CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Tatiana Nikolayeva: Shostakovich

starring: Dmitri Shostakovich

Release Date June 24, 2008
Pour tous qui aime la musique de Nikolayeva, ce dvd est un "must".
Acheter immediatement.

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Shostakovich Against Stalin

starring: Valery Gergiev, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Flora Litvinova, Graham Haley, Dmitri Shostakovich
directed by: Larry Weinstein

Release Date November 08, 2005
I was fortunate enough to hear Symphony 7 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week. As moving as the music was, it has helped so much to see this documentary and understand the world Shastakovich lived in when he was composing the "Leningrad". I appreciated the different camera angles of Gergiev's orchestra, and Gergiev does a very good job of explaining to his musicians and his audience the emotions of the music. I never got tired of hearing him talk about the symphonies. The historical footage put the music in context, but a companion DVD that goes more into detail of the time is STALIN (1992) starring Robert Duvall, currently available on Amazon. The interviews with Shostakovich's contemporaries added to the understanding of the music, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Sonata for Viola

starring: Dmitri Shostakovich

Release Date December 27, 2005
First of all, this is not a performance of the Viola Sonata. Second, it's barely a biography of Shostakovich - there are no interviews and extremely sparse narration. Most of the film comprises archival photographs and film footage with scratchy archival recordings playing in the background. Quite often it felt like a mini-newsreel history of the USSR with a soundtrack by Shostakovich.

As the previous reviewer noted, there's no mention of the later works (nothing about the 10th Symphony!) nor of the big "career-killing works" like the 4th Symphony or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

There isn't much at all to recommend in this 75 minute film. However, there are some interesting clips of 1) Mravinsky conducting the very end of ... Read More: