Bach & Vivaldi Concertos / Antonini, Katia & Marielle Labeque, Il Giardino Armonico

Rating:
Summary: Exciting music---but exhausting for the listener
Review: It's a dream come true to have these duo piano compositions by Bach available on DVD. The Labeque sisters perform them with panache. And the DVD quality is strictly first-water (afterall, it's produced by Image Entertainment, the same folks that brought us the Bach Brandenburg Concertos performed by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra---which is only the best DVD in the DVD universe). And the setting of the DVD is gorgeous: the Vienna Musik Verein. Everything combines to give an impression of elegance and sumptuousness. The problem is where you'd least expect it: in the historical instruments that are played. Now I'm a fan of ancient instruments, but something is amiss here. The instruments are so frail looking, and the stage is so crowded when they get around to the concerto for two pianos and two harpsichords, that the sympathetic listener is irresistibly drawn into pulling for the performers to not only negotiate the complexities of Bach's scores, but to overcome the obstacles presented by the ancient instruments themselves. This concern for the performers and their superannuated instruments detracts from just kicking back and enjoying the music. Out of pity for the listener, beauty needs to seem a little more effortless. It shouldn't require the listener to cross his fingers during the cresendos. That said, the saving grace of the DVD is it's clarity, both aural and visual. Definitely worth owning---once you have the Brandenburg Concertos and Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations, where clarity of image is matched by effortlessness of performance.

Rating:
Summary: A glittering jewel
Review: No idea about the previous reviewer's concerns re the frailty of period instruments used here, which lend a most delightful, stately aura to the whole proceedings. Far from walking on eggshells, the first rate performers relish these demanding works as if discovering them for the first time. The titanic voice of Bach's pen soars as a result. Camera work, lighting, atmosphere, sound- immaculate. Check the final Concerto in A Minor with flashing strings perched above four dueling keyboards in ten minutes of the most exquisite Bach you may ever see.