Claudio Abbado - Hearing the Silence conveys an intensely moving view on one of the leading musicians of our time. In several interviews, Abbado talks about artistic, musical and biographical aspects of his life. The film shows excerpts from rehearsals and concerts with some of his favourite orchestras. Statements from colleagues and friends are combined with views from his favourite surroundings and help to characterize the "silent thinker".
Film Director Paul Smaczny had a very rare opportunity to get a glimpse of the immensely private personality of Claudio Abbado, described by many in the film as noble and elegant but also as a warm-hearted friend. The musicians all mention his reserved, but exact gestures, his respectful way of working in rehearsals and concerts and the atmosphere of co-operation this creates. Co-operation in music making is an aspect that, as Abbado indicates in one of his interviews, is very important to him and one that is at the core of his artistic intentions. Together with rarely seen historical filmed material and documents of him rehearsing and performing works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Debussy, Dvorak, Strauss, Stravinsky and Nono. The film follows Abbado's work with the orchestras with whom he most frequently collaborated, making use...
The story of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is colourful and dramatic, with a reputation worldwide for music-making of the highest quality. This special recording celebrates over sixty years of the Orchestra's history through film and music, charting the high-profile conductors, international performances and turbulent times that have helped to shape the Orchestra as we know it today and to create an ongoing tradition of musical excellence.
Kurt Masur, one of the world's greatest maestros, challenges and teaches the next generation of young musicians and conductors by stretching their limits and transforming their perspectives and abilities. Following master classes around the world over a period of few years, the film is a carefully constructed collage organically interviewing the maestro's teachings and his personal life experiences.
The result is a comprehensive emotional portrait of one of the most respected conductors of our time.
Unlike the piano, the violin or even the flute, the oboe is a relatively rare instrument for a solo career. And when a soloist such as Albrecht Mayer plays the oboe, one wishes composers had written more works for this sweetly mellow instrument. Critics write about the "divine spark" that inspires his playing, and about the "miraculous oboe" that turns into "an instrument of seduction." With his particularly warm tone and exceptionally broad palette of nuances, it's no surprise that Albrecht Mayer is one of today's most sought-after international oboists.
In this documentary portrait of the oboist, we retrace the musician's impressive career and witness some of its many high points. Mayer embarked on a professional career in 1990, when he joined the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra as solo oboist. Two years later, he made the transition to the absolute top league with his appointment as solo oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic, and since then he has made countless international appearances, playing under such eminent conductors as Abbado, Rattle and Harnoncourt. In addition to his work as a soloist, Mayer also attaches great importance to chamber music. He is a permanent member of the Sabine Meyer Wind Ensemble and also plays with such partners as Thomas Quasthoff, Matthias Goerne...
The story of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is colourful and dramatic, with a reputation worldwide for music-making of the highest quality. This special recording celebrates over sixty years of the Orchestra's history through film and music, charting the high-profile conductors, international performances and turbulent times that have helped to shape the Orchestra as we know it today and to create an ongoing tradition of musical excellence.
One of the world's foremost violinists, Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical celebrity known even by countless people who rarely listen to classical music. The artist and teacher, who promotes young musicians and commissions new works from contemporary composers, made her spectacular breakthrough under Herbert von Karajan at the 1977 Salzburg Easter Festival. She has since concertized at every major venue throughout the world. In 2008 she was awarded not only the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Award, but also the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. The award ceremony in March 2008 was crowned by a gala concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur, at which Mutter performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor op. 64 .
On the occasion of the Mendelssohn Year, Unitel Classica offers the documentary Anne-Sophie Mutter – Encounters with Mendelssohn , in which the artist discusses her affinity to Mendelssohn and explains why she particularly admires the works presented here.
To reveal the talent of unknown young singers by sending them on a tour of the world's leading venues: this is the aim of "Le Jardin des Voix," the academy of Les Arts Florissants founded by William Christie. We share moments of grace, uncertainty and disappointment as the film follows the jury through the auditioning process. Then, a year later, we find the ten winners at the Theatre de Caen for three weeks of intensive rehearsal with some of the leading figures from today's Baroque music scene.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
The story of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is colourful and dramatic, with a reputation worldwide for music-making of the highest quality. This special recording celebrates over sixty years of the Orchestra's history through film and music, charting the high-profile conductors, international performances and turbulent times that have helped to shape the Orchestra as we know it today and to create an ongoing tradition of musical excellence.
Nowhere in the world is the myth of Wagner as alive as in Bayreuth, and nowhere are performances of his works followed as closely as those at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. But after a decade-long reign as the uncontested ruler of the Wagner Festival, the composer's grandson Wolfgang Wagner has stepped down from his post. A new era is about to begin...
This documentary thematizes the past, present and future of the festival and provides rare insights behind the scenes of the Wagner "workshop." For the first time ever, the film team was able to record in the legendary Bayreuth orchestra pit, giving rise to stunningly candid shots of conductor Christian Thielemann rehearsing Götterdämmerung. A conversation with Wolfgang Wagner recorded especially for this production is presumably the patriarch's last appearance on film as head of the festival. The program also features rehearsals of the new 2008 production of Parsifal with director Stefan Herheim and conductor Daniele Gatti. Members of the Wagner family and leading Wagner interpreters of our time also comment on the unique Wagner aura. The authors have assembled an amazing collection of historical film material and photos on the history of the festival. There are also excerpts from great productions recorded by Unitel...
The outstanding tenors of the 78 era: comprising thirteen episodes, each with a biographical and a musical focus, features bel canto singers captured on black and white sound film. Backed up with footage, much of which is shown here for the very first time, the individual artists are profiled and their exceptional talents demonstrated in representative recordings. Part I: Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Richard Tauber, Leo Slezak, Joseph Schmidt.
The Black Church is the treasure-house of black culture, a port in stormy seas, an engine for change, its music a conduit for the release of sentiments of sheer joy, sheer pain and the redeeming poetry of sacrifice.
Black Faith is in three parts:
A Mighty Voice - on the early history of Caribbean Christianity and the effects of immigration on faith and style of worship.
The Blood of Jesus - the Pentecostals form the largest group of black chuches and this episode explores their beliefs, forms of service and their plaice in society.
Last Boat to Salvation - looks at the attraction of the West African churches in the UK, how they are redefining the notion of holiness. It also touches on the interface between religious and political goals and agendas.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
In this remarkable film, Denis Sneguirev invites us to witness the rescue and revival of Moscow's legendary Bolshoi Theatre. In a mix of 3D images, animation, documentary footage and interviews, he recounts the history of the Bolshoi from its origins to the present day. Hitherto unknown archival material takes viewers back to a time when stars like Ulanova, Maximova, Plisetskaya, Vasiliev or Grigorovich graced the Bolshoi stage. Here we watch the teams of architechts engineers and construction workers labouring day and night to rebuild the theatre in the course of a colossal venture Russia's media dubbed the "construction project of the century."
