Weltliche Musik (Secular Music)

In this program featuring excerpts from secular works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt strives to reveal something of the mystery and fascination of Bach’s compositional art in the domain of non-sacred music. With his Concentus musicus Wien and the vocal soloists Janet Perry and Robert Holl, Harnoncourt interprets passages and movements from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, the Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, Bach’s arrangement of Benedetto Marcello’s Oboe Concerto and parts of the “Coffee Cantata”. “In my view, Bach is a total musician. No matter in what musical domain he lands, he immediately deploys his full resources and creates the greatest music that is imaginable in his time in this respective domain. […] I feel that sacred and secular music are of equal value in the lives of all significant composers, because an important composer of that time was a believer, and he didn’t make any distinction between the spiritual and the secular. In his secular life, he is just as pious as in his spiritual one, and when he eats and drinks, when he lives and loves, he is as much of a Christian as when he goes to church to pray on Sunday. He considers life as a whole, and he will write a symphony or a dance for the greater glory of God to the same extent that he would a Passion. […] German musicians… repeatedly attempted to combine the dance-like, short-winded style of French music with the eruptive, spontaneous and passionate, wild style of the Italians. The result was a well-pondered, ‘composed’ music – the Germans of that time called it ‘worked out’ – and when one hears these expressions, and knows who the greatest master of this music was, namely Bach, then one can say: this music is ‘worked out’ music. But in reality it is fulfilled music, music which comes from the innermost and the highest of man.” (Nikolaus Harnoncourt)

Leonard Bernstein conducts “West Side Story” – The Making of a Recording

“West Side Story” is perhaps Leonard Bernstein’s most popular work and contains songs that have achieved enormous popularity throughout the world. The film version won no less than ten Academy Awards. In 1984, 27 years after the premiere, Bernstein finally conducted the work for the first time, with singers of his choice. “The Making of West Side Story” won the Prix Italia and the British Academy’s Robert Flaherty Award in 1985.

Documentary on the Filming of “Elektra” – “Do I hear the music? It pours out of me.”

The “Elektra” documentary is the last testimony to a life of artistic fulfillment, an homage to the conductor Karl Böhm. The streets and squares of Vienna unfold before our eyes as the automobile bringing Karl Böhm to the recording studio drives through the city with which Karl Böhm had the most intimate musical relationship. And when he steps up to the conductor’s desk in the Sophiensaal, we are about to witness his last great performance. We see him conversing with the singers and the orchestra, rehearsing, criticizing, encouraging, and reminiscing: “Strauss once told me¿” At the end of the production, after Elektra’s dance, he sits back silently in his chair – exhausted but happy. On 14 August 1981, shortly after the shooting of the film, Karl Böhm died, aged almost 86. His death marked the end of an era. This documentary provides fascinating insights into the work of the director Götz Friedrich. And it also illustrates the dramatic power of musical tragedy, for example in the masterful depiction of Clytemnestra by Astrid Varnay, herself once a fabulous Elektra, and in the outstanding interpretations of top singers such as Leonie Rysanek, Catarina Ligendza, Hans Beirer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Josef Greindl, Kurt Böhme and others.

Rubinstein at 90 – An Interview with Artur Rubinstein filmed at his home in Paris in 1976

Quotes from Artur Rubinstein’s interview with Robert MacNeil: “There isn’t such a thing as the greatest pianist, not anytime, or anyone, or anything. Nothing in art can be the best. it is only different.” “… I’ve thought about the reason for any success I have had in my life… There is a certain antenna: there is a certain secret thing…which goes out, emanates from me, from my emotion, from the feeling. This…projects something which I do feel. It suddenly puts the audience into my hands. I can do anything. That is a great, great moment.” “I do think that we have reached the point of too much technique and perfection and there will be a reaction… Make music instead of having too much technique.” “The piano must be played with a feeling, to get the legato, to turn it into an instrument of singing.”