Cheap Lorin Maazel - New Year's Concert 2005, Vienna (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Lorin Maazel - New Year's Concert 2005, Vienna

Splendid New Year's Concert from VPO and Maazel
This year's concert was devoted almost exclusively to music by Johann Strauss II. Without question, it is among the Vienna Philharmonic's best New Year's Concerts, led by a long-time collaborator at the podium, American conductor Lorin Maazel, who has conducted the orchestra since the early 1960s. The orchestra responded enthusiastically to him, following his tempi even when he wasn't conducting (In two works he plays violin solos, most notably the "Tales from the Vienna Woods" waltz.). On a somber note, the traditional final piece of the concert, Johann Strauss' Radetzky March was not played, a silent tribute offered to the victims of the December 26th earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean (However, the other traditional encore, the "Blue Danube" waltz was played.). Fans of both the Vienna Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel will be interested in acquiring this DVD.

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The sound quality is good but not video....
I was hoping that Deutsche Gramophone did a better job this year in video recording compared to the 2004 concert. But it turned out to be even worse. I watched it over my HDTV through 720P upconversion capable DVD player. You can see a plenty of small artifacts and fuzzy images throughout the performance. In my opinion, the 2004 concert has a slightly better video recording. Obviously they did not record the performance using HDTV cameras. But the music and sound quality are still excellent. I hope they will start using HDTV cameras in future New Year concerts since everybody is moving in that direction.