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Art of Piano | 
| Director: Donald Sturrock
Studio: NVC Arts
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 34.99
Buy New: CDN$ 27.99
You Save: CDN$ 7.00 (20%)
New (2) from CDN$ 27.99
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 16118
Format: Classical, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), German (Dubbed)
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 29199
UPC: 639842919920
EAN: 0639842919920
ASIN: B00004UF01
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: September 24, 2002
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
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| Editorial Reviews:
From Amazon.com
IThe Art of the Piano/I 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 Tamas Vasary. 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 IThe Art of Singing/I, 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. I--Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
Nice! July 5, 2004
vikingtraider (Sydney, Australia)
This DVD is definitely cool!pLet's have a look at the great stuff:p- nice commentary and interviews from many 'greats'br- unbelievable amounts of cool ancient footage which I haven't seen before (admittedly, I'm not widely knowledgeable in this area)br- pretty nice editing.. good mix of enjoyable music with commentary...pNegatives? I don't know.. maybe...p- the limitations (in detail particularly) of it being a 1.5 hour movie..br- not entirely sure if it's of good journalistic value.. eg Cortot seems to be praised much more than criticised... not a balanced view..pIt's great.. piano music fans need to get this!!
 It's Even Better on DVD February 21, 2004
J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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, Gyoergy Cziffra, Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein and to have interviews with current musicians like Sir Colin Davis, Stephen Kovacevich, Daniel Barenboim, Piotr Anderszewski, Tamas Vasary, and Gary Graffman.pRecommended.pScott Morrison
 incomplete! September 22, 2003
jon (toronto, canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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...
Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden August 28, 2003
marymagdalengot it (usa)
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, BUT.... May 21, 2003
Derek C. Oppen (Charlottesville, Va United States)
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. pGood 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.
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