A promising new season at Carnegie Hall reached an early high-point—on the evening of Tuesday, October 15th—with an magnificent concert featuring the superb musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra under the stellar direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

 

The program began wonderfully with the New York premiere of the orchestration of Umoja, Anthem for Unity by the contemporary composer Valerie Coleman. Much of the melodious piece—which is characterized by fine orchestral writing—has a quintessentially American sound, as is typified by Antonin Dvorák’s New World Symphony or the mid-period works of Aaron Copland, for example. The author ascended the stage for generous applause.

 

Soloist Hélène Grimaud then joined the musicians for a marvelous account of Béla Bartók’s extraordinary Piano Concerto No. 3, one of his more accessible works. The opening Allegretto was enchantingly lyrical, while the ensuing Adagio religioso movement was more introspective, at least in its outer sections. The propulsive finale proved thrilling and the pianist also received an enthusiastic ovation.

 

The second half of the evening was devoted to a masterful reading of Richard Strauss’s expansive, mystical An Alpine Symphony—the conductor succeeded in eliciting the maximum of grandeur from this challenging masterwork. The artists again earned a standing ovation; their next appearance is eagerly awaited.

 

 

An excellent concert could be heard at New York’s Carnegie Hall—on the evening of Thursday, October 10th—with the appearance of the fine musicians of the newly founded Athens Philharmonic under the admirable direction of Yiannis Hadjiloizou.

 

The program opened with a delightful work by the conductor’s father, Michael Hadjiloizou, a leading Greek Cypriot composer: the U.S. premiere of the Ballet from his opera, 9th of July 1821–The Song of Kyprianoswhich has a libretto after the poetry of Vasilis Michaelides, a major Greek poet from Cyprus of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The influence of Greek folk music is palpable throughout the piece.

 

Also enchanting was the U.S. premiere of the conductor’s Cyprus Dance No. 1, Servikos, which draws on the Greek folk tradition of Cyprus, and which the program note describes as “the most popular work of symphonic repertoire on the isle.”

 

The bulk of the concert, however, was devoted to an accomplished reading of Gustav Mahler’s magnificent Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.” The opening movement was somber but punctuated with lyrical passages as well as several highly dramatic ones. Sprightlier was the ensuing slow movement while more eccentric was the remarkable Scherzo, an instrumental adaptation of a poem from the 19th-century anthology, Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Another poem from that collection is the basis for the setting that comprises the gorgeous fourth movement, “Urlicht,” beautifully sung by Greek-American mezzo-soprano, Daveda Karanas. For the transcendent finale, the musicians were joined by the impressive singers of the NY Choral Society—directed by David Hayes—and the exquisite soprano, Larisa Martinez. The artists received an enthusiastic ovation—let’s hope that they return to the New York concert stages before long.

 

Blu-rays of the Week 

(Criterion)

Benjamin Christensen's’s 1922 silent, a one-of-a-kind classic that remains innovative and modern nearly a century after its creation, depicts the linking of witch hunts and hysteria with an unorthodox marriage of unsettling visuals and documentary-like detachment.

 

Criterion’s hi-def transfer is miraculous; extras include the director’s 1941 intro; outtakes; music from the original Danish premiere, arranged by specialist Gillian Anderson and performed by the Czech Film Orchestra in 2001; 2001 commentary by film scholar Casper Tybjerg; a 76-minute version of the film, Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968), narrated by author William S. Burroughs and with a soundtrack featuring violinist Jean-Luc Ponty; and Bibliothèque Diabolique, a photographic glimpse at the film’s historical sources.

 

3 from Hell 

(Lionsgate)

In this belated sequel to his own House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005), director Rob Zombie returns to his trio of murderers for one last go-round, prefacing it by showing that they were survived the previous installment to ruin another two hours of our lives.

 

In his increasingly desperate attempt to create another “shocking” horror show, Zombie again mistakes blood and crudeness for art, and after awhile is content to show off his wife Sherri Moon Zombie’s carefully crafted body tattoos in lieu of anything close to character development or insight. The film looks solid on Blu-ray; extras include a director’s commentary, four-part making-of and the even more sadistic unrated cut.

 

 

 

 

 

3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg 

This necessary boxed set upgrade collects a trio of the best of the early Hollywood director’s silent-era movies—the gritty Underworld (1927), the engrossing The Last Command (1928) and the often stunning The Docks of New York (1928)—and even includes two separate music scores for each film.

 

Criterion’s magnificent hi-def transfers make these 90-plus year-old features look the absolute best that they can, and the audio is equally impressive. Extras include a 1968 von Sternberg interview covering his entire career and two video essays about the director’s visual style and legacy.

 

The Toys That Made Us—Seasons 1 & 2 

(Nacelle)

In this entertaining Netflix series, nostalgia is on permanent display in these overviews of some of the biggest children’s toys from the decades of the ‘60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, comprising Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Barbie, Lego, Hello Kitty, Transformers, He-Man and Star Trek.

 

Each 50-minute episode contains new and old interviews, lots of archival footage—including shots of stores being deluged by excited kids and their less-than-happy parents—and a lighthearted attitude toward the whole enterprise, even if these items threatened to ruin our childhoods almost as much as phones and other far more expensive gadgetry do today. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras include several featurettes, extended interviews and nine deleted scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

4K of the Week 

Wonders of the Sea 

(Screen Media)

Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the legendary oceanographer Jacques, is the center of this stirring documentary—which he codirected with Jean-Jacques Mantello—that displays the astonishing beauty of our underwater civilization, bringing to vivid life the sea’s amazing colors and diversity that most of us never get to witness.

 

Narrated by Arnold Schwarzenegger—also a producer— Wonders of the Sea is a Cousteau labor of love that takes full advantage of the ultra hi-def process, but some may be disappointed that a 3D option is not included, since that’s how the film was originally seen. The 4K image is spectacularly rendered; extras include a Cousteau interview.

 

 

 

Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96), whose music has been having a renaissance over the past decade or so, has an intensity that speaks to listeners, especially the works that are inspired or directly influenced by his experiences during the Second World War, as the works on these two discs show. 

 

1945 compiles a selection of chamber pieces that were composed around that time, including the often dark, emotionally direct piano trio and first cello sonata, all passionately performed by the Trio Khnopff. On the second disc, the East-West Chamber Orchestra—under conductor Rostislave Krimer—gives explosive performances of Weinberg’s Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3, which both originated as string quartets that also addressed the dramatic world war era.