Ernst Zundel would love it.
357402
As a matter of fact,  I bought the book hoping to see/learn something new, but there were no new revelations. The point being that UFOs were developed by the Nazis with help from Aldebaran (true) and Hitler went to war too fast (lucky for us) before the scientists had a chance to develop effective copies of the UFO that crashed in 1936 in Southern Germany (true)... it is also said they deliberately delayed development for humanitarian reasons...

This would be a great collection of newsclippings, and general info on UFOs  -- IF the pictures were clear, but the copy I have has a lot of pix mostly out-of-focus, too dark, or what-the-heck-is-that?

The text examines Operation Highjump, the Antarctic Nazi base, Hitler's drive to produce UFOs, and the different kinds they experimented with, and discusses the need for Disclosure. The material is very thought-provoking
and gives credence to the Nazi development of UFOs.

Buy it if you can get a copy with decent quality pictures. (It doesn't bother me as I have seen most of the pix in other books and have my own files of these things.)
2387961
He makes a lot of sence even though his timing might be off because of all the QE.  I would recommend it.
4207844
Love this film.  Riemelt is a fox and plays the part so completely.  Koffler grows into the relationship with Riemelt--what a fine actor.  One just feels for the fiancee/girlfriend who has Koffler's baby.  Her family?  Not on your life.  But she exudes the betrayal, anger and heartfelt sadness that anyone in that situation would feel.  What a striking film.  I hope there's a "Free Fall Again" to learn the consequent story of all 3 principal characters.
1136403
Is there some humor in Erich Kleiber's refusal to go all in for the bells and whistles of the last movement of his 1953 Fifth with the Concertgebouw?  All these little hesitations and deliberations in the building-up of suspense . . .?  I like to think so, for it's clearly deliberate, and it's very effective.  After all, he shows in the first movement that for motoric excitement he can match Toscanini (and in better sound) and his son Carlos.  For all that I prefer, Carlos's more recent (1975) VPO account -- but I can see the validity of a more playful view.  What there's no doubt about is the ability of Erich Kleiber to maintain a lean sound (contrast Karl Bohm), a control over gradations of dynamics that are made audible quite amazingly in recordings from 1953 and 1950 (The "Eroica").  We can hear too the distinctive texturing of the individual instruments and groups, and a forward propulsion that seems absolutely natural, whether we're off to the races at the end of the "Eroica" or in the mellow relaxation of the second movement of the Fifth.  I think the "Eroica" is a great performance, in the Klemperer class, though a touch warmer or more humane.  And some credit must go to Victor Olof, the producer, whose ear was impeccable and who deserves to be mentioned with Legge and Culshaw.  I like to think that George Szell heard these recordings and said to himself, "I want to record for Decca in the Concertgebouw,"  and he did, and produced some of his finest recordings there.  As for these of Erich Kleiber's -- they are no less indispensable than Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven Fifth and Seventh.  Great stuff.
3365451
Forget "Cabaret"! Here's an evocation of Berlin in that amazing time. A sort of anticipation of the 60s in all its uniqueness. And Jonas Kaufmann is about the return of the man. Here is masculinity in all its power and tenderness. Music! It takes you away from the awful world we're in. Thanks to this great artist! Kaufmann is a Zauberer, a magician. He seduces us, makes us happy in a way I can't remember being moved by a recording since the 60s when something new from Joni Mitchell or Neil Young reappeared. Strange comparison? He moves us and this is exceptional. The arrangements are wonderfully evocative.
1997513
Even as a moderate liberal I can see the beauty in this book. This comes in two forms; the well-reproduced colour and black and white plates and succinct readability, and the well made "coffee table" quality of the binding. The colours used are modern today, hiding the age of the publication.
I paid [$$$] for the book, secondhand from the USA. This seems a lot of money but the pride in ownership of such a rare manual takes away the pain of the cost. Many of the paintings show the value and quality of my own Hitler watercolour (Church, Vienna period c. 1910).
Some raised eyebrows from the usual...closed-minds, but that makes ownership more enjoyable.
Buy with confidence, this will appreciate in value.
3602722
I knew the British were crazy about Hndel and Doctor Who, so, no wonder a project that joined Hndel and BBC would be wonderful in every detail!

