"Actor: Zuzana Parmova"

• Great Composers - Bach / Mozart | DVD | (01/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The BBC TV series Great Composers, broadcast in 1997, takes an introductory look at key figures of European classical music. Bach (1685-1750) is a difficult composer to survey historically, partly because his life as a professional musician was restricted to several provincial German towns. Yet the vast body of music he produced is well covered, with a representative sample performed mainly on instruments of Bach's day. There's also consideration of his cultural importance as the effective progenitor of modern European music and enough anecdotal evidence to suggest a lively, combative personality in his own right. The life of Mozart (1756-1791) is easier to document, with his years as a child prodigy travelling the European cultural circuit, the difficult adolescent years in Salzburg and Paris and the rise and fall of his freelance career in Vienna all amply illustrated here. Again, a well-chosen selection of music, accompanied by thought-provoking comments from a range of musicians and historians, gently exploding the myth of the Amadeus film in the process. This is informal, informing, and worth acquiring. On the DVD: The disc offers crisp Dolby 2.0 stereo and 4:3 ratio, with generous and well-chosen access points--13 for Bach, 16 for Mozart. Subtitles are offered in five languages, and you'll need to select the English option so that the German and Italian speaking contributors come with translation. Those with DVD-ROM can additionally access up-to-date articles on these composers. --Richard Whitehouse

• Great Composers - Vol. 2 - Beethoven / Wagner | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The second volume of the BBC's excellent Great Composers series consists of two hour-long episodes devoted to Beethoven and Wagner respectively. The format in both cases is that of a standard "life and works" biography, but what makes these episodes so attractive is the high quality of the visual material and the engrossing nature of the insights offered from the contributors. For example, it's fascinating to hear the lead violin of the Lindsay Quartet discuss the personal significance of a certain Beethoven phrase just after Charles Rosen has drawn a parallel with the composer's use of form and the speeches of Robespierre. If this makes the whole project sound as wholesome and dull as dry muesli, everyone also seems alive to the human idiosyncrasies of the subjects: we learn, among other things, that the utterly humourless Cosima Wagner used to keep her husband's eyelashes and carry them around with her in a bag. The musical excerpts are both performed--by the Berlin State Opera Orchestra and other groups--and filmed with panache. Kenneth Branagh narrates. All in all, a good introduction to both composers.--Warwick Thompson