Acclaimed as one of the most exciting and accomplished dancers and choreographers of her generation, Karole Armitage presents this programme surveying her career. It features lengthy excerpts from her works plus location footage from Rhode Island, where she is seen rehearsing her ballet Romance for an American television recording. The programme also includes rare black and white archive material showing Balanchine and Merce Cunningham in rehearsal.
Electronic Music
In the twentieth century, music entered the age of electronics and the microchip. This programme examines the history of this new music, from Stockhausen to Varèse, from pop singles and signature tunes to serious contemporary composition.
Mstislav Rostropovich
Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was indisputably a supreme master of his instrument. After leaving Russia in the mid-1970s, he established a distinguished double career as a performer and a conductor in the West. Filmed at Aldeburgh, when he was Festival director there, Rostropovich is seen rehearsing the Pears Britten Orchestra, performing works by Britten and Penderecki, and talking about his eventful life and his music.
Michala Petri
The Danish virtuoso Michala Petri has won world-wide acclaim playing an instrument
which very rarely finds the spotlight on a concert platform – the recorder. Filmed at home in
Denmark and with the English Chamber Orchestra in London, she plays music ranging from
contemporary pieces, composed specially tor her, to baroque music, including works by Bach and
Vivaldi. This profile also explores the long history of the recorder and its astonishing revival
in recent years.
A Life of Puccini
Tony Palmer’s feature, scripted by Charles Wood, dramatises the story which hit the Italian headlines in 1908, when Puccini was fifty. Robert Stephens plays Puccini, Virginia McKenna his wife, Elvira, and Judith Howarth the servant girl who, wrongly accused by Elvira of having an affair with her husband, killed herself. The scandal devastated Puccini’s career and shattered his private life. Ten years later he wrote Turandot. Music and documentary film are skillfully combined with the drama to draw connections between this sublime masterpiece and Puccini’s experiences.
Domenico Scarlatti – His Music and His World
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) is one of the greatest composers of keyboard music ever to have lived. This film presents performances of his brilliant, expressive and original sonatas in the context of his travels across Europe in the service of the Vatican and the courts of Portugal and Spain. From Bernini’s impressive façades in Rome, through the peasant areas of the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish royal palaces, it traces the influences and ideas that inspired the composer. Harpsichordist Rafael Puyana performs on an instrument dating from 1740.
The Aida File
This film chronicles the life and times of Verdi and the history of one of his best-loved operas. It includes extensive extracts from the triumphant La Scala production starring Pavarotti, archive film of notable Aida productions from the past, and contributions from some of the great singers who have a special affection for this work – Pavarotti, Carlo Bergonzi, Grace Bumbry and Eva Turner among them.
God Rot Tunbridge Wells!
Tony Palmer’s feature on Handel’s life, scripted by John Osborne, is both extremely amusing and profoundly moving. It centres on the last week of his life, when, outraged by a poor performance of his Messiah in Tunbridge Wells, the decrepit composer took to his bed. Shot on location in Germany, England, Ireland and Italy, the film stars Trevor Howard and features Handel’s music as an integral part of the drama, performed by The English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Rattle, one of the most exciting British conductors ever to emerge on to the international music scene, leads a Workshop with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He focuses on the musical and orchestral subtleties of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat Op. 55 (Eroica) and the finale of Messiaen’s massive Turangalîla-symphonie, which he describes as one of the most exciting and enthralling works of the twentieth century.
Karl Münchinger
In the aftermath of the Second World War, conductor Karl Münchinger (1915-90) set up the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Under his guidance, the orchestra became world famous for ist consummately modern rendition of baroque music, attracting a new interest in eighteenth-century composers. In this profile, made five years before his death, Münchinger talks about his methods and style and is Seen rehearsing and performing music by Mozart, Pergolesi and Bach.