![]() Die Taubenpost (alternative: D 965a) ( Johann Gabriel Seidl).Liebesbotschaft (text: Ludwig Rellstab).Schwanengesang ( Swan Song), D 957, is a collection of 14 songs written by Franz Schubert at the end of his life and published posthumously: THE TROUT is almost certainly the most frequently televised classical music programme made until now.First volume of Schubert's Schwanengesang as originally published in 1829 When it was broadcast for the eighth time in Germany on May 25th, 1994 on the ARTE network it drew the biggest audience of all classical music transmissions on that network during the whole of the year - twenty-five years after the film first appeared! THE TROUT is almost certainly the most frequently televised classical music programme made until now. The titles are: THE TROUT, made in 1969 with Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline du Pré and Zubin Mehta and FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT: THE GREATEST LOVE AND THE GREATEST SORROW, which many critics think is our best. This DVD contains two of our most successful films. Our title, THE GREATEST LOVE AND THE GREATEST SORROW, is drawn from a dream which Schubert wrote down, in detail, on the 3rd of July, 1822 and which is quoted in full in the film. The film begins with the funeral of Beethoven, at which Schubert was a torch-bearer, and the story is told almost entirely in music that Schubert wrote in the twenty months that remained to him after that date, together with quotations from his letters and diaries and the words that he chose to set in some of his songs. Instead, it uses Schubert's words and music to try and help the viewer feel closer to what the composer himself felt that he was trying to say. It does not focus on Schubert's life or career, however. And so, if Schubert is indeed undervalued while so many people are so touched by his music, this film may serve a very good purpose. I know from my own experience that films of this kind frequently work at their best when they are helping people to discover for themselves things which they feel they really knew already. Wer vermag nach Beethoven noch etwas zu machen? (Who would dare to do anything after Beethoven?) In some ways, these things haunt Schubert's reputation even today. ![]() ![]() The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrowįranz SchubertSchubert's reputation also suffered from the fact that he did things differently and when a work of art is new and different, and the world cannot categorise or label it, it often takes a long time for the world to understand and accept what that work has to offer. The film then continues with the complete performance shot during the concert, just as it happened, with not a note re-taken. They are minutes which contain scenes that have passed into musical and television history. The introduction takes the television viewer into areas of music-making that are not normally accessible even to the committed concert-going public and the first part of the film ends with the final seven minutes of back-stage preparation before the concert. The artists had all been intimate friends for many years, but, more importantly, they had a great deal in common musically and, in addition, they shared an exuberance in their talents which was as appealing as it was filmable. The intention was two-fold: to film the concert itself live on stage, exactly as it happened, with five of the newly invented, silent 16mm film cameras and to make an introduction to it during the preceding week, documenting the preparations and, in particular, the spirit behind the event. It was clear to us that the concert might well become legendary in time and so we decided to make a film about it. Their names: Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline du Pré and Zubin Mehta. On August 30th 1969, five young musicians, all of whom were about to become established as international artists of the highest rank, came together to play Schubert's "Trout Quintet" in the new Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. In my view, both of those ideas are manifestly untrue. Those words remain on Schubert's tombstone and perpetuate what I see as an astonishingly durable misconception: the myth that Schubert never achieved complete maturity because he died young and that he failed to reach the level of the greatest masters. When Schubert died at the age of thirty-one his friend Franz Grillparzer, saddened and well-intentioned, but misguided, wrote this epitaph: "Music has buried here great riches but far fairer hopes". This most poignant of tributes to Schubert.
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