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San Francisco Symphony at 100 (DVD or Blu-ray)
New Release! Now Available!
In September, the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas launched the Orchestra’s milestone Centennial Season with a celebratory gala concert dubbed “Fanfare for a New Century” at Davies Symphony Hall. The gala concert is presented here on DVD and Blu-ray as the Emmy® Award-Winning San Francisco Symphony at 100.*
MTT is joined by legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman to perform Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor.
The concert opens with Aaron Copland’s vivid portrayal of American prairie life, the Billy the Kid Ballet Suite and concludes with Britten’s orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra of which the San Francisco Chronicle said: “…as Thomas led his colleagues, section by section and soloist by soloist… the listener could only marvel at the level of individual excellence and communal artistry on display.” Capping off the concert is an encore of Bay Area composer John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine featuring moving images of San Francisco projected throughout Davies Symphony Hall.
The gala concert is hosted by author Amy Tan and is directed by Gary Halvorson.
Woven into the concert, San Francisco Symphony at 100 includes historical documentary segments narrated by Amy Tan highlighting the Orchestra's early beginnings, its rich history of touring, and its innovations in media.
Gala Feature: 88 minutes
Bonus Features: 58 minutes of documentary vignettes chronicling the past 100 Years of the San Francisco Symphony
The Gala Feature is presented in High Definition 16:9 widescreen and 2.0 Stereo Dolby Digital, 96/24 Dolby Stereo, 5.1 Surround Dolby Tru HD
Bonus Features are Stereo only.
Subtitles are in English, Spanish (North American), and Chinese (traditional and simplified).
Region: 0 (works worldwide)
*The DVD and Blu-ray do not feature the televised performance by Lang Lang.
Our price: $24.99
Keeping Score: Mahler (2-Disc DVD or Blu-ray)
Now Available on 2-Disc DVD and Blu-ray
From the sounds outside his bedroom window—a kind of sonic goulash of military marches, ethnic dance bands, church bells, ritual prayer, and nature itself—Gustav Mahler created an entire universe of emotion in music. In an astonishingly productive twenty-five years, he fashioned ten symphonies and 45 songs of cosmic scale, great beauty, and jarring emotional twists and turns. And he did it all in the brief moments he could spare from his day job as one of Europe’s preeminent conductors. In Gustav Mahler: Origins and Legacy, Michael Tilson Thomas returns to the provincial Austro-Hungarian city of Mahler’s childhood, and bears witness to his grand achievements, great sorrows, and daring musical explorations into the depths of the human soul. Join MTT and the San Francisco Symphony as they trace Mahler’s rise as a young conductor, his career-crowning appointments in Vienna and New York, his turbulent marriage and the sudden, tragic death of his daughter—and show how his stormy inner life inspired new and ever-more heartbreaking heights of creativity.
This two-DVD set features one disc containing two concert performances, with Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony in Mahler Symphony No. 1 and “A Mahler Journey,” and one disc with the 1 hour, 53-minute theatrical version of the documentary, which encompasses both the Origins and Legacy segments. Both the documentary and the concert performances are captured in full High Definition.
Disc 1
Gustav Mahler: Origins
The first of two episodes explores the roots of Gustav Mahler’s music. SFS Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas journeys to rural Bohemia to rediscover the inspirations of Mahler’s music, and traces Mahler’s life through the premiere of his first symphony in 1888. It shocked the contemporary audience, but as MTT and the San Francisco Symphony reveal, on location and in performance, this ground-breaking symphony contains elements of everything else that Mahler composed. Shot on location in the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and in performance in San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall.
Gustav Mahler: Legacy
In part two of Keeping Score: Mahler, MTT examines Mahler’s creative growth, from the 1890s to his death at the age of 51 on May 18, 1911, including his symphonies, the Rückert songs and Das Lied von der Erde. The show charts Mahler’s mercurial career as a conductor, from the Vienna Opera to Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as his tempestuous relationship with his wife Alma. At Mahler’s simple grave in a Grinzing cemetery, MTT explains why Mahler has so profoundly affected his own life. Shot on location in the Czech Republic, Austria, New York, and in performance in San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall.
