"Actor: Ensemble"

• Judith - Une histoire biblique de la Croatie renaissante (DVD & CD) | DVD | (24/06/2013) from £25.99   |  Saving you £1.00 (3.85%)   |  RRP £26.99

  Radislav Jovanov Gonzo directs this performance of a traditional Croatian chant. The performance, influenced by an epic poem by Marko Marulic, sees Croatian musicologist and singer Katarina Livljanic draw on melodies that date back to Gregorian and Glagolitic sources to produce a piece of music steeped in cultural tradition.

• Great Noises That Fill The Air (2-Disc DVD) | DVD | (16/08/2021) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From the streets of Brixton, Bristol and Manchester, to junk yards, punk venues and inner-city community centres, the rich backdrop and background to each artist and performer is evocatively captured as they develop and hone their practices, challenging social boundaries as they go. In Dread Beat and Blood, directed by Franco Rosso (Babylon), the dub poet master Linton Kwesi-Johnson uses his poetry as a weapon in the pursuit of justice against racism and violence. His contemporary John Cooper Clarke presents a despairing hymn to urban devastation and human causalities of the Thatcher era in Ten Years in An Open Necked Shirt. From jazz to contemporary composition, tape experiments, spoken word, rap and innovative DJ excellence, the styles and approaches vary; and so to do the manner of each film. By turns poetic and impressionistic, personal and experimental, these bold, unusual works highlight the wide-ranging, inspiring potential of documentary.

• Reves D'Un Marco Polo - Vivier | DVD | (03/01/2006) from £2.49   |  Saving you £27.50 (1,104.42%)   |  RRP £29.99

  A performance of the Vivier opera in two acts that tells a mystical story which centres on the character called Agni. Reinbert De Leeuw conducts.

• Zachariah | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Advertised in 1970 as "the first electric Western", Zachariah is an endearingly pretentious effort that prefigures such genre oddities as Jodorowsky's El Topo and Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. The story is the archetypal one about two friends who become gunslingers and must inevitably face off against each other in the finale, but it's treated here as if it Meant Something Deeper--which means that after enjoying 75 minutes of violence we can all agree that peace and love and harmony is on the whole better for children and other living things. Curly haired farmboy Zachariah (John Rubinstein) and eternally grinning apprentice blacksmith Matthew (Don Johnson) are the fast friends who run away from home to join up with a gang of outlaws known as the Crackers (played by hippie folk-rock collective Country Joe and the Fish). These apparent 19th-century Westerners tote electric guitars and are given to staging free festival freak-outs at one end of town to distract from the bank robbery at the other. The boys soon hook up with Job Cain (Elvin Jones), an all-in-black master gunfighter who is also an ace drummer (his solo is impressive), but then drift apart as Zachariah has a liaison with Old West madame Belle Starr (Pat Quinn) in a town that consists of fairground-style brightly painted wooden cut out buildings (a gag reused in Blazing Saddles), then gets rid of his outrageous all-white cowboy outfit to settle down on a homestead and grow his own dope and vegetables. Matthew, of course, goes for the black leather look after outdrawing Cain, and comes a gunning for the only man who might be faster than him, but the hippie-era message is once these kids have killed everyone else they can still make peace with each other and the desert or something, man. Aside from a Beatle-haired teenage Johnson making a fool of himself by over-emoting to contrast with Rubinstein's non-performance, the film offers a lot of beautiful "acid Western" scenery and excellent prog rock and bluegrass music from the James Gang, White Lightnin' and the New York Rock Ensemble. Comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre (huge on album in 1970) provided the script, which explains satirical touches like the horse-and-buggy salesman (Dick Van Patten) spieling like a used car dealer and the madame's claim to have had affairs with gunslingers from Billy the Kid to Marshal McLuhan. The DVD extras are skimpy, but the print quality is outstanding. --Kim Newman