Featuring one of the finest voices of recent time, this documentary accompanies Montserrat Caballe on a journey to some of the most important places in her life. We witness her in conversation, in numerous historic performances and, through the testimonies of friends and fellow musicians, gain a deeper understanding of Montserrat the person and Caballé the artist.
Carl Schuricht is one of the most important conductors of the 20th Century. This video includes historic recordings and interviews of Carl Schuricht.
Carlos Kleiber, the eccentric and reclusive conductor was a fabled perfectionist who was known as much for the rarity of his appearances as for the brilliance of his interpretations. Georg Wübbolt's film sheds light on the relationships with his family, including his father and mother, traces the development of Kleiber's career and covers the "mythologizing" that started during the lifetime of the maestro.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
In this light-hearted documentary portrait, Christine Schafer reveals how she has come to position herself in the top ranks of today's sopranos while still maintaining her artistic freedom. With razor-sharp wit and intelligence, she describes how she keeps herself grounded in a world that craves celebrities. Among the friends and colleagues who provide insights into her artistry as well as her refreshing normality are conductors Christian Thielemann and Sylvain Cambreling, stage director Christoph Marthaler, music journalist Jurgen Kesting, singer Jose van Dam and others.
Christine Schafer is the anti-diva of the vocal world, a no-nonsense,
down-to-earth singer who transforms her opera roles and lieder recitals into grippingly realistic scenes of universal human drama. When it comes to choosing her repertoire and her roles, she unwaveringly follows her own path and refuses to subject herself to marketing campaigns designed to stamp her as the new heroine of whatever is currently in demand. With a repertoire ranging from early music to contemporary works, Schafer does not need a specialty, and can even indulge in "light" music with Max Raabe's Palastorchester and hits of the 1920s. Excerpts from concert performances and rehearsals of works by Henry Purcell and George Crumb,...
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
Explore Europe's most spectacular cities and landscapes while luxuriating in the great classical music composed within their precincts. Viewers will learn about the lives of the master musicians, the cities they lived in, and how their work reflects the very same surroundings we see today.
Renowned actor, writer and classical music specialist Simon Callow presents a spectacular continental odyssey with a soundtrack by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Puccini, Grieg, Sibelius, Smetana, Tchaikovsky and others.
Vivaldi's Venice, the Salzburg of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the fjords of Norway evoked in music by Edvard Grieg, and the Vienna that waltzed to Johann Strauss have never looked - or sounded - better.
Simon Callow details the dreams, dramas and musical triumphs of composers such as Handel, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Elgar, Holst, Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Resphigi and Rossini to name just a few.
Explore Europe's most spectacular cities and landscapes while luxuriating in the great classical music composed within their precincts. Viewers will learn about the lives of the master musicians, the cities they lived in, and how their work reflects the very same surroundings we see today.
Renowned actor, writer and classical music specialist Simon Callow presents a spectacular continental odyssey with a soundtrack by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Puccini, Grieg, Sibelius, Smetana, Tchaikovsky and others.
Vivaldi's Venice, the Salzburg of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the fjords of Norway evoked in music by Edvard Grieg, and the Vienna that waltzed to Johann Strauss have never looked - or sounded - better.
"In my opinion, comrades, we really should end the monotony of this Yeah, Yeah, Yeah or whatever they call it" (SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht about pop music).
As classical music was considered politically harmless in the former GDR, its education was highly encouraged. The regime quickly discovered its great potential for generating valuable cultural exchange — as well as much needed hard currency.
Classical music "made in the GDR" became an export hit for the regime, thanks to, for example, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and renowned artists like Kurt Masur, Peter Schreier, Franz Konwitschny, Kurt Sanderling and Theo Adam.
Through case studies of individuals who lived under the system, "Classical Music & Cold War" explores the fates of both the privileged and the non-privileged, and delivers insight into the influence of the political system on artistic life. The film includes interviews with contemporary witnesses both from GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
Harry Partch (like his friend Anais Nin) considered his life's work to be a letter to the world. His last act was going to be to add the enclosures. He never got around to it. After 20 years of working on the Partch archives, Philip Blackburn has now completed the seven-part Enclosures series as it were on his behalf.
Enclosure 7 is a monumental tribute to the most significant works of this American original and iconoclast. It includes new versions of his late masterworks and never-before-seen footage that bring us closer to the real Harry behind the myth.
The Dreamer That Remains is a documentary produced by Betty Freeman and directed by Stephen Pouliot in 1972. Here is the director's original cut along with his commentary. If you've never seen Partch or his instruments before, this is the place to start.
Delusion of the Fury was his magnum opus; a lifetime of instrument-invention and ideas of ritual theater were poured into this giant work. The 1971 film has been resynched and the soundtrack remastered in 5.1 surround sound.
The CBS LPs of this work came with a Bonus Album of Harry introducing his instruments. Unavailable for years, this recording features this talk along with a slideshow of the instruments.
Revelation in the Courthouse Park was Harry's...
In 2007 the Berlin Philharmonic celebrates its 125th year. The orchestra is using its jubilee as an opportunity to examine a rather unknown chapter in its history: The years under the rule of the National Socialists (between 1933 and 1945). The centre stage is taken by the musicians, the people and their individual fates.
Thanks to contemporary witnesses from the orchestra and its fringes who are still alive today, and thanks also to extensive and until now unappraised archive materials, it is possible to gain an insight into this microcosmos: where does the thin line run separating autonomy from entanglement, innocence from guilt? A chapter from the history of Germany and Berlin, as gripping as it is volatile, comes to life once more.
The film made by Enrique Sanchez-Lansch - whose documentary Rhythm is it! was awarded with the Bavarian Film Award 2004, the German Critics Award 2004 and two times with the German Film Award LOLA for Best Documentary and Best Editing - seeks out witnesses from all over the world: forgotten (or carefully concealed) footage of propaganda events such as the Nuremberg Rallies or the opening ceremony of the 1936 Olympics. It visits the relatives of the four Jewish members who were removed from the orchestra, the descendants of the musicians who...
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
A film by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier. Venezuela's unique system of music education takes children from violent slums and turns some of them into world-class musicians. "El Sistema" shows how Venezuelan visionary Jose Antonio Abreu has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children over the past three decades. This lyrical and moving documentary takes us from the rubbish dumps and barrios of Caracas to the world's finest concert halls. Children from streets dominated by the gun battles of gang warfare are taken into music schools, given access to music, and taught through the model of the symphony orchestra how to build a better society. Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier's film finds hope and joy in unlikely places.
