Salute to Vienna - A Strauss Gershwin Gala
Anyone who has visited Vienna--and particularly anyone who has attended  a concert in the splendid Musikverein Concert Hall--is likely to findSalute  to Vienna: A Strauss-Gershwin Galairresistible. Its special Viennese charm  begins with the opening shots of a horse-drawn carriage entering a courtyard and  the famous statue of Johann Strauss Jr. playing his violin (which is played by  Peter Guth in this concert). The DVD is at its best when it focuses on the  spectacle of the Viennese--musicians and audience alike--enjoying their city's  distinctive light music: Martina Serafin sipping champagne and becoming  progressively more silly in the "Annen Polka"; Eva Lind exulting in the sheer  melodic glory of "Voices of Spring"; a percussionist deliberately ignoring the  cue for a cuckoo sound effect in the "Im Krapfenwald!" polka; the Vienna Choir  Boys in the "Chit Chat Polka"; and the whole audience clapping in unison to the  rhythms of the "Radetzky March." The sense of joy is pervasive and  infectious.The Viennese musicians are joined by American colleagues in this program, which  includes music of George Gershwin and Aaron Copland as well as the Strauss  family and Franz Lehar. Gregory Peck's spoken segments, as host and as narrator  in Copland'sLincoln Portrait, may lose their charm over repeated  viewings while the waltzes and polkas continue to enchant. But the American- Austrian partnership works superbly: the Boys Choir of Harlem joins the Vienna  Choir Boys in "The Blue Danube," there is a spectacular crossover in Georg  Lehner's Viennese interpretation of "It Ain't Necessarily So," and Elizabeth  Norman is exactly right in "Summertime."--Joe McLellan