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 - Shostakovich Symphonies In ContextI was fortunate enough to hear Symphony 7 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week. As moving as the music was, it has helped so much to see this documentary and understand the world Shastakovich lived in when he was composing the "Leningrad". I appreciated the different camera angles of Gergiev's orchestra, and Gergiev does a very good job of explaining to his musicians and his audience the emotions of the music. I never got tired of hearing him talk about the symphonies. The historical footage put the music in context, but a companion DVD that goes more into detail of the time is STALIN (1992) starring Robert Duvall, currently available on Amazon. The interviews with Shostakovich's contemporaries added to the understanding of the music, which played in the background throughout the documentary. I agree with others that at 76 minutes long, I could easily have watched another hour of this enlightening documentary, but I appreciate that Larry Weinstein has put together this much. Rating: - Excellent DocumentaryI watch a lot of documentaries on music, and this one blew me away. The story is compelling, but not told in a didactic way. And, best of all, the music is allowed to speak for itself. Many clips are used, not just in a superficial way as with many documentaries, but as a real part of the film. I especially like when they superimpose the interviewees singing or playing over the orchestra. The music will really ring in your head for weeks and the story told will give it more meaning than ever before. Rating:  - Interesting doc and sounds - awful video transferNot necessarily the deepest or best organized of docs, this is nonetheless engrossing and, in view of a lack of similar material, invaluable. The generally excellent Canadian Rhombus ("32 Short Films About Glenn Gould", a terrific film about Falla, the title of which escapes me) is behind this. However, their efforts are all but sabotaged by one of the worst film-to-video transfers I've seen. To say that there are artifacts doesn't begin to describe it. So, even though I enjoyed the film and the DTS audio transfers of 70 minutes of complete movements from Valery Gergiev's complete Shostakovich cycle, I can barely muster 3 stars because of the atrocious visual quality. Rating:  - Not that greatI was let down. I thought this video would be compelling and interesting but the comments are obvious. The filming is very ordinary and the conductor has nothing that new to say. Also they passed over some of the symphonies like the 7th. This is really a second rate item. Nothing special. Rating: - Good, but does not stand alone.Overall not a bad documentary, I'm glad I have it but if I could there are a couple of things I would add to it. Simply put its just too short. There is very little about the eight symphony and its aftermath, and therefor the ninth doesn't have its proper context. I don't believe the sixth is mentioned at all, granted it doesn't fit the theme of the DVD, but good historical research doesn't not have a theme. If this is an area of interest there are several books that are of much more value.
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