The story of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is colourful and dramatic, with a reputation worldwide for music-making of the highest quality. This special recording celebrates over sixty years of the Orchestra's history through film and music, charting the high-profile conductors, international performances and turbulent times that have helped to shape the Orchestra as we know it today and to create an ongoing tradition of musical excellence.
This Christopher Nupen film is about the music and the artistic intentions of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, one of the greats and a composer with an immediate appeal for many millions of people.
In this film the focus is on Tchaikovsky's concern with his own fate in Manfred and the last three symphonies and his extraordinary relationship with Nadezhda von Meck as told in his revealing correspondence with her.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
15 singers, two countries and the music of Mozart. The stage was set for an incredible journey between two music shools - Louisville, Kentucky and Katowice, Poland - thousands of miles apart in both distance and language to put on a show! The show, Marriage of Figaro , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's comic opera, would the language that would unite both casts. Extensive filming throughout the production's three-month period not only provides insight into the rigorous schedule of its performers, but also highlights behind the scenes footage of the talented team responsible for bringing the house to its feet!
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
Sasha Waltz is one of the world's most exciting choreographers. Her work includes provocative one-woman shows, inventive dance comedies, and philosophical dance-drama exploring subjects like the human body, sensuality and transcendence. The international company Sasha Waltz and Guests is renowned for the originality and creativity it has brought to contemporary dance. Brigitte Kramer's biopic lays bare the trials, the tribulations and the triumphs of 20 years in Sasha Waltz's soaring career. It reveals her research and working methods, her self-doubt and self-reflection, and her capacity for joy - including interviews with Waltz and her dancers. Garden of Lust presents extracts from many of the choreographies in rehearsal and performance, and captures astonishing moments on and off stage.
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
After a few years rest and some at-home unofficial rehabilitation Horowitz was ready to begin performing again. Horowitz recorded the material on this production in his own living room. We see a rejuvinated, different Horowitz, someone in much more control than in the 1982 and 1983 recitals. The only thing lacking in Horowitz's performance from this point on was preparation, Horowitz admittedly did not practice very much and it shows.
This video is an intimate account of the formative years in the life and career of one of the leading violinists of our time.
Itzhak Perlman fell in love with the sounds of the violin at the age of 3 and 1/2 but contracted polio a few months later and ws soon to learn that it would be impossible, with his handicap, for him to pursue a high-level career as a violinst.
Not only has he succeeded in doing what the world thought quite impossible but he has done it on a level that few have matched. It is a heartening story of the spectacular triumph of talent, determination, character and tenacity over seemingly insurmountable odds, producing truly glorious results along the way.
In Search of Beethoven has brought together the world's leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into this legendary composer. The line-up of performers and interviewees includes Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Roger Norrington, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado, Fabio Luisi, Frans Brüggen, Ronald Brautigam, Hélčne Grimaud, Vadim Repin, Janine Jansen, Paul Lewis, Lars Vogt, and Emanuel Ax among others. The film is narrated by Juliet Stevenson and young RSC actor David Dawson.
As with the Mozart film In Search of Beethoven takes a comprehensive look at the composer's life through his musical output. Having created a blueprint with In Search of Mozart , Phil Grabsky documents each piece of music chronologically marrying it to Beethoven's biography and letters.
Phil Grabsky travelled across Europe and North America to interview historians and musicians between rehearsals and performances. He managed to film a remarkable 55 performances for the film - and has once again captured the raw energy of these world-class artists. It includes exclusive footage of Claudio Abbado's critically-acclaimed performance of Beethoven's opera Fidelio . There are further performances from Frans Brüggen's Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Salzburg Camerata with Sir Roger...
Joseph Haydn is the composer that Mozart and Beethoven revered. Yet he is somewhat overlooked. In this eagerly-awaited documentary, award-winning filmmaker Phil Grabsky goes in search of one of the greatest composers of all.
As with his two previous international hits (In Search of Mozart, In Search of Beethoven) , Grabsky's biographical account of the life of Haydn is a visual and aural extravaganza, including breath-taking performances by some of the world's most celebrated musicians: Alison Balsom, Sir Roger Norrington, The Endellion String Quartet, Gianandrea Noseda, Ronald Brautigam, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, Emanuel Ax, The Classical Opera Company, Sophie Bevan, and The Orchestra of the 18th Century with Frans Brüggen, among others.
Through intimate and revealing interviews with experts, detailed extracts from personal accounts and beautiful location footage, Grabsky offers tremendous insight into not only Haydn's music but the man himself.
Made to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, In Search of Mozart is a detective story that takes us to the heart of genius.
Produced with the world's leading orchestras and musicians, the prolific composer's story is told through a 25,000 mile journey along every route Mozart followed.
Without resorting to docu-drama or visual re-enactment, In Search of Mozart traces his life through his music and extensive correspondence. From K.1a to K.626 (Requiem), over 80 works are featured, revealing striking parallels between the music and Mozart's own experiences.
But it is the music that takes centre stage, with the jigsaw of Mozart's life fitting snugly around it. With rigorous analysis from musicologists and experts such as Jonathan Miller, Cliff Eisen, Nicholas Till, Bayan Northcott and the late Stanley Sadie, a new, vivid impression of the composer emerges. It dispels the many common myths about Mozart's genius, health, relationships, death and character, to present a new image, very different from Milos Forman's Amadeus .
Narrated by Juliet Stevenson and with Mozart voiced by Samuel West, the series features interviews and performances with over 70 of the greatest exponents of Mozart's music.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
Haydn's lifetime saw a series of striking changes in musical style. At the time of his birth and childhood baroque traditions still prevailed. By the end of his life the apparent stability of the classical style was being challenged, notably by Beethoven. Haydn did not simply live through this long development; he was a central part of it. Nele Münchmeyer's documentary throws light upon Haydn as the ingenious composer and as the private person – the "Libertine" in his private life and the "Servant" as the Kapellmeister of Esterházys'.
The film includes excerpts from highly acclaimed performances of Haydn works. Amongst them are: the opera, Armida with the German Soprano Annette Dasch, Arias from Haydn performed by the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Baritone Thomas Quasthoff, performances of Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten conducted by Roger Norrington.
