Stravinsky

There's a lovely few minutes at the start of this documentary that features Julian Bream playing on the lute. Not an instrument I've heard often but it was clear this artist's skill captivated Igor Stravinsky as he sat in a theatre stall and watched. This gives us an early indication as to just how profound this man's interest in music and it's instruments was. For the next fifty minutes we follow him as he prepares the Canadian CBC Symphony Orchestra to make a live recording of his three hour-plus "Symphony of Psalms". Leading the orchestra himself, he doesn't rehearse as such - he intends to play the whole thing through commenting and recapping as required, to ensure that everyone is on the same page by the conclusion. This run-through is interspersed with some contributor's comment and underpinned by a narration and an interview that illustrates that this now proud American citizen is also a man who has a distinguished European past too. His contacts book would have been a thing to marvel at - everyone from Tchaikovsky and Diaghilev to Prokoviev were his luncheon partners. He even got arrested with Picasso for relieving himself against a wall in Madrid! His conversation is engaging and lively - though he is no pushover, and clearly knows (and gets) what he wants. As fly on the wall films go, this is less intrusive than many - we are shown the door on one or two occasions and I found that added a bit of realism to this interesting portrait of a man who spanned two empires - one with a crown and one without, and he seems to have kept his feet on the ground too.

This rather brief 1-hour documentary (in B&W) from 1965 shows Stravinsky conducting a recording of his "Symphony of Psalms" in Canada. We then follow him as he travels to Hamburg by boat. There are interviews with his second wife Vera, Bob Craft, Nicolas Nabokov, Stravinsky...and a brief clip of Balanchine rehearsing Movements for piano and orchestra (where one can recognize a very young Suzanne Farrell, Karin von Aroldingen, Jacques d'Amboise) Unfortunately, there's no interview with Mr. B.

I enjoyed this documentary immensely. It's a thrill to see the great Stravinsky near the end of his life--still vigorous in spirit (though physically frail), speaking warmly with his old friend Nabokov, drinking Scotch in his Hamburg hotel room... And we get to see a little of the Boswell-Johnson relationship between Craft and Igor. My few complaints are: no extras on the DVD and no interview with Balanchine. I don't understand why the directors did that. Nevertheless, it's worth renting (Netflix has it)or buying if you love Stravinsky. If you're new to Stravinsky, though, this documentary won't provide you with a lot of background/biographical information.