Mozart: Requiem From Sarajevo

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Summary: Mozart: Requiem from Sarajevo DVD
Review: It's not about the music, Dummy.

I found this to be one of the most dramatic examples of courage and the human spirit - related to the arts - that I have ever seen!

To just imagine the evil of their situation in Sarajevo 1994, a city that less than a decade earlier had been site for the Winter Olympics. For this city to become a killing field by Serb snipers in the mountains that surround Sarajevo is my definition of human obscenity. Their library was the very symbol of enlightenment between three different cultures that had existed in community for centuries.

People were being shot while trying to get water back to their apartments and cellars - where they were trying to survive the siege. Imaging polishing up YOUR violin skills in a cold, dark room - alone. Imagine walking down the street carrying your instument knowing that you might be shot dead at any moment. Might make concentrating on Mozart a bit more difficult.

Why would a conductor, a camera team or sound engineer want to even do something like this? To get the best music or video?

Their reason: Not to give in to the forces of evil and brutility and ugliness. To look death and evil in the face and make music!

Astounding.

The reviewer from Florida comparing this to a TV hunger drive and to complain about bad camera angles should pull himself away from his Pro-Wrestling Channel, turn off his TV and read the book, "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges.

Perhaps then, he could be worthy of offering a critique of a Mozart performance. Or Zubin Mehta.

We are honored to have such people - however rare - in this world to show us the way to keeping our humanity.

Bob Cargill

Rating:
Summary: OK performance marred by bad recording.
Review: The event is recorded in a open-air damaged building. Can you imagine the quality of (a) the camera angles and (b) accoustics. Avoid!

Rating:
Summary: Nice document, poor sound and picture quality
Review: The main reason for switching from VHS to DVD is high quality (pure sound and image). Unfortunately in this case (and in most of the classic music editions) the sound and video quality is very poor. Even worse than in one normal audio CD. Anyway, the couple Mozart-Mehta is wonderful.

Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing.
Review: The only reason I gave it an extra star, is because Mozart still speaks to us with his haunting Requiem. The quality of the video and the music is horrendous--not to mention a good amount of war torn Sarajevo. If I wanted to see painful images, I would of tuned to one of those hunger drives on TV.

Rating:
Summary: "a gift of remembrance"
Review: This concert is a somber statement of war and man's senseless inhumanity, and also his ability to rise above the horrors he has created. With this glorious Mozart Requiem, God triumphs over evil, and a little light shines in the darkness.
It is a mass for the many souls slaughtered in Sarajevo, and interspersed with the concert is footage of the city being bombed, burning ruins, and its children caught in the conflict.

The performers are on a platform built in what was left of the magnificent National Library, with Zubin Mehta leading the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sarajevo. The sound is dreadful, rather like a bootleg tape, but this is not something to buy only for its musical value, but rather to in some small way, share in the experience. Bass Ruggero Raimondi fares the best among the singers, and though Jose Carreras sounds tired, his phrasing and soulful quality are those of a master tenor, and his "Mors slopebit et natora" (my favorite section in the entire piece) is gentle and lovely. Also singing are Cecilia Gasdia, soprano, and Ildiko Komlosi, alto. Total running time is 50 minutes.

The text of Mozart's Requiem is so appropriate, in its solemnity and also in its ultimate hope of redemption. God bless the courageous participants in this concert.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis,
cum sanetis tuis in aeternum,
quia plus es".
"Grant the dead eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them,

with Thy saints for ever,
because Thou art merciful".

Rating:
Summary: Poor Mozart!
Review: This Requiem version is such a painful experience to watch. I've never been so dissapointed with a performance of my favorite Requiem. Sound is bad, and not even Dolby Digital, video quality is VHS quality, plus camera work is awful, mistakes everywhere, bad design. When the camera is not in the orchestra, they put some footage from the Sarajevo war, very depressing and manipulative. The last straw was in "Rex Tremendae". The lyrics of this majestic movement are about the majesty of God and His glory. These ignorant producers put footage of a building in flames during this piece, a building in flames to describe the majesty of God?!?!? It looked like something satanic instead. I can't believe Zubin Mehta, who obviously had to be aware of this poor choice, and obviously has to know the meaning of the latin lyrics of the Requiem (I hope he does), allowed this to happen. It's a nightmare or a bad joke. Stay away from this version. It should never had been produced. It's an embarrassment.