#What are laserdisc worth free#
Besides the sheer quality of the performance, the youthful zest of the musicians 22 years ago and the fact that Du Pre was still free of the multiple sclerosis that struck her in 1973 and ended her life tragically early, there is a high-spirited introduction that shows the musicians getting together to rehearse, renewing acquaintances and indulging in horseplay (Mehta, for example, handles the bow in a bit of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor while Perlman fingers the strings). Both labels have Sir Georg Solti conducting Mozart Sony has him conducting Mahler too, while on Teldec he plays the piano.īy far the best new LaserDisc I have seen this year is "Trout" (Teldec 2292-46239-6), which features a 1969 London performance of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet with Barenboim on piano, Itzhak Perlman, violin Pinchas Zukerman, viola Jacqueline Du Pre, cello and Zubin Mehta, double bass(!). Several Teldec discs feature pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim with friends and colleagues - all of whom are extraordinary musicians. Sony has rights to Herbert von Karajan's vast video archives as well as pianists Evgeny Kissin and Murray Perahia, conductor Seiji Ozawa and others. Two recent entrants into the LaserDisc format for concert music are the Sony Classical and Teldec labels, both featuring well-known musicians in music of permanent interest. LaserDisc also has a significantly better picture and sound than VHS, though its advantages are less striking today than a few years ago. The chief advantage of disc technology over tape is that it offers instant access to any part of the program without fast-winding. Most of the major classical labels have ventured into LaserDisc production with products that range from Toscanini conducting Beethoven's Ninth (on RCA) to Pierre Boulez conducting Wagner's "Ring" Cycle (on Philips) and a dazzling array of opera and ballet on Pioneer, which was, in fact, a pioneer in this field. This reflects the influence of television, which has accustomed us to a picture with our music, whether we need it or not, and the trend is already well launched. In the century that is less than a decade away, the time will probably come when all new commercial recordings will be videos. And besides music you can also get movies, aerobic exercises, museum tours and high-quality art reproductions on LaserDisc. It costs more than a CD, but it can (and sometimes does) hold an hour's worth of audio and video material on each of its two sides. The technology is essentially the same for CD and LaserDisc, but along with digital sound the LaserDisc gives a digital picture. A LaserDisc looks like a grown-up CD, its silvery surface pocked with microscopic dots to be scanned by a laser beam, just as bar codes are scanned now in your local supermarket. These discs will fit precisely in the spaces left by LPs that have been scratched to death, and people who haven't begun collecting them may want to start later. Before converting all your 12-inch LP shelves for 5 1/4-inch CDs, stop for a moment and consider the 12-inch LaserDisc or CD video.