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
Two hundred orchestral musicians are playing Orff's Carmina Burana in total darkness. A power cut has hit the Ngiri Ngiri district of Kinshasa, only a few bars before the last section of the work. Kinshasa's power stations and main networks are insufficient to supply electricity to all the 8 million inhabitants of what is Africa's third-largest city. Once again the lights have gone out in the "Salle des fętes", a kind of open garage where the orchestra practises. But for its members this is no reason to stop rehearsing. Most of them know their parts by heart. Small lapses of memory are compensated for by a talent for improvisation and the grace of God.
Krzysztof Komeda – Jazz pianist and film composer. With compositions like the lullaby for Rosemary's Baby from Roman Polanski, Komeda succeeded in writing his own chapter in the history of soundtracks. As a Jazz musician he gained cult-status in Poland. As a film composer he made it into Hollywood's first ranks. But there his career came to a sudden end.
The film essay KOMEDA – A SOUNDTRACK FOR A LIFE is a reflection on Komeda's soundtracks, which changed the common film scores forever. It is a contemporary document about the attitude to life in a time of social, political and cultural change after war, about work and exodus of Polish artist in the 50s and 60s.
Directors who worked with Komeda and who are also friends will talk about him: Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Henning Carlsen and Andrzej Wajda. His wife, Zofia Komeda, and his sister, Irena Orlowska, remember him.
Carl Schuricht is one of the most important conductors of the 20th Century. This video includes historic recordings and interviews of Carl Schuricht.
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
Seldom has the genius of one man so influenced the musical conscience of his age. Leonard Bernstein triumphed as composer, conductor, writer and teacher. The spontaneous joy of his Broadway hits, the bold, spiritual quest of his orchestral works, his intensity and vitality as conductor, made Bernstein one of the central figures in 20th-century music. In Leonard Bernstein – Reflections , he discusses his Boston childhood, his musical growth at Harvard and the Curtis Institute and the influence of great masters like Reiner, Mitropoulos and Koussevitzky. He shares his feelings on the primacy of tonal music and speculates on the nature of the creative process. From Carnegie Hall, scene of his début, to the living room of his home and his private studio overlooking New York's Central Park, Reflections explores the artist's varied and colourful career.
Bonus feature:
Milhaud, D.: Le Boeuf sur le toit - Ballet, Op. 58
Orchestra National de France
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
It became a remarkable documentary, a compilation of the different renditions, rehearsals and performances of Roger Norrington with the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. In this video, Norrington ventures into Romantic music, featuring a documentary of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and the music of Richard Wagner. Details of each work are explained and narrated by Roger Norrington himself.
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
Seldom has the genius of one man so influenced the musical conscience of his age. Leonard Bernstein triumphed as composer, conductor, writer and teacher. The spontaneous joy of his Broadway hits, the bold, spiritual quest of his orchestral works, his intensity and vitality as conductor, made Bernstein one of the central figures in 20th-century music. In Leonard Bernstein – Reflections , he discusses his Boston childhood, his musical growth at Harvard and the Curtis Institute and the influence of great masters like Reiner, Mitropoulos and Koussevitzky. He shares his feelings on the primacy of tonal music and speculates on the nature of the creative process. From Carnegie Hall, scene of his début, to the living room of his home and his private studio overlooking New York's Central Park, Reflections explores the artist's varied and colourful career.
Bonus feature:
Milhaud, D.: Le Boeuf sur le toit - Ballet, Op. 58
Orchestra National de France
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Herbert von Karajan was the only major orchestral conductor to create film and later on video productions on his own responsibility. "I am actually born too early", he said, well aware that video's possibilities were still in their infancy. Georg Wubbolt did interviews with Karajan's team: his Director of photography, his cutter, his secretary, his producer and musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. This documentary includes outstanding performance material from the Unitel and Telemondial library, as well as unreleased digitally remastered excerpts from the legendary RBB (SFB) and ORF archive. We see Karajan talking about this subject in talk shows and TV-magazines. It underlines Karajan's appearance as a real Maestro for the Screen from a side, which is unknown to most people, introduced by his closest collaborators.
The film is constructed chronolgoically. It starts with the very first concert productions in 1957 at NHK in Japan, followed by the impressive cooperation with director Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1965 and ends with Karajan's own film company Telemondial. The Silvesterkonzert 1988. at the Philharmonie in Berlin marks the end of the great era, long before Music Video entered the entertainment industry.
A Christopher Nupen film belonging to a long line of memorable portraits of the great performers. This video, which contains, among other things, the only portrait film ever made with Nathan Milstein, is the product of a close friendship between a dedicated film-maker and one of the finest violinists of the twentieth century. It was shot in the autumn of the longest career in the history of solo violin playing; 73 years lay between Milstein's first appearance with Glazunov conducting and his last recital in the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm in 1986. That legendary recital provides most of the music for this film. Milstein's partner was the French pianist Georges Pludermacher, with whom he had worked for more than 20 years.
Nathan Milstein was an astonishing 82 years old at the time, but still playing as the grandest of Grand Masters and, as probably no other violinist has ever played at 82. This film will be of interest to virtually every violinist alive and to most students of the violin.
A Christopher Nupen film belonging to a long line of memorable portraits of the great performers. This video, which contains, among other things, the only portrait film ever made with Nathan Milstein, is the product of a close friendship between a dedicated film-maker and one of the finest violinists of the twentieth century. It was shot in the autumn of the longest career in the history of solo violin playing; 73 years lay between Milstein's first appearance with Glazunov conducting and his last recital in the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm in 1986.That legendary recital provides most of the music for this film. Milstein's partner was the French pianist Georges Pludermacher, with whom he had worked for more than 20 years.
Nathan Milstein was an astonishing 82 years old at the time, but still playing as the grandest of Grand Masters and, as probably no other violinist has ever played at 82. This film will be of interest to virtually every violinist alive and to most students of the violin.
The films follow an artistic journey that was not an easy one. Living through the great turning point in Western music, many of Sibelius' concerns were strikingly similar to those of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Each followed a different path, however, and it is not surprising that their reputations should be caught up in the massive shifts of fashion that characterise the turmoil of twentieth century music.
Christopher Nupen offers an intimate look at what Sibelius himself felt that he was trying to achieve. To quote Nupen: "His music has lasted and I believe that it will continue to last, whatever fashion may do...his voice is inimitable, unmistakable and for me unforgettable. My first encounters with it opened up a whole new world that remains with me."
As with Nupen's films on Respighi, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, the orchestra is the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. They are joined in this film by Elisabeth Söderström and Boris Belkin.
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra left its significant mark on the programming of the Salzburg Festival 2007. The symphonic concerts in the Grosses Festspielhaus, the chamber music concerts in the Mozarteum and the "School for Listening" workshops in the Great University Hall with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under the guidance of Daniel Barenboim turned out to be another highlight of the political ambitious project that started in 1999 as a workshop for chamber music.
