Paul Mccartney: Standing Stone - Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra [DVD]

Okay, 5 stars so why is there a warning? I have the CD and enjoyed it so leapt at the chance of seeing Standing Stone performed live in the DVD. My expectation was that the DVD would faithfully reproduce the CD and the original VHS release of Standing Stone. Trouble is, the CD & VHS video feature the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) while the DVD features the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in a completely different performance.Now, i know what you're thinking! The blame is mine because I should've noticed the difference in the DVD advertising. And you're quite correct - I should've looked more closely! That the DVD cover is clearly based on the CD/ VHS cover does not mean blah blah blah! But i'm still disappointed, even though the it's my fault. Mea culpa!Does it matter that it's the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra? No, not really. It's all perfectly good so don't be put off - it's still 5 stars. I just thought/ hoped it was the DVD of the original which is more the norm.

First, a caveat: I notice a dot-com reviewer saying "The only problem is that there are no subtitles on the documentary." My problem is that there is no documentary. At all. There appear to be different products coming under the same review here. I was disappointed not to have the documentary about the writing and recording (extracts can be found on YouTube). But then again, for not much over 4 quid it's hard to complain. The video of the concert is well done, quality acceptable if not exactly high definition, and the Israel Philharmonic's performance is warm and enthusiastic. Don't be put off.Now. After putting this disc in the player the first thing you need to do is forget that it is Paul McCartney. Total brainwipe. Try to erase all of the presumptions and expectations and suspicions that will inevitably just get in the way, whatever your opinion of the man. Imagine that Lawrence Foster is conducting a newly-discovered draft score by [insert late 20thC 'serious' composer of choice]. This way you can at least try to appreciate its merits and its flaws without all the hysterical and ultimately irrelevant biographical baggage.If you don't have any patience at all for the sort of modernist, minimalist, atonal writing that is sometimes caricatured as 'Tom & Jerry' or plinky-plonk music, much of this will be hard work for you. There are perhaps only three or four good tunes. Oases of graceful romanticism are (until the finale) rare in a jagged, desert soundscape of stabbing brass and stuttering strings, pumping bassoon and thudding timpani. Whereas, if you are intimate with such stuff and cannot forget that this is only Paul McCartney, your instinct may be to sniff at Standing Stone as pretty thin gruel cooked up by a pop tunesmith so in thrall to the novelty of computer composition that he churned out pages of dull sound effects and bad polyphony and simply forgot to write tunes. Certainly it has flaws. It lacks the harmonic movement necessary to sustain tension between passages that sometimes tread water too long. Harp glissandos feel as if they have been selected from a mail-order playbook of Sea Themes. In places the orchestration feels thin and unfinished. But... but...This work deserves suspension of prejudice. Taken on its own terms it is, IMHO, a quite remarkable piece of music. The austerity and static quality of it work with, not against, its subject, which is the emergence of human warmth out of cold clay. And the denoument - Celebration - is indeed warm, a generous, lovely tune, developed in interesting variations, carried by orchestra and mixed choirs with, if anything, a little too much tasteful restraint (it could easily have carried a more sumptuous treatment). On the way a passage such as Sea Voyage surges evocatively; Lost At Sea achieves a strange, swimming, disorienting quality whilst sustaining forward movement, the orchestra twinkling all over with interesting details, now here, now there, like whitecaps; Trance is genuinely eerie.Despite its flaws this is worthy and interesting stuff. If it were an unfinished rough sketch by a classical orchestral writer, it would no doubt be recognised as such, if only by a few cognoscenti. By the same token, of course, if it were not by Paul McCartney few of us would ever have heard of it. But now that we have, it's worth trying making the effort to meet it half way. Allow yourself to enjoy it.

Great to finally own this piece of music on DVD and with the extras included. I previously had owned it on video but it only contained the concert.

Not greatly impressed with this - although nothing to do with the quality of the work which I took as a given and didn't expect too much. The DVD seemed technically of indifferent quality and the accompanying literature scanty. Very fortunately I had already purchased the much more substantial booklet that normally accompanies the CD set for 50p from my local Age Concern shop. The CDs themselves were nowhere in evidence so a previous customer must have helped him or herself! That booklet drew my attention to a key issue that is not really highlighted elsewhere. The CDs are of a performance by the LSO whereas the DVD is of a performance by the Israel Philharmonic in Israel. I had thought I was buying a DVD of the LSO performance and felt slightly misled. That explains why this DVD is so cheap and the CD set relatively more expensive.