He is the most performed contemporary composer in the world. And yet he rarely ventures out in public, prefers to keep quiet about his music, feels at home in the forests of Estonia and generates therewith - perhaps involuntarily - the impression of a recluse, which is attributed to him again and again: Arvo Part. In The Lost Paradise, we follow him over a period of one year in his native Estonia, to Japan and the Vatican. The documentary is framed by the stage production of Adam's Passion, a music theater piece based on the Biblical story of the fall of Adam featuring three key works by Arvo Part. The world-renowned director Robert Wilson has brought this work to the stage in a former submarine factory in Tallinn. Tracing their creative process, the film offers rare and personal insights into the worlds of two of the most fascinating personalities in the international arts and music scene.
An all Bartók programme featuring one of the leading violinists - Gidon Kremer - and one of the world's leading viola players - Yuri Bashmet. The Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Pierre Boulez, conclude this concert with the The Miraculous Mandarin, a work composed in 1918-1919. By the time it was premiered, the score caused a scandal due to the eroticism of its argument.
Russian-born composer Sofia Gubaidulina entered the international spotlight at a relatively late age, when the 49-year-old came forward with her premier violin concerto, "Offertorium," in 1980. Gubaidulina authored that piece for Gideon Kremer. Curiously, it would be another 12 years before Gubaidulina received a commission (from Paul Sacher) to author her second violin concerto, and another 15 years after that until the notes fell on ears ripe with anticipation. For the debut of the "Second Violin Concerto," Gubaidulina insisted that no one other than German violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter perform it. That Mutter performance from August 2007 appears, in its entirety, in this classical concert film. Jan Schmidt-Garre directs.
A series of three concerts performed by violinist Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica ensemble in Salzburg during "Mozart Week" at the Mozarteum on 31 January and 2 February 2002. On the program: Mozart's "Sinfonia concertante" and "Serenata notturna"; Arvo Pärt's "Mozart-adagio"; Alfred Schnittke's "Moz-Art à la Haydn"; and Teddy Bor's "McMozart's Eine kleine bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik".
A searching, melancholy Dutch documentary about the lives of four classical musicians who won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, a victory that did not prove a guaranteed ticket to the top of the classical music world.
The life and virtuosic work of Russian violinist David Oistrakh, once known as King David in the Soviet Union, is chronicled with depth and detail by filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon in this intriguing portrait of an artist. Highlights include a range of performance footage throughout Oistrakh's legendary career, as well as interviews with his son, Igor, conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
'In 1980, the VPRO asked me to make a short film about the Russian pianist Youri Egorov. It was allowed to last ten minutes and was broadcast in the then Extra section. We were 25, both born in May 1954. It was my second short film, and I was very nervous. Youri didn't like cameras and even less interviews. But he agreed, "because you were even shyer than he was," his friend Jan Brouwer told me later. In the years that followed, we would meet up sometimes, and on one such occasion, during the last concert of Vladimir Horowitz, I promised him that later, when we would both be 50, I would make 'a real' film about a long and interesting life. Youri smiled politely. When he died in 1988, I said goodbye to him at his home, and Jan Brouwer reminded me of my promise. So I made it after all, a film about a short and intense life.' - Eline Flipse
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