They assembled a team of experts to try to recreate the night the Water Music was first played in every single detail, and their research was exceptional and well explained throughout: political and historical context, motivations for such a flamboyant spectacle, 18th century-looking boat (complete with ornaments), candlelights, costumes and, of course, period instruments.
Speaking of which, the English Concert does an excellent interpretation. Melodies, counterpoint, individual instruments and the bass are all perfectly clear and the result is wonderful, as if they were playing in a regular, comfy concert hall. It is even more stunning considering the hindrances they underwent: handwritten scores, candlelight, wind, boat movement, wigs...

The whole team's final result is a great success.

Unfortunately, as the other reviewer stated, they do not play the complete Water Music. However, I don't think that justifies 4 stars, since I think the purpose was always to produce a documentary about Water Music, with parts of the music are played as a big bonus.

To sum it up: Fantastic!
406207
Such an interesting conversation between friends. You really get a chance to know this architectural superstar a bit. This film should be a must for all architecture lovers, and needless to say, Gehry lovers.
3701166
I've always liked music by Herb Ernst. Years ago, I began listening to his music, and wrote and thanked him for it. He ended up sending me a couple of tapes free, to help me in dealing with my disability. They are very relaxing if you like New Age like I do.  Herb Ernst came out with his when it was all beginning to be noticed. He also like the poem I had sent to him as well.  He is very in tune with humanity! And a favorite.
3756635
Keen idea, well executed.  This is an excellent example of open-mindedness,  Lehrer demonstrates the value of genuine interdisciplinary thinking.
945321
Henry Picker was a young German officer who knew stenography and took down Hitler's Table Talk for a period of four years during World War II. This book was first published in 1951 and has enjoyed many reprints in the intervening years. This edition is expertly translated and has some revealing footnotes which leads the reader to other sources.
Though Hitler is invariably portrayed as a raving madman in American "docudramas," he could also be a thoroughly charming and intensely charismatic private companion in his off hours. A man capable of seducing 65 million Germans and of his monumental crimes, had to possess an elemental force both inexplicable and fascinating. This book provides some clues to Hitler's personality, though in fairness, his mesmerizing mystique had been dulled by drugs and megalomania by 1941. He was surrounded by sycophants, but there were some perceptive and intelligent people in his milieu, most notably Joseph Goebbels. Hitler's secretaries were also articulate and intelligent ladies. However, his chauffeurs and other aides, such as Linge and Schaub, were hardly junior Einstein's.
Hitler's monologues are faithfully presented here and he emerges as a genius in certain areas (his knowledge of architecture and art was encyclopedic), and as a sexist boor in other realms. His believed himself to be omniscient and believed further that he was a messiah selected by Providence to save the German nation. Anyone harboring such delusions is bound to sound arrogant and insufferable on occasion.
This is a must have book for anyone interested in Hitler, his entourage, or his paralyzing effect upon other people. It's chilling that Hitler casually discussed trivialities while Europe was being torn asunder because of one man's twsited ideology.
3654272
I've been a fan of this conductor, ever since he made a big splash on EMI with that vividly colored reading of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.  You know, the one where Lucia Popp immediately better known in USA than her lack of local billing might have otherwise foretold.

As it happens, Fruhbeck de Burgos has a way with big and colorfully orchestrated scores.  This suggests he is a Straussian band leader to the manner born.  Then I got an earful as he led the London players in Alpine Symphony on Collins, filled out with Sharon Sweet singing a very big-voiced version of the Four Last Songs.  That disc has been out of print for a long time now, and nobody else has assigned the conductor to do Richard Strauss - until now, that is.

On this disc (plus a companion), Berlin Classics brings us quite a few works from the Richard Strauss oeuvre, including Alpine Symphony, the Rosenkavalier Suite from the opera of the same title, a Don Quixote with Claudio Bohorquez as the cello protagonist, and the ubiquitous tone poems, Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel.  Our band is the other outfit in Dresden, the Dresden Philharmonic.  Like the better-publicized Staatskapelle Dresden, the DPO also has a long and venerable musical tradition, going all the way back to 1885, though the band was organized/named in its current form only later, in 1915. A star-studded list of conductors and conductor-composers has stood on the podiums - up to Richard Strauss himself.  Adding to all this glorious potential, our recording venue is the outstanding Lukaskirche in Dresden, which typically offers its bands a trademark framework that reflects power, glow, and details across the band departments.

What's not to like?  Not much, as it happens, with this and the companion Strauss disc.

The Alpine Symphony is a gargantuan, colorful work from the later Richard Strauss - about which the composer famously remarked to himself, Well, I have finally learned how to orchestrate.  Its music gathers sweep from the whole musical spectrum from whispers to roars, with nearly every imaginable tone color available to the modern big band on vivid display.  (Yes, there is a wind machine.)

