The Art of Piano - Great Pianists of 20th Century

Starring:Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein
Studio: Nvc Arts
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

The Art of the Piano is a feature-length, 106-minute documentary that presents in refreshingly straightforward fashion a portrait of 20th-century piano playing. The format is simple: short segments on virtually all of the great pianists who have ever been captured on film, augmented by extracts from interviews, sometimes with the pianists themselves, or with later conductors and musicians of international stature, including specially filmed contributions from Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Evgeny Kissin, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, and Tamás Vásáry. The narration by John Tusa offers an overview of piano music through the century, though the heart of the film is the great quantity of rare archive historic footage, with extracts from performances by Gould, Horowitz, Paderwski, Rachmaninoff, Richter, Rubinstein, and many others. The interviews are short, but offer considerable insight, while the film of so many revered pianists brought together is a literal eye-opener, especially for those who have previously only known these masters from LP and CD. This is, like the companion program The Art of Singing, as close to definitive as a single film can get, even going so far as to include footage from the "silent" era with sound from corresponding recordings. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk

Customer Reviews:

Well worth the view of the truly golden age of piano.......2007-04-21

A most excellent DVD and I would highly recommend as an equally excellent adjunct to this DVD with regard to the era and its rather well known names, "The Golden Age of the Piano" with commentary by David Dubal. In this way you have additional film media input on virtually the same names!

I personally found the mixed bag commentary in "The Art of Piano" quite good and informative in perception(s) and as opposed to mere recitations of "great hands" rhetoric as, for example, when Piotr Anderszewski perceptively comments on Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, to wit, "he really didn't like performing .. he didn't like [doing] recordings either .. he didn't like giving interviews ... he didn't like writing books ... as if he was non existent, like a ghost actually .. he was very much caring how he looked at the piano, completely obsessed with his movements how each muscle should work ... to put the beast [piano] in a cage and make it civilized." All very true! Enter Evgeny Kissin, "We never hear a single wrong note from Michelangeli ... ." Or enter Gyorgy Sandor defending [as I do!] Gyorgy Cziffra who is often unfairly relegated to "a show-boating young Liszt, at double the speed." Or the "wrong notes" thing whenever the names Alfred Cortot and Edwin Fischer are mentioned in pianistic circles although that one comes in handy when I announce [depending on the difficulty of the piece] that I'm "going to do my Cortot and Fischer impression" ! For those in the know, well, they won't wince at any clinkers while others remain duly contented!

Then again, we see no less than Francis Planté in his [then] 90's who saw Chopin play [!] mouthing the words "my God" in a clip where he seems visibly amazed to 'hear' his own playing through one of the wall high earlier recording devices! The range runs from Paderewski to our old friend "GG" [Glenn Gould] complete with the hat, scarf and gloves of course.

BTW, for Paderewski fans, and I remain one of them, if you're looking for the 1937 UK production 'movie' that featured Paderewski entitled "Moonlight Sonata", Amazon and/or various Amazon vendors have it! I must say that the plot [such as it was] is off-beat but Paderewski plays and in fact the clip of him in "The Art of Piano" is taken directly from that 1937 movie although in the DVD clip he does the Liszt piece, the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. Great piece that one and yes I've tried it many times --- don't ask -- as the operative words become "tried it" -- not easy to bring off the piece at least as it 'should' be played! The bravura notwithstanding.

For brief comments made in French, German and Russian, sub-titles are available. Interesting too, the commentary on Dame Myra Hess doing those UK war-time afternoon concerts where the commentator says, "What is both interesting and somewhat ironic is that Myra Hess specialized and in fact played at these UK war-time recitals the 'German' classics ... " which only proves that great music can often transcend the times! And misplaced or certainly 'misdirected' prejudices therein.

106 minutes, black and white and color mixed. As to 'length', well, it has to be kept in mind that classical pieces don't easily lend themselves to the old 45 RPM R&R songs in length so that excerpts become by default the order of the day. On the other hand, one of my favorite classical pieces, Beethoven's rather sublime "Appassionata" satisfies me when it 'has' to be cut in the interest of time to the second movement -- think the greatly edited rendition of the piece [via the DVD editors] by Davide Cabassi in the 2005 12th Van Cliburn ["In the Heart of Music"] competition DVD.

Between the literal household names in "The Art of Piano" and the informed commentary by equally well known and duly informed artists, a very enjoyable and enlightening documentary review of a truly pianistic golden age. My favorite? Michelangeli doing the Scarlatti Sonata in B minor [K-27]. Try that one if you want a quick substitute for those fingering dexterity exercises!

Doc Tony

Insight and inspiration.......2007-03-09

An excellent, insightful overview, however brief, of many of the great pianists of yesteryear, seen through their own words and those of their colleagues and premier musicians of today. It includes well chosen performances displaying the particular characteristics of each individual, characteristics which are no less individual than the brush strokes of the great painters, and which make contrasting the performers' styles an interesting experience, especially for the young student and certainly for the informed listener.
Linda Carroll, pianist, teacher

For piano lovers everywhere!.......2007-02-18

This is an extremely entertaining compilation of performance clips and commentary on the great pianists. I could argue with some that are included on this compilation... It starts out with an ancient Paderewski giving a somewhat hackneyed performance of Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, and includes some "snoozer" segments (Cortot, Backhaus, Fischer...).

But it more than earns its place of reverence within my collection, for the segments on Cziffra, Gilels, Richter, Gould, Hess, Horowitz, Michelangeli and Moiseiwitsch.

The commentary is entertaining and insightful (never "stuffy"). I'm very happy to own this DVD!

A pleasure to play........2007-02-16

Art of Piano is a great tape to watch: attractive, informative and entertaining. I played the tape already several times and, each time, I keep on discovering new aspects of the recorded piano performances.

Penetrating look at some great pianist.......2006-12-22

I have no idea really how they selected these pianists, but there is a lot of great footage of these piano masters hammering away brilliantly
at the keyboard. Nice, clear progression from one to another. Wish they could have made a double cd with even more pianists, but this one is a tour de force. Excellent.

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