When Pioneer took over the release and manufacture of laser discs from faltering DiscoVision 20 years ago, the release of classical music video was a primary feature of its catalog. Royal Ballet operas and ballets were released, as well as concerts with the Czech Philharmonic. The latter used a mixture of concert footage and Czech travelogue photography. Others picked up on the idea, using professionally shot video entirely in place of concert shots, and classical music video was born. Some hate it, preferring to see the players instead of wheat fields, whereas others love it, many noting its relaxing qualities.

The rising popularity of DVD in the marketplace will raise the issue again. Though some of the majors, such as Polygram and BMG, seem to have been stung badly enough by poor laser disc sales to be reticent about releasing more than one or two classical DVDs a year, other companies are racing to get product in front of the consumer. And classical music video has again appeared, largely through the efforts of DVD International. This company has released or distributed two different masterworks wallpaper series that we will look at here.

The first has been produced in conjunction with a huge bunch of folks. Alpha DVD, Carlton Entertainment, and 5.1 Entertainment logos clutter the back covers, but the most important liaison to readers of this website will be Naxos, which has provided the music. In fact Naxos makes the chintzy front cover too, as the top banner proclaims "DVD International presents A NAXOS MUSICAL JOURNEY". The recordings used are early ones from the company's DDD catalog, repertoire like the Spanish concert with Keith Clark conducting the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony in Massenet's Le Cid Ballet Music and Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol; Handel's Water Music and Fireworks Music played by Capella Istropolitana conducted by Bohdan Warchal; and Mozart's Symphonies 28 and 40 with the same chamber orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth, all complete performances. There is another journey titled Italian Festival, and two more containing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Bach's Violin Concertos. The serviceable performances are married to video that more or less matches their moods. The Spanish Festival DVD, for instance, shows scenes of Madrid and other locations in Spain, whereas the Handel gives us shots of Leeds Castle, Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard, London, and the River Thames. The Vivaldi and Mozart discs mix scenes from Italy, Austria, and Switzerland, and the Bach, curiously enough, shows scenes shot entirely in Italy. But by and large, it all seems to work out and the coordination makes sense, even if it is not perfect.

These presentations actually have been out before on laser disc, where they sold poorly. The DVDs contain some major differences and improvements. For one, the video is a lot cleaner and crisper, with real movie-like quality. The audio has been re-mixed to 5.1 and is offered in both Dolby Digital and DTS. In addition, a two-channel alternate Dolby Digital track is offered that is presumably close to the original CD recording (I found the two-channel brighter on top; the 5.1 adds lots of bass but shrinks the stereo spread and separation). There also is a menu where you can find rudimentary information on the video locations, though no effort has been made to identify them through electronic subtitles, which would have been preferable and easier to use while you are listening to the music. As it is, you have to stop the music and return to the menu to access any location information.

There was a tiny technical problem with these DVDs. If you have an early Dolby Digital decoder that used the Motorola chip (the original first Kenwood receivers used it), you will miss the beginning second of each track as no 5.1 silence has been dummied in to trigger the decoder to "recognize" Dolby Digital. I verified that this poses no problem at all for later model decoders, say, anything produced in the last two years. If you have an early decoder, you can use the analog outputs and everything is just fine. You won't get Dolby Digital sound, but I found the analog actually sounded a lot warmer.

The competing series is called Silverline 24 Bit and is quite different from the Naxos collection. The Silverline DVDs are grouped by theme and mood category. There are four "Night in ____" discs (fill in the blank with Berlin, Vienna, Rome, or Paris). There is a Passion series (Encounters and Embraces, Passions and Pleasures, Secrets and Seductions), a Dream Suite Series (Vols. 1-3), and a Romantic Moments Group (Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, and Schubert). All of them feature brand-new recordings in 24 bit/48 kHz sampled 5.1 DD and DTS sound by the London Symphony and London Philharmonic, conducted by Don Jackson (you have to really search the fine print to find his name!). The works are not complete, all are excerpts, such as "Allegro from Spring-The Four Seasons" or "Nocturne" from the Rossini-Respighi Las Boutique Fantastique. The sampler disc showed video that consisted of medium to poor quality still pictures faded in and out with overlaps; there was no live action photography at all. The Silverlines are housed in CD jewel cases, unlike the Naxos series, which is packaged in standard DVD keep cases.

Rad Bennett