The conductor keeps a firm, direct hand on these Alpine proceedings.  Detractors may say he lacks an ability to stretch it out and ham it up, stemming from precedents set by famous old Strauss conductors like Clemens Krauss.  His Dresden players build up, into vigorous but precisely balanced crescendos, not into Late Romantic nervous breakdowns.  Everybody is involved, even when a cooler touch lends the music a welcome sense of perspective and knowing story-telling.  Should we blame George Szell and Fritz Reiner and Georg Solti for winning the Straussian day in this regard?

 After the Alpine adventure has come to its close at days end, we are treated to a lively and charming reading of the Rosenkavalier Suite.  This is like having kaffee mit schlagobers in Vienna, say, at Cafe Hofburg?  With friends, of course.  Deep in brilliance, long on fun ... this Rosenkavalier Suite is the perfect close to an Alpine Symphony day?

We can hardly pretend that other readings do not already burst the available catalog.  Even more famous big name bands, led by even more famous big name conductors.  But, this one from Dresden has the flavor of Straussian spices, authentic.  Ditto, for that companion disc, too.

Five stars.
4279210
Arabella Steinbacher, for those who don't know, is a German classical violinist who has won several important international prizes, recorded over half a dozen albums, and was a student of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation "Circle of Friends." On the present disc she puts her talents to work playing violin works by Bruch, Korngold, and Chausson.

From the outset of the Korngold piece, we can see that Ms. Steinbacher is going to be doing an all-out Romantic reading of the music, if one that is clean and free of excessive virtuosic baggage. It's an appropriate reading, given that Korngold used material from some of his more exotic movie scores, like "Another Dawn," "Anthony Adverse," "Juarez," and "The Prince and the Pauper" in the first movement alone. Not all critics may not take it seriously, but Ms. Steinbacher does. She infuses the piece with an earnest emotion, excellent structure, and superb craftsmanship that not even the copious eruptions of obvious cinematic references can diminish. Her violin tone is sweet and fluid, like the music, and the violin shimmers with delight in every phrase.

Next up is the little Poeme for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 25, by the French composer Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), a work he completed in 1896 and has since become one of his most-famous pieces of music. Almost every notable violinist of the past century has recorded it, so Ms. Steinbacher had her work cut out for her. Fortunately, the music sounds lovely in her hands, if not quite so emotionally charged as Perlman's (EMI), which remains my favorite in this work. Nevertheless, Steinbacher brings a longing melancholy to the music and emphasizes the dark, brooding aspects of the Russian story Chausson used as a model for the piece.

The program concludes with the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, by the German composer and conductor Max Bruch (1838-1920). He premiered his revised version in 1867, and it has since become one of the staples of the violin repertoire. It has a curious first movement, a Vorspiel (or Prelude) leading directly to the second movement. This Vorspiel is like a slow march, with some ornamental flourishes along the way. It is here that Ms. Steinbacher is especially at home with the overt Romanticism of the score. While she may not exude the dramatic intensity we find in Heifetz's classic recording (RCA), she does convey a warm, rapturous feeling as the opening music builds to its conclusion. And so it goes. Quite nice.

John J. Puccio
Classical Candor
2625561
Jason Lutes has given himself a formidable task:  Not only is he seeking to chronicle a hazily-understood period of German history for his American audience...the latter years of the Weimer Republic, when the nascent Democratic experiment was being torn asunder by the Communists on the Left and the National Socialists from the Right...but he is also doing it slowly, methodically, rather than in the slam-bang style most common to comic books.  What one might have expected to be an event-driven adventure story is actually a series of thoughtful human interest pieces.
Each chapter unfolds gracefully, linking easily with the next, although each one stands well on its own, without having to rely too heavily on the others in order to be comprehended.  The art style isn't "cartoony" by any means...Lutes is a shrewd observer of the human form, and his figures reflect his keen eye.  He's also a tireless researcher, and you can rest assured that when he draws an automobile, or a cocktail dress, or a phonograph player, it's appropriate to the time and place.  Artistic drama is heightened by his clever use of inking; indeed, his employment of sheer black compares favorably to that of Milton Caniff, although in more subtle ways.  It's worth noting that Lutes seems to prefer dealing in strict black and white; there are no zip-a-tone grays here.
But what makes "BERLIN: BOOK ONE" so compelling is the writing.  Lutes has created a handful of characters whom we follow chapter after chapter; sometimes, their lives intersect, but in other instances they never meet with one another.  Some are Bolsheviks, some are Nazis, some are just survivors in the rapidly shrinking middle.  They are all fascinating, and the drama, the humor, and the uncertainty of their fictional lives against the very real historical backdrop of their era gives "BERLIN" its true power.
This is the first volume of what Lutes promises will be a three book saga.  One can only admire his audacity, and marvel at the success he has achieved so far.
49738
Love The Presentation. I Wish It Could Have Been Bigger. Michael Jacobsen
4228959
I have an impressive knowledge of German words.  It consists  Die Zauberflte,  Des Freischtz, Die Fledermaus, so you can see I have no understanding of German at all. I stumbled across this collection of golden oldies in German due to the fact that I love the very funny and gay (as in the original definition of the word) song "Der Bummelpetrus". When I received this cd set, I was in for a treat.  The set has 10 cds with about 200 songs. They are divided by the years.

