Videoteca

location_onLondonpublicGB

Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter 2011
The great composer of The Planets, Gustav Holst also taught himself Sanskrit, lived in a street of brothels in Algiers, cycled into the Sahara Desert, and allied himself during the First World War with a ‘red priest' who pinned on the door of his church "prayers at noon for the victims of Imperial Aggression". He hated the words used to his most famous tune "I Vow to Thee My Country" because it was the opposite of what he believed, and died before the age of 60 - broken and disillusioned.

The Wagner Family 2009
There's no doubt that Richard Wagner who built it was the most influential composer in the whole of the 19th Century. But his family has survived a mixture of lies, deception, fraud and dangerous political alliances.

O, Fortuna! 2008
Tony Palmer examines the life and legacy of the German composer, Carl Orff.

O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams 2007
Award-winning filmmaker Tony Palmer directs this riveting documentary on the life and times of influential English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. With archived performances by conductor Sir Adrian Boult and stirring musical passages from "The Tallis Fantasia" and "The Lark Ascending," among others, Palmer's film also features interviews with Vaughan and his beloved wife, Ursula.

Margot 2005
A biographical look at the career of the acclaimed Margot Fonteyn. As a little girl called Peggy Hookham growing up in Shanghai, she told her mother she would one day become the greatest dancer in the world. Still performing at the age of 67 despite being almost unable to walk, hers is a story of courage and tenacity, of unbelievable devotion to her art and to those whom she loved. Those who ultimately left her penniless and alone, to be buried in a pauper’s grave.

Toward the Unknown Region: Malcolm Arnold - A Story of Survival 2004
A documentary portrait of composer Malcolm Arnold. Broadcast in two parts on The South Bank Show but premiered in its entirety at the Royal Festival Hall

Ladies & Gentlemen, Miss Renée Fleming 2002
Explores the life and career of American soprano Renée Fleming. Share an intimate visit with Renée behind the scenes, at home and on stage as she rehearses and performs in Verdi’s Otello and Requiem, and sings Strauss, Mozart, Dvorák, Korngold, Ellington, Gershwin, Puccini, Massenet, and Rachmaninoff. Other world-class artists featured in this fascinating personal portrait include: Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Sir Peter Hall, Valery Gergiev, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Katarina Witt, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ben Heppner, Daniel Barenboim, André Previn, and Gianfranco Ferré.

Brahms and the Little Singing Girls 1996
This is Palmer's highly controversial portrait of Brahms - a film that exploded the familiar image of 'stodgy old bearded Brahms' - a man whose first musical experience had been playing an upright piano in the brothels of Hamburg where he had grown up, and who at the end of his life lived a bachelor in Vienna having his every need satisfied by the prostitutes of the city whom he always affectionately described as his ‘little singing girls'. It is a celebration - of Brahms' unabashed, life-enhancing, sexually explosive music. Warren Mitchell portrays the composer

Henryk Górecki: The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs 1993
This emotional film by the award-winning director Tony Palmer includes a performance of the “Third Symphony” by The London Sinfonietta alongside powerful footage of Górecki at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The Children 1990 star_border 5.2
Rose Sellars is a middle-aged woman who falls in love with a widower. However, his children believe that their father is too old to start a new relationship.

Hindemith: A Pilgrim's Progress 1990
Tony Palmer’s study of the German composer Paul Hindemith.

Testimony 1988 star_border 5.7
The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.

Stravinsky: Once at a Border... 1982
This autobiographical film about the most important and influential composer of the 20th century includes documents, photographs and film never seen publicly before. Stravinsky's three surviving children talk about their father and there are contributions from the late Madame Vera Stravinsky, his music associate Robert Craft, Marie Rambert, Balanchine, Nadia Boulanger and many friends. Included in the film are important performances: Les Noces has never before been heard in this, its original form, and the choreography of Petrushka was specially recreated for the film by the Bolshoi and was not seen in this form since 1911. Finally, there is priceless film of Stravinsky himself in this unique film.

Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was… 1979
A portrait of one of England's greatest composers. Winner of the Prix Italia.

The Wigan Casino 1977
Documentary covering the famous Wigan Casino northern soul venue and the working class kids who spend all their money not on alcohol but on records and dancing all night.