Disc 2
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major in Concert
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, Titan. The program was taped as part of the SFS’s Mahler Festival in Davies Symphony Hall in September and October of 2009.
"A Mahler Journey"
This concert includes the pivotal repertoire explored in "Gustav Mahler: Legacy." World-renowned baritone Thomas Hampson, a noted interpreter of Mahler’s songs, is featured performing Songs of a Wayfarer. The program also includes Mahler’s famous and poignant love song, Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, the Scherzo from Symphony No. 7 in E minor and the Rondo Burleske from Symphony No. 9 in D major. The program was taped as part of the SFS’s Mahler Festival in Davies Symphony Hall in September and October of 2009.
Presented in High Definition 16:9 widescreen and 5.1 surround sound or 7.1 Dolby TrueHD.
Our price: $34.99
A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein: Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008 (DVD)
Limited time offer!
Price: $28.75 $14.98
The San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas celebrates the music of Leonard Bernstein in a very special Opening Night gala at Carnegie Hall.
The Orchestra’s sold-out Carnegie Hall concert kicked off a New York City-wide tribute to composer Leonard Bernstein, who would have celebrated his 90th birthday this year. The 90-minute DVD, recorded in high definition and 5.1 surround sound, features music from a wide variety of Bernstein’s stage works, from such early triumphs as West Side Story and On the Town to later works Mass and A Quiet Place.
Our price: $14.98
Keeping Score Complete DVD Set (9-Disc DVD Set)
Set includes all Keeping Score episodes; Mahler's Origins and Legacy, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Ives’s Holidays Symphony, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Beethoven's Eroica, Copland and the American Sound, and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.
Own all episodes of Keeping Score, the complete collection of Seasons One, Two, and Three on DVD.
10% off set of nine:$209.92 $189.00 for DVD
10% off set of nine:
Set includes all Keeping Score episodes; Mahler's Origins and Legacy, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Ives’s Holidays Symphony, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Beethoven's Eroica, Copland and the American Sound, and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.
Our price: $189.00
Keeping Score: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (DVD or Blu-ray)
Now Available on Blu-ray!
MIchael Tilson Thomas will conduct Stravinsky's Rite of Spring at Davies Symphony Hall on June 19th and 20th.
In 1913, with Europe on the brink of war, a fashionable Parisian audience reacted with hostile frenzy to the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's new work, The Rite of Spring. The ballet's shocking music and dance provoked a riot that evening and soon afterwards was recognized as perhaps the most revolutionary piece of the 20th century. It still has that reputation today.
In this DVD, Michael Tilson Thomas and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony take you from the salons of St. Petersburg to the villages where Stravinsky found inspiration in the earthly power of Russian folk music and dance. MTT then retraces Stravinsky's journey to the cultural crossroads of pre-war Paris. There, in collaboration with the great impresario Diaghilev and his star dancer Nijinsky, Stravinsky developed the shocking, erotic, and violent evocation of pagan Russia that became The Rite of Spring.
Nearly a century after this wild rainforest of sound was performed, The Rite of Spring remains as exhilarating and liberating as music can be. MTT and the San Francisco Symphony show you why.
For more information please visit keepingscore.org.
Bonus Features:
- Live Performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and music from The Firebird by the San Francisco Symphony and MTT shot in high definition, presented in 16:9 widescreen and 5.1 surround sound.
- Documentary includes optional closed-caption English subtitles
- Subtitles in German, French, Spanish and Chinese
Our price: $24.99
Keeping Score Season Two Collection (3-Disc DVD or Blu-ray)
Available Now! in DVD or Blu-ray
10% off in savings on the set of three
Join Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony as they follow Berlioz, Ives, and Shostakovich to the brink and beyond in Season Two of Keeping Score.
Available in DVD or Blu-ray.
Set includes:
Keeping Score: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique
From romantic daydreams to deadly displays of devotion, the symphony relates an “episode in the life of an artist,” that artist being the love-obsessed composer himself. This symphony encapsulates the inner drama – and trauma – that made Berlioz one of the masters.
Keeping Score: Ives’s Holidays Symphony
Ranging from tender sentiment to savage chaos, the music of early 20th-century composer Charles Ives explores an essentially American riddle: how can we survive the relentless assault of our own success?
