitful unproblematic integration of the Jews into German society after their liberation from the ghettos; it is about Richard Wagner his essay Das Judenthum in der Musik (The Jews in Music) and his influence on the thinking of the Third Reich but most of all it is a DVD about how much music can mean to people even in the direst of circumstances or particularly in the direst circumstances.The title We Want The Light is taken from a poem by a 12-year-old girl Eva Pickova written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Her words provide both the title and the climax - in a setting for two choruses and orchestra by the American composer Franz Waxman in his work The Song Of Terezin. The DVD also contains music by Mahler Bach Schoenberg Bruch Schumann Mendelssohn Wagner Schubert Bloch and Brahms.

• Silent Night, Holy Night | DVD | (22/10/2004) from £1.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (86.70%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Silent Night Holy Night From the Schauspielhaus Berlin1. Macht Hoch die Tur2. Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen3. Ave Maria4. Jubilate Domino5. Cantique de Noel6. In dulci jubilo7. Herrscher des Himmels (choir from the Christmas Oratorio)8. Russian Orthodox Hymns and Prayers9. Air (from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major)10. Bereite dich Zion (Aria from the Christmas Oratorio)11. Concerto in B flat Minor for Harp and Orchestra12. Ombra mai fu (Aria from Xerxes)13. O Jesulein sub14. Joseph Iieber Joseph mein15. Tochter Zion Freue dich16. Stille Nacht heilige Nacht

• Evensong & Vespers from Kings | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Evensongs & Verspers From Kings

• Khovanshchina | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £36.43   |  Saving you £-6.44 (-21.50%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Modest Mussorgsky's opera 'Khovanshchina' performed by the Vienna State Opera and Chorus and the Slovak Philharmonic Chorus from Bratislava; conducted by Claudio Abbado.