Tchaikovsky Uncovered: Discovering Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Discovering Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony 2007
Distributed by Films Media Group, PO Box 2053, Princeton, New Jersey 08543-2053; 800-257-5126
Produced by The Open University (BBC)
Director n/a
DVD, color, 60 min. each program
Sr. High - Adult
Music
Date Entered: 02/19/2008
Reviewed by Bonnie Jo Dopp, Performing Arts Library, University of MarylandBritish conductor Charles Hazlewood’s weekly Discovering Music radio show has already deconstructed the two Tchaikovsky masterpieces featured in these programs. Examples of Hazlewood’s ideas about Tchaikovsky are freely available online on the BBC’s Open University page.
These programs aim for an audience of analytically-inclined classical music lovers who are already familiar with terms like ‘unresolved 9th’ and ‘semiquaver’ and can appreciate a studied, sometimes romantic, explanation of how an orchestral piece works, artistically. The polished BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, dressed in dark shirts and slacks, is at Hazlewood’s command as he explores the ‘Fantasy Overture’ from Romeo and Juliet and the first movement of the composer’s last creation, the symphony subtitled Pathétique. Full 20-minute complete performances, with the orchestra bathed in deep purple for Romeo and Juliet and dark blue for the Pathétique, precede each talk. In the grand tradition of Leonard Bernstein’s televised music-appreciation sessions from the 1950s, orchestral excerpts illustrate each talk. (The publisher’s descriptions incorrectly state that the full performances are at the end of the programs and that all four movements of the 6th symphony are ‘outlined.’) Hazlewood’s ideas are instructive, the video gives viewers good close-ups of individual instrumentalists or sections, as appropriate, but problems with the menu-free DVDs include their not being playable on certain machines (Bose among them) and slightly unsynchronized audio and video elements in the second program. Close captioning (perhaps useful for people who have a hard time understanding spoken British) and public performance rights are included.
The programs can be recommended to educational collections serving relatively sophisticated students of orchestra music, but the technical issues with the DVDs will be problems for some. Hearing a music program on a computer with speakers built into the monitor can hardly be as satisfying as listening on a full surround-sound system complete with subwoofer.