The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Home Use)

Although the clothes and eye glasses are slightly outdated, the rest of this DVD is pure gold. Wonderful music and really interesting explanations of the instruments.The conductor leads viewers through a guided tour of the orchestral instruments. This is then followed by a full performance of Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra". My class of 50 music appreciation community college students will inevitably clap after the performance- they are that into it by the end.I use this film to finish off the chapter on orchestra instruments. There really is no substitute to seeing the instruments while hearing the sounds and this DVD is the perfect way to do so until I can afford to bring an entire orchestra into class!!

My wife and I attend the symphony on a regular basis. Despite this exposure we found this DVD program interesting and it provided new information about the history of some of the orchestral instruments as well as a refresher of how these instruments contribute to orchestral sound. The performance of the Britten piece was very good. The hairstyles on the men and the relative paucity of women date the performance. The video quality is substandard -- it seems like the source material was a VHS tape. The sound is fine.

The DVD has obviously been transcribed from video tape or even cine film and the video quality is poor. Having said that the message given by the content of the DVD is excellent for people who love quality classical music but do not have a deep understanding of the way it is produced in the concert hall. The more people can understand about the physical aspect of music production, the more they will get out of listening to the fine DVDs and recordings as well as the actual concert hall productions that are so easily available nowadays. I show this film and similar fundamental educational DVDs (such as the Bernstein Lectures at Young Peoples Concerts)to my Classical Music Appreciation Course that I run for the University of the Third Age and it enhances their enjoyment of the music. David Jocelyn

It's very short,I expected more technical information, distribution of different instruments, why are they placed to the left or to the right,it's supposed to be a guide to the orchestra. Pity it has no subtitles, something one automatically expects. The most interesting thing: details on the actual making of some instruments.

This production is an "oldy but a goody"! I still like it because it doesn't use electronic music or animation like in new productions. Little children still prefer to see human faces. I just gave it to a one year old boy and he loves it and had no prior music exposure. It is a great piece of music, too.

A very young Andrew Davis is both the commentator and the conductor on this DVD. Prior to performing the work, Maestro Davis provides a highly interesting lecture about all the instruments in a modern symphony orchestra. It is very well done and the information is well thought out and quite comprehensive. My only complaint about the DVD is its brevity. For 25 dollars, there should be much more music. The performance of the Britten is played by the Manhattan Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and their performance is exceptional.

This film is good for hearing and seeing the instruments piece by piece and all at once. I am studying composition and this is helping me hear the quality of each instrument and how they work in the orchestra. Also good music. some parts are cheesy but overall it is a good educational film on each part of the orchestra.

But I must say... a little boring. This video uses an extremely familiar piece to introduce standard orchestral instruments, but it is very dated (i.e. trendy, for the 80s) and the presentation style intellectual. A good study tool, not easy to enjoy.

excellent