Customer Reviews

Art of Piano

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This DVD is definitely cool!

Let's have a look at the great stuff:

- nice commentary and interviews from many 'greats'
- unbelievable amounts of cool ancient footage which I haven't seen before (admittedly, I'm not widely knowledgeable in this area)
- pretty nice editing.. good mix of enjoyable music with commentary...

Negatives? I don't know.. maybe...

- the limitations (in detail particularly) of it being a 1.5 hour movie..
- not entirely sure if it's of good journalistic value.. eg Cortot seems to be praised much more than criticised... not a balanced view..

It's great.. piano music fans need to get this!!

Having owned the videotape of this program I was pleased to get the new DVD version. It has additions to the tape. For one thing, although conducted primarily in English, there are English subtitles for those bits that are conducted in languages other than English. And there are also Japanese, Spanish and French subtitles for those who wish them. Some of the film footage is simply magnificent and extremely rare. For instance, one sees the elderly Francis Plante playing brilliantly; born in 1839, he had actually heard Chopin play! There is some tendency to cut away from music footage in order to continue the voice-over narration, and that is understandable, but it is also occasionally frustrating. Some have complained that there are only two female pianists represented - a long and impressive bit with Dame Myra Hess, and an uncredited bit underneath the credits with Annie Fischer - but then there are plenty of other male pianists who could have been included, too. The makers of the film only had two hours with which to work, so one can understand the omissions. There is a minimum of fawning, a fair amount of substantive information - both plusses. For those of us who are fascinated by both piano technique and ever-changing pianistic styles this DVD is indispensable. It was wonderful to see lengthy bits featuring, among others, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Josef Hofmann, Claudio Arrau, Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, Arturo Benedetto Michelangeli, György Cziffra, Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein and to have interviews with current musicians like Sir Colin Davis, Stephen Kovacevich, Daniel Barenboim, Piotr Anderszewski, Tamás Vasáry, and Gary Graffman.

Recommended.

Scott Morrison

i don't think this is something to be considered, its totally not objective and not well-done ... where is wilhelm kempff??? how about walter gieseking??? there are some pianists there that aren't great enough, cziffra for example... a true good list about the greatest of the century would be kempff, e.fischer, gieseking, gould, backhaus, cortot, arrau...

Yes, this video is quite appealing in its incredible clips of many of the great pianists of the past but I would like to ask a question-where are the women?! There are only two women represented-Myra Hess and Annie Fischer, who plays the Minute Waltz practically during the final credits. What about Clara Haskill or Guimar Novaes or any other of a host of wonderful women pianists? Of course if there are no clips of them that is telling in itself. Plus, all the commentators are male. What about asking someone like Martha Agerich for her comments! Anyone who doubts that there is a white male aesthetic should watch this video. And incidentally, the fact that none of the other reviewers even sees anything amiss with this picture just proves the point.

Indispensable of course because there is so little footage available of the great pianists. But the producer/editor seems to think that we like seeing performances of pieces faded out after a few bars, so he has plenty of film time for spoken thoughts from others. Unfortunately, since the commentaries are mostly a monumental waste of time (in the genre "He played incredibly well..." "He was a great virtuoso" - I mean "Duh"), the failure to allow the pianists to play to the end of the pieces is inexcusable and infuriating.

Good news is that Decca has just released a DVD also of the great pianists; I don't have it but I'm hoping they didn't wreck it with vacuous verbiage.

There are some fascinating moments in this recording, for example Horowitz playing his wonderful Carmen variations (marvellous to see although there is a bizarre bit of editing where you momentarily see some footage of Horowitz playing something that doesn't match with the sound!) There is also some stupendous footage of Cziffra playing the Grand Gallope Chromatique. I found the whole thing rather charming, but not at all profound. It is really a collection of thumbnail sketches of the various pianists included (and I agree with the other reviewer who commented that some notable great pianists seem to have been left out). Not bad.