CD1 1910-27
CD2 1930-31
CD3 1933
CD4 1935
CD5 1936-37
CD6 1938
CD7 1939
CD8 1941
CD9 1944-47
CD 10 1950-51

The first cd (1910-27) is my favorite. The songs all have an operetta feel. If you are an Andre Rieu fan, you will recognize many of his concert favorites are actually old popular German songs.(eg: "Sportpalast Walzer",) The first song by Willi Rose sounds almost like Maurice Chevalier. The songs from 30s are actually quite lovely. It includes songs by the very popular Comedian Harmonists, Marlene Dietrich, Anny Ondra (the famed Austria-Hungary actress). There are quite a few of songs by Zarah Leander (including the famous song from her 1937 film La Habanera). Operatic tenors used to be heard regularly on the radio, the fabulous Joseph Schmidt, Herbert Ernst Groh and the Italian tenor Gigli are also featured in the cd set.

As mentioned before, the 1st cd feels like an operetta cd, the later ones are more divised with the favors of Tango, Jazz, Big band, Swing and even a little Neapolitan throw in. By the time the WWII ended, American songs took over. Here we have Foster songs sung in German (Oh Susanna), Gershwin's Summetime and The man I love and even Deep in the heart of Texas. Not to mention "Baby, it's cold outside" in German (quite cute).

The sound quality of the set is very decent considering the fact that some of the recordings are really old.

This cd set serves a musical journey through time. It's rather strange that I hear 100-200 years old opera arias all the time and never feel the music is old, yet this music give one a very distinctive feel of travel in time. When you drive at night and listen to these cds, you can't help but wonder if you are in a different space and time all together.
181749
I have all of Einstrzende Neubautens' releases in one form or another (except for their post 2000 releases, sadly). This one I have on LP and I invite anyone who cares to look at the LP next time you are in a record shop because it's cover is far more beautiful than the CD version. The LP has silhouetted images of the band in modern-dance poses, their fingers, legs and hair like a beautiful choreography by Isadora Duncan. I'm not sure why they changed the look for the CD, life is funny that way. Of all their wonderful albums, this and Haus der Luge are my absolute favorites. They come from a similar pinnacle of their long and varied career where they coaxed each piece of metal, every giant spring, bucket of sand, etc. into a musical tapestry of pulsating rhythm. Blixa Bargeld's voice has come a long way from Negativ Nein's frightening scream, and on this album he manages to sing in a whisper, a chant and of course, his trademark screech that sounds less like a voice than it does a drill boring it's way through a bell.
This album is more hypnotic and, at times, even cozy. Like sitting in the worlds most comfortable chair watching the fireplace blaze so fierce and brilliant that it burns down the entire room, but you are too comfortable and mesmerized to move.
Fuenf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala contains what I think is their third English song. It's a cover of Tim Rose's Morning Dew (more people should get into Tim Rose). Their version is definitely much different than Tim Rose would have ever dreamed, even in his less than lucid moments. Morning Dew is one of the several highlights of this album, though, Ich Bin is more widely praised. MONDIMIDOFRSASO (the days of the week, I love the acoustic bit at the end), Zerstoerte Zelle and Kein Bestandteil Sein are my favorites.
Anyone reading this probably has been drawn to Einstrzende Neubauten for one reason or another. They are still one of the most important industrial acts out there, as well as one of the genres godfathers. Blixa's work with Nick Cave has been mutually rewarding. Fans of either should cross reference. Whatever the reason you came this far is, start with this album (or Haus Der Luge) and then move on to their three volumes of Strategies Against Architecture. This is a fantastic album.