This documentary provides an insight into the rehearsals of the musicians, covers political discussions and shows the legendary West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra soccer match. The final tour concert in the sold-out Berliner Philharmonie from the grand finale.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
Music, Mon Amour delves into the secret of a grand passion – the love of music. What makes it irresistible? Why can't we live without music? In Music, Mon Amour we embark on a search for clues – together with the Israeli singer Yasmin Levy, the Japanese violinist Midori and the German composer Helmut Oehring. They reveal their deep love of music and talk of the joy and despair that go with it. Their accounts, intimate and affecting, and from widely differing perspectives, convey their existential and contradictory relationship to music.
The Risřr Festival of Chamber Music has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious and recognized chamber music festivals in the world. Each year, international artists visit the small fishing town in Southern Norway and join forces with some of Norway's best musicians for six days of chamber music making. The setting is amongst the most beautiful to be found in Norway, the exquisite coastline architecture and quintessential southern white houses providing an atmosphere of intimacy and calmness.
The founding artistic directors were violist Lars Anders Tomter and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. In 2011 Andsnes handed over the co-artistic leadership to violinist Henning Kraggerud. The festival takes place in the last week of June each year. The films shown here are produced by Music in Motion. (www.musicinmotion.no)
The world is going to see increasingly less of legendary conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who celebrates his 80th birthday in December 2009. So the time is right for a comprehensive portrait of one the most important conductors of our time.
Harnoncourt - the captivator. One immediately comes under the spell of his admirable intensity, his humorous comparisons, his wit and his brilliant rhetoric. It's nearly impossible not to succumb to his fascinating congeniality. Even his critics are captivated!
The film also draws parallels between Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Joseph
Haydn, who in their popularity and diversity are both unique. Besides great concerts in Eisenstadt and Esterháza, Harnoncourt conducts Haydn's famous opera Il mondo della Luna at the stunning Theater an der Wien. In his inimitable way Harnoncourt presents his own picture of Haydn, which is different from anything we have known before.
This 1985 documentary focuses on conductor Seiji Ozawa and the behind-the-scenes world of the symphony orchestra. It communicates the intensity and passion that Ozawa brings to his work as conductor and teacher, and shows him in the context of his relationship with former masters, current students and family. It also explores the cultural tensions that caused him to leave Japan and begin a career in the West.
This video contains a Christopher Nupen film about the most charismatic performer in the entire history of Western classical music — also the most talked about, the most controversial, the most famous and the most successful classical soloist that the world of music has ever known.
The story is astonishing, exciting, wildly unusual and, at the end, deeply touching. It is one of the most extraordinary tales in the history of music and it is told with all the Nupen finesse and commitment that have won him DVD of the Year Award four times in the past six years.
In the recording, Christopher Nupen looks at the legend and the strange man who created it with his dazzling combination of technical brilliance, supreme showmanship, Italian melody and unbridled manipulative skill — a man whose extraordinary personality unsettled even the most sophisticated and educated minds and provoked wildly contradictory opinions.
It presents Paganini's music, shot and edited in the style developed by Christopher Nupen and his colleagues for their prize winning DVDs about Sibelius, Schubert and Tchaikovsky and combines it with extracts from Paganini's letters and quotations from both his admirers and his many detractors.
Paul Wittgenstein, the Austrian concert pianist, loses his arm at the age of twenty-seven while serving as an officer in the First World War. Nonetheless, he was determined to continue his career. Major composers, such as Ravel and Strauss write concerts for him, from which he gains international acclaim. Forced to leave Austria by the Nazis, he dies in New York in 1961.
Paul's father, Karl Wittgenstein millionaire and chief Austrian "iron and steel baron", determined to have his five sons follow in his footsteps and become industrialists, he does not permit them to pursue artistic careers. Ultimately, he will pay for his intransigence with the lives of his three eldest children who escape their father's authority by committing suicide. Finally, Karl Wittgenstein allows his two remaining sons the freedom to choose their own profession. Ludwig, the younger brother of Paul, turns to philosophy.
Paul Wittgenstein's biography is an extraordinary life-affirming story. It is the tale of a man who perseveres in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and prevails.
Everything about Piotr Anderszewski is extraordinary: his talent, his repertoire, his constant questioning of his work as a performer. Any film about this highly unconventional pianist owes it to itself to depart from the beaten path: On the borderline between documentary and fiction, this "road movie" is set against the backdrop of a winter journey by train across Poland with a piano installed on board… Punctuated by Piotr's highly personal reflections, the repertoire consists of essential pages by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann and Szymanowski.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
Remembering Jacqueline du Pré focuses on her music. The first half is filmed mostly in rehearsal situations where she is at her most revealing and exuberant. The second half features performances at the highest level, including the closing five minutes of the Elgar Cello Concerto in the legendary Philharmonia/Barenboim performance of 1967.
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
Filmmakers Marshall Blackwell and Norman Whiteburn make their feature directorial debut with this documentary on the stepping culture. A modernized version of what is know as the African gumboot dance, stepping was adopted by African-American fraternities and sororities, eventually evolving into an essential element of the black college experience. Stepping is a high energy montage of dance, jazz and military movements.
Today, Stepping has become a movement amongst the youth all across the globe and has become more than just stomping the yard! It's an art form that is taking the world by storm. This documentary contains some of the most explosive step moves ever taped! Stepping The Documentary is an official selection of the 2008 Pan African American Film and Arts Festival.
A drummer-turned-composer, Steve Reich has produced some of the most vibrant, original and interesting music of our time, with influences as varied as Bach, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Balinese and Ghanaian percussion. His technique of phasing (short, repeating patterns moving in and out of phase with each other), used first in It's Gonna Rain of 1965, formed the springboard for his complex and colourful style, with its intoxicating melodic lines and rhythmic patterns. In Phase to Face , we follow Steve Reich as he travels from the Autumn in Normandy festival to Rome (with the Italian musicians of Ars Ludi, the Ready-Made Ensemble, Coro Ha-Kol and Quartetto Prometeo), to Tokyo, to New York, and to Manchester – for the world premiere of 2X5 .
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
It became a remarkable documentary, a compilation of the different renditions, rehearsals and performances of Roger Norrington with the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. In this video, Norrington ventures into Romantic music, featuring a documentary of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and the music of Richard Wagner. Details of each work are explained and narrated by Roger Norrington himself.
This Christopher Nupen film is about the music and the artistic intentions of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, one of the greats and a composer with an immediate appeal for many millions of people.
The prime focus is Tchaikovsky's lifelong preoccupation with the idea of fate as a controlling influence in our lives.
