London: A Musical Tour of London and Oxford

Big Ben. Trafalgar Square. Tower Bridge. Piccadilly Square. All famous and familiar sights of London (of which Samuel Johnson once said, "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"). Combining classical selections from Elgar, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Byrd, and Mendelssohn with footage shot in and around London and Oxford, this narration-less and "musical journey" begins with a "first impressions" montage, followed by a section on the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (the musical selection here is--fittingly--Mendelssohn's "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"; other music-to-video pairings are less obvious). Divided into 14 "chapters," attractions include Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court, and Christ Church in Oxford (the last coupled with Elgar's sublime 9th from the Enigma Variations). On the minus side, the filming is rather uninspired and the arrangement of the featured locations (mostly unidentified) is somewhat scattershot (Hampton Court Gardens is covered in chapter six, while Hampton Court itself is filmed in chapter eight); on the other hand, the price is right at $9.99 and travel collections are typically starved for newer materials (although the footage was actually shot in 1993, so you'll not see the humongous Millennium Eye wheel on the banks of the Thames here). Very optional. [Note: other titles in the series include: Paris, Prague, Rome, Venice and Vienna.] Aud: P. (R. Pitman)