Product: Zubin Mehta & Misuko Uchida
Rating: 3.0
a jigsaw puzzle in music
Well, why do i give it three stars? Other reviews seem to love it. I am not a pro. Admittedly. The music is quite adequate, especially the orchestra. the pianist is emotional to a fault and to me the face doesn't go with the music. Compare her with lisitsa where the emotion comes from the music, not suspiciously contrived. But that's only my take. I just couldn't buy the sensitivity this pianist was trying to show on her face, a bit much. But technically no complaint.Now if that was my only issue i would give this 5 stars largely because it is a bargain. But, two things with this DVD soured the performances for me. First of all the thing is a musical jigsaw puzzle. the listing for the program on the disc itself is absolutely incorrect. The Bach is listed as the first but is in reality the second last. Instead of the Bach oboe & violin being first, the Beethoven is first with the pianist and then comes the pianist again on I think the Schubert, (you see nothing is identified on screen during or between the performances). You have to be totally familiar with every piece on here or you do have a jigsaw puzzle. The Stravinsky is clearly last and is so identified on the back of the dvd case. The back listing may be correct but i seem to get that there was a mystery piece somewhere in the program that is not listed. I counted five pieces but there is only 4 listed on the back of the case. Anyway for someone unfamiliar with these pieces it is a jigsaw puzzle. Chapters are not dependable 5(5) Is the major part of the concert. One through four cannot be followed because they don't coincide with anything. This is a great dvd for anyone who doesn't need to know what is what because they know the pieces by heart. That is not me. Finally the so called extras simply are not there. the only one that is there is the text bio for Zubin. The running time listed on the back is correct for the concert itself but there is no 35 minutes for each special as listed. Either the producers or nutechdigital screwed up big time or Mehta changed the program and didn't tell anybody.