• Vivaldi - Viva Vivaldi (Bartoli) | DVD | (24/11/2008) from £11.02   |  Saving you £-2.03 (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  A full-length concert from the Theatre des Champs-Elysees Paris featuring beautiful and rare arias from Vivaldi's operas. This Brian Large film showcases the repertoire from the bestselling Vivaldi Album (Decca 1999) which catapulted Cecilia Bartoli to worldwide stardom. Bartoli's spectacular vocal pyrotechnics are supported by world-class Baroque ensemble and collaborators on the Decca album Il Giardino Armonico. Tracklisting: 1. Di due rai languir costante (Foa 28) 2. Siam navi all'onde algenti (L'Olimpiade) 3. Non ti lusinghi la crudeltade (Tito) 4. Gelosia (Ottone in Villa) 5. Domine Deus (Gloria) 6. Armatae face e anguibus (Juditha Triumphans) 7. Zeffiretti che sussurrate (Ercole sul Temodonte) 8. Gelido in ogni vena (Farnace) 9. Anch'il mar par che sommerga (Bajazet) 10.Dite oime (La fida ninfa) 11. Agitata da due venti (La Griselda) 12. Sventurata navicella (Giustino)

• Art Ensemble of Chicago - Les Stances a Sophie | DVD | (27/10/2008) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The 'lost cult classic' French new wave film about feminism art music and post-68 revolutionary ideals.

• Handel: Messiah (Handel: Messiah (Staged Version) | Blu Ray | (30/08/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Beethoven: Piano Concertos No. 2 And 4 | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerts 2 and 4 by Francois-Rene Duchable and the Paris Ensemble Orchestra; conducted by John Nelson. Live from the Royal Opera House Versailles Palace.

• Handel's Messiah: Ensemble Matheus (Spinosi) | DVD | (28/09/2010) from £23.74   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Red Star Red Army Chorus And Dance Ensemble | DVD | (24/04/2006) from £15.95   |  Saving you £2.04 (11.30%)   |  RRP £17.99

  This concert given by the magnificent Russian troupe the Red Star Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble was recorded at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow prior to a nationwide tour of the United States in the autumn of 1992. The 100-strong Ensemble was first formed within the USSR armed forces in 1977 performing concerts primarily for the army. Their repertoire ranges from popular folk tunes and songs of battle from all corners of the former Soviet Union to spectacular Cossack dancing and includes Glinka's Patriotic Song and Kamarinskaya Rimsky- Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee and folk songs Kalinka Dark Eyes A Birch Tree Stood in the Meadow Happy Girl and Seven Sons-in-Law. All are performed with energy enthusiasm and patriotic fervour.

• Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire / Schumann: Dichterliebe | DVD | (14/02/2002) from £4.18   |  Saving you £17.07 (584.59%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Song cycles--anthologies that tell a story--are perfect for visual treatment, and Oliver Herrmann has chosen two that typify the expressive and the expressionist. Subtitled "A Story of Red and Blue", Dichterliebe places Schumann's songs in a nightclub setting, intercutting them with rehearsal and pre-production sequences that don't shed much light on either the settings or their interpretation. Christine Schäfer captures the lovelorn feel of this music, and Natascha Osterkorn is a sensitive accompanist, but the peer presentation style could well grate on repeated viewing. One Night. One Life, Herrmann's presentation of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, is likely to prove more durable. Schäfer walks listlessly down corridors and through rooms of Dali-esque paranoia, emerging into the cold facelessness of a modern city, before retreating behind her own persona. The performance, directed by Pierre Boulez, is unfailingly good and this ought to attract new listeners to Schoenberg's light, ironic and ever-relevant cabaret. On the DVD: Dichterliebe and Pierrot Lunaire on disc are presented in a 16:9 picture format that reproduces with needle-sharp clarity, and the PCM stereo sound has the required immediacy and finesse. There are subtitles in four European languages and detailed introductions to both works are provided in the booklet. The lengthy interview with Schäfer is insightful, if not without an element of Blind Date, Fassbinder style! --Richard Whitehouse

• The Red Army Choir Orchestra And Dance Ensemble - Live In Paris | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tracklistinig: 1. Titles 2. Russian National Anthem 3. Oh Fields My Fields (Song of the Plains) 4. Sacred War 5. In the Sunny Clearing 6. Kalinka 7. Cossack Dance 8. We Sing to Thee 9. On the Road (A Soldier's Song) 10. Smuglianka 11. Partisan's Song 12. Along the Peterskaya Raod 13. Dark Eyes 14. Navy Dance 15. Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (From Nabucco) 16. Bandit's Chorus (From Ernani) 17. Spanish Medley: Amapola/Valencia/Granada 18. Zaporogue's Cossacks 19. Excerpt from ""Bo