Keeping Score: Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5
Shostakovich may have secreted a subversive cipher beneath the surface of his life-saving Symphony No. 5.. This is all the more shocking since another bad review from Stalin’s totalitarian forces could have meant a sentence to the Gulag or worse.
Bonus Features
Full-length concert performances by the San Francisco Symphony in high-definition 16:9 widescreen and 5.1 surround sound.
Our price: $67.00
Keeping Score Season One DVD Collection
The music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Copland is brought to life by MTT in Season One of Keeping Score.
Buy the first four nationally acclaimed Keeping Score DVDs!
That's over $10 in savings!
Price: $99.96 $89.00 (4 DVDs)
The music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Copland is brought to life by MTT in Season One of Keeping Score.
Our price: $89.00
SFS Beethoven Collection (w/Free Bonus CD!)
Limited time Holiday Offer! Free CD included with Beethoven Collection purchase:
SKU: 10501
Limited time offer - Free CD of Keeping Score: Beethoven's Eroica included with purchase!
That's over $18 in savings!
Price: $72.98 $54.95 (3 CDs + 1 DVD)
Set includes:
Not all revolutions are political. Some overturn artistic conventions. Beethoven's Eroica challenged accepted artistic notions of music as a kind of decorative background and brought the listener along on a gripping voyage into the unconscious. Retracing Beethoven's steps through Vienna's aristocratic ballrooms and Austria's rustic villages, MTT explores how Beethoven channeled his fears of deafness, his admiration for Napoleon, and his obsession to prove himself the greatest composer of his time and to write a piece that forever changed what a symphony would be.
Following closely on the heels of the seven Grammy-Award winning Mahler recording cycle, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony present a hybrid SACD recording of two of Beethoven's most popular works, Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 4.
Emanuel Ax, a frequent collaborator with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, is the soloist on Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. His performance of the slow movement was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "dark and eloquent."
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony present a hybrid SACD recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Leonore Overture No. 3.
This album continues MTT and the SFS's ongoing exploration of the music of Beethoven. Previously SFS Media released Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 4 with Emanuel Ax. MTT also led a journey through Beethoven's music in Keeping Score: Beethoven's Eroica.
Limited time Holiday Offer! Free CD included with Beethoven Collection purchase:
“On its very first page Beethoven threw his hat into the ring and laid his claim to immortality.” Thus H. L. Mencken on the Third Symphony. But there’s a big hole in that very first page, put there by a boiling-mad composer as he brusquely scraped off the dedication to Napoleon in response to the erstwhile First Consul’s having been proclaimed Emperor in May 1804.
This companion concert recording for Keeping Score: Beethoven’s Eroica, as seen on PBS, was recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall in May 2004.
This companion concert recording for Keeping Score: Beethoven’s Eroica, as seen on PBS, was recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall in May 2004.
Our price: $54.95
Keeping Score: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (DVD or Blu-ray)
Available Now! in DVD or Blu-ray
With the unprecedented outpouring of emotion in his Symphonie fantastique Berlioz almost overpowered Paris. This orchestral sonic spectacular, written to win the heart of a beautiful actress, demanded sacrifice from its author and his audience. From romantic daydreams to deadly displays of devotion, the symphony relates an “episode in the life of an artist,” that artist being the love-obsessed composer himself. This symphony encapsulates the inner drama – and trauma – that made Berlioz one of the masters.
Our price: $24.99
Keeping Score: Ives Holidays Symphony (DVD or Blu-ray)
Available Now! in DVD or Blu-ray
Ranging from tender sentiment to savage chaos, the music of early 20th-century composer Charles Ives explores an essentially American riddle: how can we survive the relentless assault of our own success? It was an enigma Ives embodied himself. He believed that we should all be brave enough to go it alone – yet he earned his living in insurance!
In this Keeping Score program, available on DVD or Blu-ray, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony unwrap the layers of Ives’ Holidays Symphony to reveal a surprising musical portrait of New England. The symphony’s four movements journey across the terrain of the seasons. From the intimacy of the winter hearth to the explosive concussion of the 4th of July, discover the insights Ives liberates in his music’s confrontational crunch.
Our price: $24.99
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