Stars: Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, Aleksander Toradse

Summary: From the 'In Rehearsal' series the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev is featured rehearsing Prokofiev's Scythian Suite plus performances of Stravinsky's Fireworks and Piano Concerto and Debussy's Le Martyre De Saint Sebastian.

This release contains both a performance and rehearsal by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Russian conductor Valery Gergiev. Featured works include Stravinsky's FIREWORKS and Piano Concerto, with soloist Aleksander Torazde. Additional commentary is provided by Oleg Prokofiev and Gergiev himself.

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The passionately scruffy St Petersburg conductor gets as impressive and fiery a sound out of the Rotterdam Philharmonic as he does out of his own Kirov/Maryinsky theatre orchestra in Valery Gergiev in Rehearsal. The programme here starts with Stravinsky's early showpiece Fireworks and moves into the brooding neo-classical Piano Concerto with Alexander Toradze as soloist. The heart of the concert is Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, his largely successful attempt to produce a ballet score as radical and shocking as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; Gergiev is passionately committed to this music and sees its heart as being as much caught up with quiet interludes of almost chamber-music dialogues between instruments as it is with the work's huge climaxes. The symphonic fragments from Debussy's oratorio Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien is almost as charismatic a piece of paganism.

This is an intelligent concert because it is constructed around an implied dialogue between three composers trying to find a new sound world for the 20th century. The accompanying documentary shows Gergiev at his most charming and Mephistophelean rehearsing the Prokofiev, and gives a full account of the origins of the score.

On the DVD:Valery Gergiev in Rehearsal is presented in a standard 4:3 visual aspect and has adequate, though not remarkable, PCM stereo sound. --Roz Kaveney

Aspect Ratio:	4:3
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	English, French, German, Spanish
Year:	1996
Release Date:	June 5, 2002
Runtime:	117 minutes
Certification:	Exempt.
Catalogue Number:	100 314
Keywords:	Music, Orchestral, Rehearsal, Classical, Performing, Gergiev, Arts, Valery
Genre:	Music/Performing Arts