Sergei Rachmaninov's second piano concerto demands both a virtuoso pianist and a huge, supple orchestral sound. It gets both in this multichannel recording from Deutsche Grammophon, which pairs Lang Lang with a venerable Russian orchestra.
Isn't it a little odd to squeeze a whole symphony orchestra into a living room? The great thing about chamber music is that it's designed to be played in the home, correctly scaled to your personal space. It's best heard live, of course-but, if you can't invite musicians over for tea, the next best thing might be to feed your universal disc player this well-recorded pair of Beethoven chamber works.
The war of the words over who will reap the lucrative licensing fees from the next-generation high-resolution disc format (i.e., HD DVD vs. Blu-ray) continues to inflict heavy collateral damage on consumer interest and confidence in the potential of a high-definition spinning disc format.
Pioneer sure packed an awful lot of stuff into its new A/V receiver, the Elite VSX-74TXVi, beginning with the mouthful of letters in its model name. Far more engaging is its iPod connectivity: this is the first receiver we've seen to offer fully integrated control for Apple's ubiquitous iPod music player.
Audiophiles and musicians alike will recognize the name Tannoy from the pro-sound world - the company's speakers are used in recording studios around the globe. So I was surprised to see speakers from such a serious outfit show up in a funky, fun package like the Arena system. The Arena's podlike satellites owe a debt to 1970s sci-fi style: think rounded, organic, and amoeboid.
You've made three El Mariachi and three Spy Kids films, and now I hear you're making Sin City 2 and Sin City 3. What is it about trilogies that you find so attractive? I was glad when I did Once Upon a Time in Mexico because it made El Mariachi and Desperado feel more complete to me.
"Home theater in a box" - to me, that phrase conjures up cheap, all-in-one packages with a combo DVD player/receiver, tiny speakers, and an underpowered amp crammed into a "bass module." But it can also be stretched to mean a high-quality system whose components are designed to work together in a turn-key fashion, which saves you from racking your brains about which receiver goes best with what
