DVD Videos

Kirk Browning, Director

Famous violinist Itzhak Perlman and Eugene Ormandy, long-standing conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded this fantastic Russian program live at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, in 1978 and 1979 in extraordinary sound quality.

Modest Mussogorsky’s most famous piano composition Pictures at an Exhibition which is deemed to be one of Ormandy’s specialties is orchestrated in the acclaimed Ravel version.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, which is considered as one of the best known and technically most challenging works for violin, is performed by Itzhak Perlman - undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin – who has also been called “one of the greatest musical talents to emerge since World War II” according to violin expert Tully Potter, New Grove.

The concert is directed by the Peabody Award winner Kirk Browning, who is highly acclaimed for staging classical concerts due to his long-time experience as television director and producer.

Picture format: NTSC, 4:3

Sound formats: PCM-STEREO, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Region code: 0

Booklet Notes: German, English, French

Running Time: 89 mins

This re-release — an improved version of Christopher Nupen’s Schubert DVD — contains two of his most famous films: The Trout, which is almost certainly the most frequently broadcast classical music film in the history of television and Franz Peter Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow which many people think is his best — perhaps because it was 10 years in the making.

As with most of Christopher Nupen’s DVDs this one contains two films which are entirely different in style and character from one another.

The Trout which was shot in 1969 is an explosion of youthful exuberance that was unlike anything that had ever been seen before. The protagonists were unknown to the general public when the film was shot but have since come to be recognised as being among the most affectionately remembered musicians of our time. Their names: Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline du Pré and Zubin Mehta.

Franz Peter Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow was described by Sir Isaiah Berlin as, “This most poignant of tributes to Schubert.” It is not a film about Schubert’s life. It is a film about his extraordinary achievements in the last 20 months of his life after the death of his god, Beethoven. Schubert himself said, “Who, after Beethoven, may dare to do anything.” The answer was Franz Peter Schubert, who took the language of music forward into new and uncharted territory once he was liberated from his own profound respect for his predecessor. However, unlike Beethoven, he does not sing of the fullness of the earth. Instead, he laments for our mortality and what he has to say, ranks among the greatest achievements in music. The musicians are Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andreas Schmidt, Antje Weithaas and Michael Sanderling.

Nominated at Banff and winner of Czech Crystal at Golden Prague.

Format: NTSC

Region: 0 (all regions)

Picture format: 4:3 and 16:9 letterbox

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo

Subtitles: DE/EN/ES/FR/IT

Running time: 182 mins

Klezmer is the celebration music of Eastern European Jews around the world. Reflecting the interplay of dance tunes, folk songs and liturgical music that flourished in Eastern Europe in the diverse Yiddish-speaking culture until 1939.

Here, the incomparable Itzhak Perlman takes a break from the concert hall to explore the vitality of klezmer music in this charmingly humorous guide where he journeys from New York’s lower East Side to the Jewish Festival in Krakow, Poland performing with a wide cross section of popular klezmer groups.

‘San Francisco Symphony at 100’ celebrates the orchestra’s centenary in style.

With Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm and featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman, the DVD also includes vignettes documenting the orchestra's origins and its first 100 years.

San Francisco Symphony at 100 documents the glorious festivities of the orchestra’s centenary year, celebrated at the orchestra’s extravagant 2011-12 season opening night gala concert. With Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm, the evening symbolised the orchestra’s heritage, its importance in the life of the city as well as the American and international musical landscape, and highlighted supreme American musicians as well as the virtuosic members of the orchestra. The programme opens and closes with two American compositional giants - Aaron Copland and John Adams. The great violinist Itzhak Perlman unleashes his virtuosity on Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and the orchestra members shine in Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

Interspersed are documentary vignettes - hosted by Amy Tan (author of the famed Joy Luck Club) - tracing the history of the Symphony which like a phoenix rose out of the ashes of the city’s devastating earthquake in 1906, revitalised San Francisco’s cultural life and quickly set the orchestra on the world’s musical stage.

Special Features

Documentary vignettes tracing the San Francisco Symphony’s history. Narrated by Amy Tan. Produced by Janette Gitler.

DVD specifications

Region: 0 (All Regions)

Rating: E (Exempt)

Picture Format: NTSC (all regions), widescreen, HD video

Sound format: Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1

Run time: 2:26:30

The great Israeli-born violinist Itzhak Perlman has already left a huge number of sound recordings of his interpretations; but it adds an extra dimension to be able to watch him execute, for instance, the brilliant spiccato bowing in Saint-Saëns's Introduction and Rondo capriccioso.A master of the French style through his teacher Ivan Galamian, Perlman at 25 is seen in the first full flush of his talent.Ten years later, the mature soloist shows his total command of the modern Russian style of Prokofiev - at a BBC Symphony Orchestra golden jubilee concert - and the bitter-sweet romanticism of Elgar's massive, virtuosic concerto.

This DVD contains three productions from Christopher Nupen’s famously comprehensive portraits of leading performers: the portrait film, Itzhak Perlman: Virtuoso Violinist (I know I played every note) and two memorable performances of Bach partitas shot live, on stage, at a concert in London where this polyfaceted artist is at his best.

It also contains two sequences in which Itzhak Perlman looks back. The first of them, The Trout Remembered looks at the making of the film The Trout, probably the most frequently broadcast classical music film in the history of television and one which has become the lasting emblem of a great age in music. The second, made especially for this DVD, "Jacqueline du Pré Remembered", recalls a friend who was very close for many years, a colleague with whom he made chamber music in many places and an artist and personality for whom he has an unbounded admiration and an enduring affection.

Itzhak Perlman is one of the world’s leading musical performers, famous all over the world not only as a virtuoso violinist of the highest rank but as a much loved television personality, an honoured guest at the White House and an extremely effective spokesman for the disabled, having been handicapped himself by polio since the age of 31/2. All of these things together, plus a famously lighthearted ebullience, have won him a particularly affectionate following.