Info:
Duration: 90’ 00”
Narrated by Stephen Fry
Year of production: 2021
Interviewees include:
Daniel Barenboim / Sir David Attenborough / Melvyn Bragg / Michael Grade / David Elstein / Itzhak Perlman / Pinchas Zukerman / Vladimir Ashkenazy / Evgeny Kissin / Daniil Trifonov / John Williams
Award:
Silver Medal winner at the New York Film and Television Festival, 2015
A feature-length documentary about the pioneering film director Christopher Nupen, who founded one of the first independent (television) production companies in the 1960s, at the dawn of the music documentary era. Seizing upon the emerging silent camera technology and his unique access to a golden generation of artists, he filmed classical music in a completely new and intimate way. Now 86, Nupen reflects on over 75 productions about musicians and composers, spanning more than 50 years.
He is joined by leading figures in music (Daniel Barenboim, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniil Trifonov, John Williams, Evgeny Kissin and Pinchas Zukerman) and broadcasting (David Attenborough, David Elstein, Michael Grade and Melvyn Bragg) who share their insight of a unique chapter in the history of music on television. Listening Through The Lens cherry picks from Nupen’s best work from 1966 to 2017. When he started, he instinctively blended documentary and musical performance, to create a new genre of film. He filmed musicians at close quarters on stage, in their natural environment, where they have most to offer.
The effects were dramatic and brought countless numbers of people to music for the first time, breaking down the barriers between musicians and the wider public. A musician himself, Nupen’s musical friends were among the most-renowned artists of the 20th and 21st century. As his experience grew, he tackled musical ideas and the lives of the great composers (such as Schubert, Sibelius, Paganini, Tchaikovsky and Brahms).
The Oxford philosopher and historian, Sir Isaiah Berlin, described Nupen’s films as being "at just about the highest-level which television is capable of reaching". As a body of work, Nupen’s films convincingly enforce his conviction that television is capable of remembering our artists as no other medium can equal. For some, like Jacqueline du Pré, they remain a rare and exclusive encapsulation of her extraordinary talent.
The films of Christopher Nupen, represent a single-minded dedication to share the spiritual power of music and he will leave a legacy of lasting value.
Christopher’s Films on DVD
Evgeny Igorevich Kissin was born in Moscow on the 10th of October 1971.
He started to play the piano at the age of two, as soon as he was tall enough to reach the keyboard and he has not looked back from that day to this. His is a very rare story of continued success that has had the simultaneous blessing of critics, the public and musicians alike.
The Gift of Music is a film which shows Kissin in preparation, interview, rehearsal and performance, with several dazzling performances shot live on stage, in true concert conditions. It also contains all the encores from Kissin's memorable Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in August 1997.
This was the first Prom in the 103-year history of the celebrated Promenade Concerts to be given by a solo recitalist and it attracted the biggest audience in all of those 103 years; very nearly six thousand people.
The music is by Liszt, Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Paganini, Kissin himself and Chopin, the composer for whom Kissin feels the closest affinity.
This DVD presents Vladimir Ashkenazy as pianist, conductor, musical guide and master musician - an intimate and engaging view of one of the world's most quietly successful musicians.
It contains the portrait film Vladimir Ashkenazy: The Vital Juices Are Russian, shot in 1968 when Ashkenazy moved with his wife and son from London to Iceland, an important turning point in his life and career.
Since that film was made, Ashkenazy the pianist (possibly the most frequently recorded pianist in history, his discography runs to 56 pages), has also become an international conductor of the highest rank and we include a montage of sequences from our composer films with Ashkenazy as conductor. It also contains a short interview with Ashkenazy who talks, in his modest but penetrating way, about musical gifts and their origins.
The DVD ends with a film about Rachmaninov's Corelli Variations. In it Ashkenazy discusses the piece at length, with great affection and some telling musical insights. It ends with a complete performance of the piece, filmed at a public concert in Lugano.
This DVD portrait celebrates the miraculous gift of one of the finest violinists of the 20th century. Nathan Mironovich Milstein, universally respected by every international musician of his time and genuinely liked by almost all of them. His career spanned 73 years, one of the longest in Western music, and ended with his legendary last recital in Stockholm with Georges Pludermacher.
Nathan Milstein was 82 at the time and still playing as the grandest of Grand Masters and as probably no other violinist has ever played at 82.
The two-hour portrait film is built around that historic event and pays tribute to this ‘quiet magician’ who never sort the limelight and rarely appeared on camera. The DVD also includes both the Kreutzer Sonata and the Bach Chaconne from that same recital which took place on the 17th of July 1986.
