This programme travels to Ghana to explore the art and culture of the Fante people, in particular their vibrant and allegorical sacred flags. These colourful appliqued and
embroidered banners were originally used as the regalia for small military companies which existed in towns and villages along the Fante coast for hundreds of years. The companies still flourish as fraternal groups and flags continue to be made and used in the traditional way.
From the early 20th century, the Maryinsky Ballet, later the Kirov, dazzled audiences with the beauty of dance. This fascinating footage of many of the company’s greatest dancers draws on five years’ research in Russia’s film archives. Extracts from: Swan Lake, Raymonda, Viennese Waltz, Reflection, Le Corsaire, Laurencia, The Tale of Serf Nikish, The Dying Swan, Pas de Quatre, Syrinx, Spartacus, Romeo and Juliet, The Ice Maiden, Les Sylphides
The Bolshoi Ballet’s first tours abroad in the mid-20th century revealed the classic Bolshoi style – a thrilling athleticism that never lost the essential beauty of the dance. This fascinating footage of many of the company’s greatest dancers draws on five years’ research in Russia’s film archives. Extracts from: Les Sylphides, Moment Musical, Moszkowski Waltz, Swan Lake, Ribbon Dance, Boston Waltz, The Nutcracker, Le Corsaire, Laurencia, Don Quixote, Spartacus, Shuraleh, Étude, The Fountain of Bakhchiserai, The Flames of Paris, Ravel Waltzes, Paganini, The Little Humpbacked Horse.
Based on a play by Karel Capek, The Makropulos Case focuses on the issue of longevity – the pros and cons of living for 337 years, as happens to the mysterious Emilia Marty, the sexually irresistible prima donna who’s seen it all and done it all. Part grotesque human comedy, part profound personal tragedy, Janácek’s opera examines the eternal mystery of human existence with uniquely life-enhancing vision. “Anja Silja’s Emilia Marty in Makropulos at Glyndebourne is a nonpareil triumph… This is a near-perfect production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff” Wall Street Journal
Haydn’s oratorio Die Schöpfung (The Creation) is one of the enduring miracles of classical music: a work of visionary scope and life-affirming freshness, created by a composer approaching his 70th birthday. Sir Georg Solti was nearing the end of his long and extraordinary career when he made this unique recording under studio conditions in the Herkulessaal, Munich – and in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, he could hardly have had more inspirational collaborators. With a trio of handpicked soloists, the result is a performance with an unforgettable atmosphere: a deeply moving meeting of two of music’s most irrepressible spirits.
“The structures stripped bare hold up the empty air”. György Kurtág is more than one of the most powerful creative voices in modern Europe. He created a new way of listening; forging a musical language in which silence can be as meaningful as sound and even the smallest gesture opens up new worlds. This award-winning 1996 documentary offers an unrivalled, often profoundly moving glimpse into his creative imagination, including interviews with the composer as well as rare performance and rehearsal footage plus contributions from György Ligeti, Claudio Abbado, pianist Zoltán Kocsis and the composer’s late wife (and artistic collaborator) Márta.
In September 1984, as part of the Berlin Festival Week, the Deutsche Oper Berlin staged the world premiere of German composer Aribert Reimann’s opera “Die Gespenstersonate”. Based on the drama by the Swedish writer August Strindberg, the chamber opera tells the story of a student, who muses about the inhabitants of a fancy-looking house. His crucial meeting with the Old Man pulls him into a world of intrigues, sickness, depression and murder. It plays in and around the presumably haunted house, which seems to drown its inhabitants in its sinister atmosphere. Better known for his operas “Lear” or “Medea”, Reimann established himself firmly as a stage composer from 1965 onwards. “Die Gespenstersonate”, being a modern chamber opera, was performed not on the great stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, but at the smaller Hebbel-Theater. Heinz Lukas-Kindermann’s stage direction sets the spectator under its gloomy spell, the exquisite cast performing the demanding score stars Hans Günter Nöcker as the “Old Man” and David Knutson as the Student, as well as well-loved Martha Mödl as the “Mummy”.
Joseph Haydn’s Concerto in C major for violin and orchestra Hob. VIIA,1 is performed by soloist Federico Agostini and the Bavarian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra. In the autograph manuscript of the concerto, Haydn inscribed the words “Fatto per il Luigi”, referring to Luigi Tomasini, the concertmaster of Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, for whom both musicians worked. Haydn wrote three other concertos for his friend and colleague who, judging from the extraordinary technical demands of the piece, must have been a truly gifted violinist. Federico Agostini, who comes from a noted musical family and who studied with Salvatore Accardo, is known above all as the concertmaster and soloist of “I Musici di Roma”. He plays the ex-Busch-Guadagnini violin of 1783.
The French violinist David Grimal plays the ex-Roederer Stradivarius of 1710. He performs here together with his former teacher Régis Pasquier, in whose class at the Paris Conservatoire he was accepted at the age of 16. Pasquier plays the Helvetika Stradivarius of 1686. The Italian violinist Federico Agostini is known as the long-standing concertmaster and soloist of the ensemble “I Musici di Roma.” He plays the ex-Busch-Guadagnini of 1783.
Playing the ex-Roederer Stradivarius of 1710, Solo violinist David Grimal teams up with his teacher Régis Pasquier on the Mantegazza viola. Mozart composed this work, his last concerto for string instruments, in 1779, shortly before he left Salzburg for Vienna. Its urbane elegance seems to anticipate the style that was to characterize Mozart’s first Viennese symphonies. Pasquier, who masters both the violin and viola, is a world-renowned soloist who has been called “le star du violon français” by the Paris daily Le Monde and was appointed an “Officier des Arts et des Lettres” by the President of France. David Grimal, who graduated from Paris’ Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique with the First Prize in violin and chamber music, has gone on to win several other prestigious awards as well, including the European Cultural Award. His active international career has taken him to most of the world’s great musical venues, where he has concertized with ensembles such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. The French music magazine Diapason wrote of Grimal: “A truly inspired musician, a stylist conscious of his artistry, has risen to take his place in the otherwise empty firmament of French violin playing of the nineties.”
