Rating: Summary: What DVD Should be for Classical Music Lovers Review: These performances are truly extraordinary. Zenziper, virtually unknown in the U.S., turns out to be a tremendously expressive musician. The experience of the music is aided greatly by his visual demeanor. The orchestra, composed mostly of young Russian musicians, plays with great dedication and youthful passion which is again enhanced by the visual presentation. The monologue by Zenziper, available on the DVD, is rambling but highly philosophical and is filmed with artful cinematic values.All in all, a wonderful experience for a music lover not available on conventional CD.
Rating: Summary: Don't miss it Review: This is the best DVD i'v ever had, it's beutiful, full of passion, get one feel yourself, you will love, it for sure.
Rating: Summary: One of the Best Pupils of Sokalov Review: Zenziper is one of the best pupils of Sokalov. He has a beautiful tone which sometimes reminds us of Gilels or even Arrau. But he is not a metronone as Gilels sometmes was, nor is he as organic or dramatic as Arrau. Here we have a portrait of Zeniper which is, I'm afraid, without much depth. He talked about how he sees himself and what he is, whether as an idealist or realist. On music, he reads beyond the notes, looking for the "clear tragedy" or "focal point" etc; and through music, he wants to "influence" and "do something for mankind" (one wonders if it's a matter of translation, these ideas are rather vague). He sees composer's role is to discover the "eternity" of life... The sound of this DVD is very nice but the photography is not so good. In comparison with other DVDs, we don't have too much head, nor too little hands. But the overviews/close-ups of the members of the orchestra is a mess: for close-ups, mostly we only see their profiles in a formless cluster which was rather unnecessarily. However, these Russian musicians did grasp the very esssence of the music of their motherland and the collaboration bewteen the piano and oprchestra was excellent.
Rating: Summary: Pretentious monologue, average interpretation Review: Zenziper's high ideals, as espoused in his own rambling and pretentious blather (was it bad editing or is he really so tangled up in his own vague idealism?), did not seem so apparent in his performance of the concerto, which, though adequate, was rather straightforward and uninteresting. His tone was often harsh, and his distracting facial contortions did not translate themselves into an enlightening interpretation, difficult enough in a work as frequently performed as this. If his technique was secure, that is no ticket to a great performance. I would recommend finding any number of better performances on disk and sparing yourself the sight of the pianist's painful grimaces, the sort of thing which I believe expends energy best devoted to the music.
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