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Shostakovich: Symphonies 6 & 9 (Leonard Bernstein) [DVD]

Posted By: neurones

Date: 23 Feb 2010 00:04:38

Shostakovich: Symphonies 6 & 9 (Leonard Bernstein) [DVD]

This DVD is a fascinating document of a great conductor and orchestra playing two of the most underrated of Shostakovich's symphonies in 1985 and 1986 concerts in Vienna's Musikverein. In his spoken preface to the Sixth Symphony, Bernstein says he wants to "right a wrong"–the "wrong" being the work's reputation as unstructured lightweight piece. It is an unbalanced work, the opening Largo much longer than the remaining two movements, which can seem as mere appendages. But even at his extremely slow tempo, Bernstein makes it all hang together–the Largo moving in its icy bleakness, the Scherzo a genial joke, the final Presto (taken more as an Allegro and not a fast one at that) an opportunity for the conductor to show off his dance steps. The Haydnesque Ninth, despite idiosyncratically slow tempos is light and humorous, its sardonic touches here relished by Bernstein.

The Vienna Philharmonic isn't the ideal band for Shostakovich but Bernstein makes them play beyond their natural inclinations; here they lack only a bit more vulgarity in the brass and percussion to be fully idiomatic. The net result is a pair of deeply felt, emotionally powerful performances. Director Humphrey Burton's discreet camera work is excellent, with sufficient close-ups of the conductor and plenty of section shots interwoven with close-ups of solo players to help draw attention to key musical strands. Extras include Bernstein's cogent spoken prefaces to the works.

A file containing the MD5 sums of each file of the DVD can be found within the archive (it is called VIDEO_TS.md5).

Here is a list of the MD5 sums of the archives themselves:

MD5 sums per volume

9646f194cae0ceb553447155c9cf4bad *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.001
2fa91ba5cb086a206f3228388c043acf *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.002
fb99bc856393e003bc7ded02176f1ffd *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.003
2dcc0a27b7262636ac1f462b675f13a8 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.004
d7871ec51a228ec89cfe4f89e24acba5 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.005
b49c14018fea9dbfa8c72524b828bf13 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.006
751969463a05c44f4622e29c764d1a86 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.007
12bd8b9f1df03df6e3e95bd09b9680a7 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.008
f27dcb1bd8e1ed34a9b2f8a3cd5d568f *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.009
9ef5a817ecf4f812767e35c8faabdd5a *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.010
3d68498d135923c30360fede78e9ee9e *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.011
145d5c0e679ffbaeee9bc6d845e8e068 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.012
ff354d82f80657d697bde0ea39b40401 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.013
5b6431a2571e244c706e5ce7bd590683 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.014
ea99b588ce9a74123d23227ab66ac157 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.015
0423f505006b74afd6eb2c3e554bbe9c *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.016
d08a4c54122bbc1a3ad2a24dc44885c8 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.017
70c2908a8ec70cc02db32bea1d14e8a8 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.018
66cd91849867f6b82abd93ea3c5d60d8 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.019
6f1f28153575ad54b5578530107aa5d3 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.020
b34b2971efcfb56a567f7e654510a958 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.021
519938695e8ca8b61f109682536af48b *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.022
ed317c32465477366357e1716f9444c3 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.023
dffe44d639c7062f83e29a33c94e1b04 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.024
390b38553dbf5b54c664824a1d9cd22e *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.025
85313b3eff8b8574f9fd79b30bae2bdd *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.026
637eeb946583950dc15e27a5b1cd67b6 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.027
daa6dcdb85eaf2a0ff08611689b5e5fc *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.028
8eeff901c49462ab60f6b9ff68b31adf *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.029
c6e9a93e77afcf63fb2977d2cd60ff51 *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.030
22f21f3a1bfed187e714f61425a8f4bf *DS_LB_s6s9.7z.031

(Use MD5summer to check MD5 sums and 7-zip to extract 7z archives.)

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IMPORTANT NOTE
for visitors who already know this post:
It has been updated to contain the good, clean rips, viewable using any decent
(equipped with the MPEG-2 decoder) media player.
I apologize for the frustration that I have caused you.

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