The women in this film are both the women in his personal life (His mother, Alexandra, his governess Fanny Durbach and the Belgian singer Desiree Artot) and the vulnerable young heroines in his early music (Katerina Kabanova in The Storm , Juliet in Romeo and Juliet , Francesca in Francesca da Rimini , Odette in Swan Lake and Tatyana in Evgeny Onegin .
Celebrating the 200th birthday of Fryderyk Chopin, this major co-production not only tells the story of the composer's brief life but brings together some of the world's greatest pianists playing excerpts from some of his best-known works. It includes appearances by Arthur Rubinstein, rare footage of Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman and Evgeny Kissin in their early days, as well as Garrick Ohlsson (winner of the 1970 Chopin International Competition) who also provides his own perceptive observations on Chopin's genius.
In granting us the rare privilege of entry, the Beijing Opera School offers access to the age-old art from of traditional Chinese opera. Based on a typical day for students and their teachers, the film lets us follow them through dawn-to-dusk activities that include acrobatics, classes in singing, music and dance, makeup sessions, schoolwork, rehearsals and performances. This is a total immersion in an establishment where discipline is, in many respects, that of a military academy.
Made for the 1939 New York World's Fair ("The World of Tomorrow"), The City is a seminal documentary film distinguished for the organic integration of narration (scripted by city planner Lewis Mumford), cinematography (Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke), and music (Aaron Copland). The score, arguably Copland's highest achievement in film, was also his ticket to Hollywood; it has been called "an astonishing missing link not only in the genesis of Copland's Americana style but in American music and cinema" (Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Times ). As the film contains no dialogue, it is possible to create a fresh soundtrack and discover musical riches inaudible on the original monaural recording. As Copland created no suite from The City , the present video at the same time marks the world premiere recording of this music in its entirety.
Bonus features:
- The City with the original soundtrack (1939) featuring Morris Carnovsky (narrator) and an orchestra conducted by Max Goberman
- Which Playground for your Child: Greenbelt or Gutter? (2000): a documentary film from the Greenbelt Museum featuring interviews with three Greenbelt "pioneers"
- George Stoney in conversation with Joseph Horowitz (2007): a legendary documentary film-maker revisits The City
The Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini is reputed to have once described himself as "a passionate hunter of water birds, texts and women." It was an ironic description of the problems which are said to have accompanied him throughout his life. He was indeed a passionate, yet terrible, hunter. With every opera he wrote, he wore out numerous librettists in the search for the perfect text, because unlike Mozart, he couldn’t write a single note before the "script" for a new piece of work was just as he wanted it – and for as long as he lived, he was almost manic in his hunt for and collection of beautiful women…
The film by Andreas Morell looks at Giacomo Puccini's life from the point of view of his psychological manic preoccupation with one subject: women. He makes connections between the women in Puccini's life and those in his operas, looking as he goes, at what made Puccini tick. Starting with a characteristic situation in Vienna in 1923 – one year before the composer's death – the film offers an insight into Puccini and reflects a repetitive pattern which spanned almost three decades of his life. As he summarised for his own credo: "I cannot compose without love in my life!"
Harry Partch (like his friend Anais Nin) considered his life's work to be a letter to the world. His last act was going to be to add the enclosures. He never got around to it. After 20 years of working on the Partch archives, Philip Blackburn has now completed the seven-part Enclosures series as it were on his behalf.
Enclosure 7 is a monumental tribute to the most significant works of this American original and iconoclast. It includes new versions of his late masterworks and never-before-seen footage that bring us closer to the real Harry behind the myth.
The Dreamer That Remains is a documentary produced by Betty Freeman and directed by Stephen Pouliot in 1972. Here is the director's original cut along with his commentary. If you've never seen Partch or his instruments before, this is the place to start.
Delusion of the Fury was his magnum opus; a lifetime of instrument-invention and ideas of ritual theater were poured into this giant work. The 1971 film has been resynched and the soundtrack remastered in 5.1 surround sound.
The CBS LPs of this work came with a Bonus Album of Harry introducing his instruments. Unavailable for years, this recording features this talk along with a slideshow of the instruments.
Revelation in the Courthouse Park was Harry's...
Maya Plisetskaya is in every sense an exceptional personality. Like almost no other dancer, the eternal prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre understood how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. There are also very few dancers who can look back on such a long and active career: even on her eightieth birthday in November 2005 she personally gave a stage performance. A homage to her inimitable creative work, this video features fascinating footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Maya Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer - which is simultaneously a whole chapter of Russian history, from Stalin to perestroika.
The films follow an artistic journey that was not an easy one. Living through the great turning point in Western music, many of Sibelius' concerns were strikingly similar to those of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Each followed a different path, however, and it is not surprising that their reputations should be caught up in the massive shifts of fashion that characterise the turmoil of twentieth century music.
Christopher Nupen offers an intimate look at what Sibelius himself felt that he was trying to achieve. To quote Nupen: "His music has lasted and I believe that it will continue to last, whatever fashion may do...his voice is inimitable, unmistakable and for me unforgettable. My first encounters with it opened up a whole new world that remains with me."
As with Nupen's films on Respighi, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, the orchestra is the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. They are joined in this film by Elisabeth Söderström and Boris Belkin.
This film is both a memoir of the Berliner Philharmoniker director Claudio Abbado's early years, and a personal introduction to the orchestra. It culminates in a deeply felt introduction to the sections of the orchestra with Abbado leading the Youth Orchestra of a United Europe.
The Intimacy of Creativity – The Bright Sheng Partnership: Composers Meet Performers in Hong Kong is a pioneering, internationally-acclaimed Partnership devoted to promoting an intimate dialogue between composers and performers.
Distinguished composers, together with selected emerging composers from Hong Kong and around the world, present and revise their chamber music compositions after in-depth discussions with world-renowned performers during Open Discussions. The revised compositions are presented at two World Premiere Concerts in downtown Hong Kong, preceded by Preview Concerts on the campus of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, which hosts the Partnership.
For the 2011 inaugural season, Artistic Director and internationally-acclaimed composer, conductor, and pianist, Bright Sheng, was joined by Distinguished Guests Richard Stoltzman, Yehudi Wyner, and the Daedalus Quartet; Hong Kong Guest Artists Mary Wu, Stephen Chong, and Olivier Nowak; and Emerging Composers Pedro Faria Gomes, Ted Goldman, Moon Young Ha, Narong Prangcharoen, Matthew Tommasini, and Ming-Hsiu Yen.
