THE TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : VIDEOCASSETTES : Excellent Good Fair Poor

“Davidsbuendlertaenze.” Home Vision. $39.95. Seven years ago, George Balanchine created for New York City Ballet this intimate, brooding, one-act masterwork set to Robert Schumann’s piano cycle. Initially a series of unusual showpiece duets (with the women dancing first in heeled shoes and later in pointe slippers), the ballet soon darkens into a neo-Romantic abstraction of conflicts in Schumann’s personal life and career. Sensitively directed by Merrill Brockway, the studio-taped 1981 production for CBS Cable (now defunct) reunites most of the stellar original cast: Suzanne Farrell, Jacques d’Amboise, Karin von Aroldingen, Adam Lueders, Sara Leland (in place of Kay Mazzo), Ib Andersen, Heather Watts and Peter Martins. Dance for camera probes no more deeply and achieves no greater stature. Information: (800) 262-8600.