Info:
Durations:
Partita in E major, BWV 1006 - 20’ 00”
Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 - 32’ 00”
Year of production: 1978
Two Partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach, filmed live at a BBC Radio Lunch Time Concert in St John’s, Smith Square, London.
The sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) are a set of six works completed by 1720, now considered an essential part of the violin repertoire for a soloist to show all their technical and interpretational skills.
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Partita No.3 in E major, BWV 1006
1. Preludio
2. Loure
3. Gavotte en Rondeau
4. Menuett I - II
5. Bourrée
6. Gigue
Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
This is the Partita, which includes the great Chaconne.
1. Allemanda
2. Corrente
3. Sarabanda
4. Giga
5. Ciaccona (Chaconne)
Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006…
A little Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004…
Our Films on DVD
This DVD is an intimate account of the formative years in the life and career of one of the leading violinists of our time.
Itzhak Perlman fell in love with the sounds of the violin at the age of 3½ but contracted polio a few months later and was soon to learn that it would be impossible, with his handicap, for him to pursue a high-level career as a violinist.
Not only has he succeeded in doing what the world thought quite impossible but he has done it on a level that few have matched. It is a heartening story of the spectacular triumph of talent, determination, character and tenacity over seemingly insurmountable odds, producing truly glorious results along the way.
The DVD contains the much-admired portrait film Itzhak Perlman: Virtuoso Violinist (I Know I Played Every Note) together with The Trout Remembered, Jacqueline du Pré Remembered (made especially for this DVD) and two complete Bach Partitas, E major and D minor, filmed live at a memorable recital at St John's, Smith Square, in London.
The two very different films on this DVD celebrate, in different ways, the extraordinary quest of Andrés Segovia. He was an Andalusian, par excellence, who, in his childhood, fell in love with the beauties of the Alhambra and the melancholy voices of the Spanish guitar and, within the space of 20 years, had taught himself the instrument, revolutionised the technique and elevated the guitar to the highest levels of the international concert platform - an achievement unique in the history of Western music.
The titles of the films are, Segovia at Los Olivos, which we shot in his new home on the Costa del Sol in Andalucia when the Grand Master was 75 and, Andrés Segovia: The Song of the Guitar which we shot in Granada and the glorious Palaces of the Alhambra, when he was 84.
Near the end of his life Segovia said that the first of them was the best thing that he ever did for television. The second won the Prix du Public at the Besançon Festival in 1977.
Music by Bach, Granados, Torroba, Llobet, Tarrega, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Scarlatti, Ponce, Rameau, Sor, Aguado, Chopin and Albeniz.
This DVD celebrates the musical quest of one of the great symphonists of the twentieth century; Jean Sibelius, as seen through his music, his letters and the words of his wife Aino, who was with him for more than sixty-four years. His quest was not an easy one. Living through the great turning point in Western music, many of his concerns were strikingly similar to those of Schoenberg and Stravinsky but each chose a different path.
Sibelius once said that while his colleagues were serving multicoloured cocktails, he offered only pure spring water. The metaphor is a good one but, as so often with artists who take an untrod path, critical opinion has fluctuated wildly. In 1935 Sibelius was voted the most popular composer of all time by the members of The New York Philharmonic Society, a view that was echoed by many of the leading critics and composers in England.
By the 1950s critical opinion had relegated Sibelius to a position of minor importance.
Views are changing again and the time seemed right for an intimate look at what Sibelius himself felt that he was trying to achieve. The film in two-parts on this DVD is an attempt to do just that.