What more appropriate venue for Ildebrando Pizzetti's operatic masterwork of 1958 Assassinio nella Cattedrale than the austere, Romanic Basilica di San Nicola in the southern Italian port city of Bari. A striking coincidence: the action of T.S. Eliot's stage play Murder in the Cathedral , on which the opera is based, takes place in December 1170; the Basilica di San Nicola also dates from the 12th century and was consecrated in 1197...
Pizzetti, one of Italy's leading lyrical composers of the first half of the 20th century, composed several operas, of which Assassinio nella Cattedrale is one of his most famous. It unites all the elements of his lyrical style, such as a supple arioso treatment of the text that bears echoes of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande as well as of Monteverdi and the Florentine monodists; and powerful, surging choral movements that are even more breathtaking when performed in a church. Pizzetti's religiosity also manifests itself in his choice of T.S. Eliot's modern-day miracle play about St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who returns from a seven-year-exile only to be confronted by various torments, including Four Temptations; he succumbs to the fourth, the temptation of martyrdom.
Internationally acclaimed bass-baritone Ruggero...
"Domingo creates the magical illusion that Alfano wrote the role especially for him: Domingo de Bergerac" (review of the premiere in the Madrid daily ABC). Plácido Domingo's triumph in Valencia's stunningly futuristic theater El Palau de les Arts in February 2007 echoes the overwhelmingly positive reception he obtained at the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in this role. A coproduction of the New York, London and Valencia houses, Franco Alfano's little-known 1936 opera Cyrano de Bergerac has been reawakened to life by the great Spanish tenor. Although Alfano (1875-1954) enjoyed a long and prolific career as an opera composer, he is known today above all for having completed Puccini's Turandot. His earlier works not surprisingly reflect Puccini's verismo style, but his later works - including Cyrano de Bergerac - are clearly inspired by Debussy, Ravel and Strauss. Opulent scoring and colorful orchestral effects elegantly underscore the tragic story based on Rostand's famous drama of 1897, which achieved international celebrity in the Oscar-nominated 1990 film adaptation with Gérard Depardieu. Alfano's work faithfully relates the story of the large-nosed soldier poet who pines for the beautiful Roxane and writes her glowing love letters in the name of...
Munich's court theater was the venue for the premiere of Mozart's Idomeneo on 29 January 1781; today, it hosts another premiere of this same work, now to celebrate the reopening of this sparkling Rococo gem of a theater, now known after its architect as the Cuvilliés Theater. Restored at the cost of over 25 million euros, the theater provides an exultant red, gold and white setting for Mozart's opera seria, which is considered as the first of the seven uncontested masterworks of Mozart's dramatic oeuvre.
Drama keynotes Idomeneo , which is drenched in endless despair, the constant threat of death, and the destructive passions of jealousy and hatred. For having saved his life, King Idomeneo promises Neptune to sacrifice the first person he encounters. Unfortunately, this happens to be his son Idamante, who is torn between two women: the Trojan Princess Ilia, whom he loves, and the Greek Princess Elettra, who desperately wants to marry him and ascend the throne.
Mozart's highly expressive music is given a passionate reading by conductor Kent Nagano, who leads his singers and players with brisk energy. The dark, full sound of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester provides lush underpinnings for the bravura arias and glittering coloraturas. In the title role, John Mark Ainsley...
After his first two operas Oberto and Un giorno di regno , Verdi fell into a depression that dissipated only when he was shown the libretto to Nabucco and discovered the chorus "Va, pensiero". The words sung by the Hebrew exiles made an indelible impression on the composer, who also saw the political potential within them: an echo of the Italians' longing for freedom and a unified nation. The work was premiered at the Teatro alla Scala on 9 March 1842 and was an enormous success. The story of the Babylonian King and the captive Israelites stirred a patriotic cord in the hearts of the Milan audiences and swiftly carried Verdi's name throughout Italy and the rest of the world. Nabucco has long been at home in the Arena di Verona, and for many, the Va pensiero chorus is, along with the triumphal march from Aida , the very embodiment of the Verona experience. This video production vividly captures this unique experience and provides the viewer with fascinating details that escape many of the Arena's spectators. Stage director Denis Krief casts the work in a sparse modern setting, providing a highly effective showcase for the true heroes of the evening, the singers under conductor Daniel Oren. "Nuanced and temperamental, Daniel Oren's interpretation dazzles with...
Blame it on the Russian Revolution: it took Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) only a few months to write his early opera The Gambler between October 1915 and March 1916, but problems arose during rehearsals in January 1917, and the premiere in St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) had to be cancelled when the first revolution broke out in February. This first version of the work was never heard, since the composer revised the tempestuous score eleven years later, reducing it and eliminating what he considered "padding." The work was premiered in this version in Brussels in 1929.
Based on Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same name, The Gambler is a dark study of human failings and the corruptive power of money. In this work, everyone gambles: the hero Alexey, the General and even the wealthy aunt Babulenka gamble with money; Blanche, the Marquis and Polina – who loves Alexey – gamble with their fellow human beings. The results are humiliation, ruin and self-delusion. But when the Staatskapelle Berlin under world-famous conductor Daniel Barenboim provide the orchestral sound to the full, lustrous voices of Vladimir Ognovenko, Kristine Opolais, Misha Didyk, Stefania Toczyska and their colleagues, there is nothing even remotely dismal about the opera or its...
Once upon a time there was a king who took great delight in the melody of a little bird outside his window. Then, as winter came, the bird disappeared and the king grew melancholy. Three brave men set out to find one that could sing "the most beautiful song." Did they succeed? What begins as an enchanting fairy tale turns into exciting reality in this documentary on the first edition of baritone Thomas Quasthoff's new international song competition for young singers, Das Lied. With the fairy tale gently articulating the course of the competition, the film sweeps the viewer away on a thrilling "search for singers." Thomas Quasthoff founded this contest to ensure that the Lied, which the baritone calls "the most beautiful form of music making." continues to hold its place in the concert repertoire of the future.
The film accompanies some of the young singers during the competition's three rounds, providing a showcase not only for beautiful voices and poignant Lieder, but also, and above all, for emotions. The hopes and disappointments, the joys and doubts, the tension and exhilaration of the young singers are all captured on film. And it soon emerges that the contest is as stimulating and galvanizing for the jurors as it is for the contestants! Excerpts from the closing gala...
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and poetic free verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 'New Deal'. Virgil Thomson's scores for both films are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music for The Plow for its 'frankness and openness of feeling', calling it 'fresher, more simple, and more personal' than the Hollywood norm. He called the music for The River 'a lesson in how to treat Americana'.