For those who are interested in the touch, it's a gem. It comes as a revelation as to how Hofmann got his legato sound, and also what a pair of paws Arrau had that produced the nice piano sound.

So not every great pianist has got the perfect hands for the piano. Gould's hands didn't have much muscle as his sound suggested it. Surprisingly, not even Backhaus had got very pretty hands in this regard. It's interesting to see how intense Horowitz was when he performed and that explained why he later retired from concert so long. Note that he had rather stiff upper arms and he seldom resorted to his shoulders, but the muscle of his fingers and his hand position is just amazing. There wasn't any footage of Rachmaninoff, only his photos. Oh yes, here Arrau himself spoke, Cortot too when he taught and demonstrated. We also saw Edwin Fischer talk and even played, depicting only his face not his hands...

The narrator was however most misleading, mostly commercial stuff. Fortunately we have some commentators here. The best one was Sandor, and we have quite a lot him. The worst would be Vasary and Kissin. Kissin had hardly anything to say at all, whereas the second last was quite a muddle: he went as far as saying he thought Cziffra was playing some 4 hands music and asked him whom his partner was when the latter was all alone; and he said Cziffra played so fast that he couldn't know what his fingers were doing! Was he suggesting that the playing was full of wrong notes, he who has made a few records himself and has since become a conductor??

Barenboim wasn't very expressive either, there wasn't much depth perhaps due to poor editing. We have two other conductors who were much more eloquent and to the point, one of them being Sir Colin Davis, the other one was such an admirer of Arrau and yet so critical of Richter-- but he justified his views in just a few words...

I have gone over the whole thing for at least 3 times and still find it interesting and instructive. This is even better than The Art of Violin and much better than The Art of Singing. A must. Highly recommended.

This DVD is unwatchable. Its OK if I close my eyes. But that somehow defeats the purpose. I purchased two copies -- one as a gift -- and I'm returning both.

I didn't notice comments about sync problems on the VHS. Is the VHS OK?

This is a great DVD with some of the most amazing footage I have ever seen. First, there is video of Josef Hofmann playing Rachmaninoff's prelude op.3 no.2 in it's entirety. Then there's the stunning Cziffra playing Liszt's Grand Gallope Chromatique faster than I thought possible. Also Richter plays Chopin's etude Op10 No12 in like 1 minute 50 seconds.

No complaints about any of the content in this documentary. My only complaint is that EVERY piece of footage is completely wrecked(on the DVD, at least) by the fact that the video and audio are almost 1 second out of sync. Most people wouldn't notice. But it is very noticable to a pianist and it is annoying, almost to the point where I feel like going out and buying the VHS edition.

Other than that, a marvelous video.
Also If you are a big classical music fan, pick up the ART of VIOLIN. Another amazing video.

This movie is wonderful for an introduction to the greatist pianists of our time. This movie gives you a variety of pianists from Plante to Arrau. This movie gives a brief description about why the pianist was so great and then play a composition or two with the pianist playing. My favorite section was about Glenn Gould. He played a Bach Partita, a transcription of Ravel's La Valse(transcribed by himself), and finally, he played the first Bach Piano Concerto with Leonard Bernstein conducting. Then they have pianists such as Gyorgy Sandor, Piotr Anderszewski, Daniel Barenboim, and Evgeny Kissin talking about the pianists on this video. Some examples of the pianists on this show are Ignaz Paderewski, Vladimir Horowitz, Josef Hofmann, Arthur Rubenstein, Glenn Gould, Alfred Cortot, Sviatoslav Richter, Wilhelm Backhaus, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and many others. The only female pianist in this movie is Myra Hess, who is a highly gifted virtuoso on the piano. You will notice in this movie that mostly every pianist either plays on a Steinway, Bosendorfer, or Pleyel piano. I highly reccomend this movie to anybody, even somebody who does not know who Vladimir Horowitz is. You should, at all costs, watch this ingenious movie.