• Bach - Mass in B Minor (Nelson) | DVD | (05/02/2007) from £13.28   |  Saving you £0.71 (5.10%)   |  RRP £13.99

  On 29th & 30th March 2006 John Nelson gave live performances of Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris in the prestigious venue cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. This concert is the first of a trilogy; John Nelson's plan being to continue the 'Bach in Notre Dame' theme next year with Saint John's Passion and the year after Saint Matthew's Passion all three performances being captured on film in the cathedral. The audiovisual recording of the event is an integral part to John Nelson's project with the awe-inspiring backdrop of Notre Dame really bringing Bach's music to life. In addition to Nelson and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris this DVD brings together the Matrise de Notre-Dame conducted by Nicola Corti as well as renowned soloists Joyce DiDonato and Paul Agnew (both well known to Virgin Classics) German soprano Ruth Ziesak Canadian counter-tenor Daniel Taylor and German baritone Dietrich Henschel.

• Schubert: Trout Quintet | DVD | (02/12/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This edition of the Naxos Musical Journey series takes us to the towns and countryside of Schubert's Austria set to the soundtrack of his Trout Quintet, scored for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass. We begin in the spa town of Baden, renowned for its surrounding vineyards. The crisp picture with colours well defined, of houses with lime green walls, inns painted pink, cobbled streets, no litter and few cars makes it look like a desirable resort. The camera pulls back as the tempo of the music picks up to reveal the vineyards (poppies at the reprise) under leaden skies. The tempo slackens for the second movement set on the Salt Chamber Estate in Spring: buttercups, cow parsley and narcissi flower in the Alpine meadows criss-crossed by streams. The "Scherzo" brings us to the resort of Steyr, where Schubert conceived the Trout on a walking holiday. The sun, now ablaze, shines brightly on pub signs a-plenty, guilds and craft shops. The fourth movement, "Theme and Variations", introduces the tune of Schubert's song, Die Forelle with an accompanying glimpse of a speckled trout in water so clear it could be drunk. The persistent rhythm of the finale accompanies a puffer train on the Steyr Valley Railway as it runs through woods and pastures. Then, as a coda to the journey, there's a one-movement Notturno accompanying pictures taken at twilight. On the DVD: Schubert: The Trout Quintet plays without flagging of the separate movements, which are given separately under the "Travel Notes" section. Other extras include a handy biography of the composer and the origins of quintet. The soundtrack has been remastered in Dolby Digital and DTS surround. The music is played with much affection by the Ensemble Villa Musica. --Adrian Edwards

• Johann Strauss - Dance And Dream | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The history of the waltz is inextricably linked to the history of the Strauss family. A Night in Vienna explores and relives the elegant atmosphere of ballroom dancing in 19th-century Vienna featuring popular soprano Lesley Garrett who also hosts the docudrama The Waltz King an enthralling story of the composers father and son.

• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A performance of Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 with Francois Rene Duchable on piano and John Nelson conducting the Paris Ensemble Orchestra.

• Blood On The Floor - Mark Anthony Turnage | DVD | (03/04/2006) from £15.40   |  Saving you £4.59 (23.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Improvisation and jazz-style melodies have been part of Turnage's work for many years but this is the composer's first large-scale attempt to obliterate artificial boundaries between one 'type' of music and another. A brutally powerful high octane fusion of jazz and classical styles Blood on the Floor concentrates on themes of urban alienation and drug abuse and is described by Turnage as probably the nastiest thing I have written.

• Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1 And 3 | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Francois-Rene Duchable performs Beethoven's Piano Concertos 1 and 3 at the Royal Opera House Versailles Palace. John Nelson conducts the Paris Ensemble Orchestra.

• Rick Wakeman And The English Rock Ensemble - Live In Buenos Aires | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Rick Wakeman and The English Rock Ensemble recorded live at the Gran Rex Theatre in Buenos Aires. Includes 'Buried Alive' '1984' and 'Starship Trooper'.

• Furrer - Begehren (Desire) | DVD | (09/09/2013) from £18.81   |  Saving you £-4.82 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99