Advantages: Excellent performances in a perfect setting Disadvantages: Very minor quibbles
and it is great to see this DVD bringing this gorgeous music to vivid life.
The 6 sonatas featured on this DVD are in the following order:
Sonata in G major - K.301
Sonata in E flat major - K.302
Sonata in C major - K.303
Sonata in E minor - K.304
Sonata in A major - K.305
Sonata in D major - K.306
All the sonatas have 2 movements, apart from K.306 which has 3.
The musicians:
Gil Shaham is the violinist, and Orli Shaham - his younger sister - plays piano. They are both Israeli-Americans in their 30s and have major solo international careers as well as a thriving partnership working together, although Orli Shaham is perhaps better known in Northern America than in Europe. Gil Shaham is regarded as one of the world's major violinists and he plays an absolutely amazing Stradivari known as the "Comtesse de Polignac" of 1699 ...
Advantages: Excellent physcological study of character. Disadvantages: Grim, brutal, shocking scenes of a sexual nature.
Haneke is well known for implementing the shock element into his films. He likes to leave his audience felling unsettled. Cinematography is brilliant with subdued colouring reflecting the drabness of Ericas life, and the greyness of the storyline. I have watched this film a few times now, and with each viewing I am stunned by the perfection of Isabelle Hupperts performance. Annie Girardot as the mother also gives a strong, convincing performance with the elements of smothering, and control in the right balance.
In my opinion, I think this is a great film. It won many awards, and well deserved accolades. The Piano teacher has a very basic storyline,contains subtitles, and is very graphic in it's content, so it will not be to everyones taste. The musical score is brilliant throughout with the of sonatas Schuman, Schubert Bach ...
Morning_Becomes_Electra 20.01.2008 (25.01.2008)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Piano Teacher
Advantages: Classic Brendel, good sound Disadvantages: Classic Brendel
After having spent quite some time, both in the studio and the concert hall, concentrating exclusively on the Beethoven PianoSonatas and Piano Concertos, Brendel, whilst always being limited to some, (not inconsiderable, it seems) extent by physical problems in and around the areas of his back and arms, is now free to explore other music avenues.
This is the second disk of Brendel's Mozart with which we have been presented over the recent past; the other being his account of two of the concertos. Here we have performances of 3 of the unaccompanied sonatas.
Brendel has long been considered as being a Mozartian of zest and insight. But, for me at least, his interprtations of this Master can seem a little quirky. Its as if he doesn't, in some way, relate to the personality and musical language of Mozart with quite the same success ...