Bonus Features
- George Stoney on The Plow and The River
- The New Deal, The River , and Race
- Charles Fussell on Virgil Thomson
- Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson (audio only)
- The original ending of The Plow that Broke the Plains
- The original beginning of The Plow that Broke the Plains
In 2007 the Berlin Philharmonic celebrates its 125th year. The orchestra is using its jubilee as an opportunity to examine a rather unknown chapter in its history: The years under the rule of the National Socialists (between 1933 and 1945). The centre stage is taken by the musicians, the people and their individual fates.
Thanks to contemporary witnesses from the orchestra and its fringes who are still alive today, and thanks also to extensive and until now unappraised archive materials, it is possible to gain an insight into this microcosmos: where does the thin line run separating autonomy from entanglement, innocence from guilt? A chapter from the history of Germany and Berlin, as gripping as it is volatile, comes to life once more.
The film made by Enrique Sanchez-Lansch - whose documentary Rhythm is it! was awarded with the Bavarian Film Award 2004, the German Critics Award 2004 and two times with the German Film Award LOLA for Best Documentary and Best Editing - seeks out witnesses from all over the world: forgotten (or carefully concealed) footage of propaganda events such as the Nuremberg Rallies or the opening ceremony of the 1936 Olympics. It visits the relatives of the four Jewish members who were removed from the orchestra, the descendants of the musicians who...
Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and poetic free verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 'New Deal'. Virgil Thomson's scores for both films are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music for The Plow for its 'frankness and openness of feeling', calling it 'fresher, more simple, and more personal' than the Hollywood norm. He called the music for The River 'a lesson in how to treat Americana'.
Bonus Features
- George Stoney on The Plow and The River
- The New Deal, The River , and Race
- Charles Fussell on Virgil Thomson
- Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson (audio only)
- The original ending of The Plow that Broke the Plains
- The original beginning of The Plow that Broke the Plains
The portrait film, Vladimir Ashkenazy: The Vital Juices Are Russian , includes sequences with Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Edo de Waart and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. There is is music by Beethoven, Chopin, César Franck and Stravinsky.
Vladimir Ashkenazy has had a particular affection for the music of Rachmaninoff throughout his professional life and his performances have long had the ring both of authenticity and of deep commitment.
This is not surprising in a Russian-born and Russian-trained musician of Ashkenazy’s stature, but it is worth remembering that for many years after his emigration from the Soviet Union his interest in Russian music was somewhat eclipsed by his concern to master the music of the Western European traditions.
The Waltz King is an informative docudrama celebrating the music of the Johann Strausses – father and son. In this documentary, Lesley Garrett, Britain's most popular soprano, leads viewers through the programme and explores the Viennese waltz - the music, the dance steps, the ballrooms, the costumes and at the same time narrates the drama of the two great Waltz composers, the bitter conflict between father and son Johann Strauss.
For the first time we have received the unique and wonderful opportunity to give a close-up and detailed account on the insides of this institution. For one whole season, we received the permission to be part of every decision-making process, all the way to the actual performance. You have the chance to dive into the working world of this world famous and renowned orchestra.
What does it take to become a Vienna Philharmonic? What are the motivations to become a Vienna Philharmonic? What are the emotions an individual philharmonic feels when he looks back at over 40 years of music? What is the Vienna Philharmonic secret to success? Interviews with all the musicians, conductors and the people in the background will give us answers to these questions and much more. How does a tour organization work? What are the necessary preparations and how does one make sure that everything has been taken care of?
Experience the full range, starting with the rehearsals all the way to the international concerts. Tokyo to New York, from the Salzburg pageants to the Wiener Staatsoper, you will receive complete accounts from behind the scenes in unseen detail. This film- documentary will provide insider information of the exciting, emotional and unique world, the world of Wiener Philharmoniker.
This film is a docufiction on the great Toscanini directed by well-known film-maker Larry Weinstein who pushes the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by borrowing tools from fiction films, including dramatic reconstructions and historical cinematic stylings. Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), arguably the greatest and most famous conductor in history, was paradoxically one of the most private. He never granted interviews, left diaries or journals of any kind. But during the last years of his life, his son Walter secretly recorded 150 hours of intimate conversations that Toscanini shared with friends and family who visited his home. TOSCANINI: In His Own Words , is based on these tapes which remained vaulted for more than 50 years. Recreated conversations reveal aspects of the Maestro never seen before. Subjects such as his loves, opinions about colleagues, his clashes with Mussolini and Hitler, his personal memories of Verdi, Puccini, Furtwangler, Stokowski, as well as his greatest joys and causes of his endemic sadness are all part of his frank conversation. Interwoven throughout the film are many of Toscanini's greatest musical performances.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
Domenico Scarlatti, son of Alessandro, was a European musician who cultivated – whether driven by familial obligation or existential compulsion – an unusual enthusiasm for music reserved for the harpsichord, the keyboard instrument of which he was a master and on which he won the historic competition against Handel.
An extremely shy person (unlike Alessandro), he preferred teaching the virtuoso Infanta and future queen of Spain, Maria Barbara di Braganza to the popularity of the theatre, which he had enjoyed for almost 40 years. His activity as a teacher led to the need for these "exercises", which are as far from the typical exercises for learners as they are from the forms popular in the concert hall.
The 555 Sonatas (actually there are almost 600) he wrote are unconventional according to the standards of that time and those of the future. They are impregnated with the cultural patrimony Domenico came into contact with in his lifetime. Influences from Naples, Lusitania and the Iberian Peninsula show through in these dazzling, atypical forms that exude cleverness, originality and modernity thanks to their very discontinuity and apparent incoherence.
The objective of this film is to write a musical biography straddling the surreal and the metaphysics of a...
Max Lorenz was at the height of his career as a heldentenor in 1941. As a homosexual with a Jewish wife in Nazi Germany, he would have faced deportation. However, as Hitler’s favourite tenor and a symbol of his times, he was protected by Hitler and Göring. This gripping, well - researched documentary which is nominated for the FIPA festival boasts original footage of Max Lorenz, Haus Wahnfried and Hitler’s visits to Bayreuth (e.g. the first coloured picture of Hitler). Includes interviews with great artists such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and René Kollo.
It became a remarkable documentary, a compilation of the different renditions, rehearsals and performances of Roger Norrington with the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. In this video, Norrington ventures into Romantic music, featuring a documentary of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and the music of Richard Wagner. Details of each work are explained and narrated by Roger Norrington himself.
Who was Jacqueline du Pré? focuses on her personality as seen through the people who knew her best. It sets the record straight, corrects some of the more distorted myths and keeps this vibrant personality alive in the world in the way only film can do.
In 1985 Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels - fragile treasures documenting the Twentieth Century from a most unusual viewpoint; perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch.
The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists; a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8 , the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis.
The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, resynched and digitally remastered from the extant original prints. Until...
