Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - A Naxos Musical Journey

Rating:
Summary: I like it, I really like it!
Review: I listened to this in my car, so I can't comment about the visuals. But I will say that the sound is very clear and open. Also, I personally enjoyed the performance, and I'm quite picky about the 4 seasons (love Trevor Pinnock/English Concert, didn't much care for Parrot/Taverner players if that helps)

Rating:
Summary: Really - REALLY nice!
Review: When I first saw these music DVDs advertised I was bit worried about there not being any views of the orchestra playing - only pictures of scenes around Europe. Personally I like to SEE the orchestra playing because that is the nearest one can get to actually being at the performance. However, I was very surprised and pleased to see how well Naxos have done these DVDs. The picture quality is absolutely superb and is as pin sharp as one can get with the NTSC 525 line system. I'd love to see them if they are ever issued in the European PAL system with their higher resolution of 625 lines! The colours are brilliant, clean and natural.

The sound is available in Dolby 5.1 and DTS and plain ol' stereo even though the stereo option is not mentioned on the cover. What I found nice was that I could change from 5.1 to DTS while the music was playing instead of having to stop the disk. Of interest to me was that the data rate when playing Dolby 5.1 was 448 kbps but in DTS the rate went up to 1,509 kbps - an increase of three times. This was definately noticeable in the playback quality where there the sound was crisper and cleaner. The cover states that the audio is remastered in Dolby Digital and DTS. What it doesn't say is what it's remastered FROM. This concerns me because unless the original recordings were made in Dolby Surround, how can one ever produce six channel surround from two channel stereo unless the original was multi-track recording? If anyone knows what system the original sound was recorded in, I'd like to hear from them.

Now to the minus points! The cover states "Features E-Z Menu system for the most accessable navigation." Personally I think they should have called it Diff-ee-kult Menu System - because easy it is NOT until one gets used to it! On the cover, the tracks each have a number. On the disk they do NOT! The DVD player only ever indicates a "1" with the result that it's impossible to know which track is playing without stopping the disk. Another irritating thing is that the play time of a track can ONLY count up and not down. No totalising of the disk is allowed with the result that one can't see how much time is left or how much has been played. This may seem trivial, but I found it to be annoying as I like to see how much time is left when playing a track. The running time on the cover is 56 minutes and not the 85 minutes as stated by Amazon.com. What would also have been nice is for the title of the musical item being played to be displayed in small leters at the bottom of the screen as well as the location of the scene. The only way one can find out where the scene being shown is, is to go to "Menu" when the track changes to the next one and click on Travel Notes. The track being played is automatically highlighted.

This Vivaldi disk is excellent. I've never been terribly keen on Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but this recording in DTS is excellent and is the first time I have ever really enjoyed this work. If I were to criticise the sound, it would be that there is perhaps a bit too much echo which gives the impression of being in a large hall. The scenes are mainly from around Italy and Switzerland are beautifully photographed. For example, on track eight there are a couple of lovely views taken from high up on a hillside looking down on the early morning mist filling the valley below, with the tops of the trees poking through the mist. On another track there are several exquisite scenes of the Chianti region in Tuscany.