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 passionate and energetic picture of lonely people in a large city, Robert North’s jazz ballet takes ist title from the popular music by Bill Withers to which it is set. Andrew Storer’s designs, with fire escapes and overspilling dustbins, suggest a seedy district of an American town. Rambert Dance Company gives an electrifying performance in this studio recording.
This live recording, from St. John’s Smith Square in London, features the celebrated classical guitarist Julian Bream playing Rodrigo’s haunting Concierto de Aranjuez, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Charles Groves. This piece is a lasting tribute to Spain and to the instrument that has personified and illuminated so beautifully her musical culture.
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.
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.
Novelist Anthony Burgess presents a personal appraisal of D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930). The portrait he paints is of a polemicist against his country and his age: against petty materialism and class conflict, against militarism and the prevailing sexual repressiveness. The film uses locations in Nottinghamshire and Cornwall, extensive period documentation of Lawrence’s work and times, and includes readings from his novels, essays and poems.
In the last ten years of his life, Leoš Janácek enjoyed a glorious burst of creativity. His inspiration was partly derived from his unconsummated love for a young married woman – Kamill Stoesslova – whom he met in 1917 and to whom he wrote over six hundred letters. The title of Intimate Pages that was given to String Quartet No. 2 refers to these love letters. This recording, featuring the international-acclaimed Czech Panocha Quartet, was made at the University in Prague.
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.
A rare opportunity to see the work of the great conductor Sergiu Celibidache (1912-96). He agreed to set aside his long-held antipathy to recordings of his work to enable the cameras to capture this concert from the Philharmonie in Munich, in which he conducts the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
The artist Marc Chagall died in March 1985, at the age of ninety-seven. For nearly eighty years he painted in a unique style that captivated generations of art lovers and both fascinated and infuriated his critics. This programme was made very shortly before Chagall’s death and is the last film made about this great artist during his lifetime. It looks at his work through the eyes of a young English painter whose curiosity about the artist is aroused when he finds he is living in Chagall’s old studio in Paris. The camera follows the young man as he travels through France on the trail of the enigmatic artist.
