Three decades ago, visionary Venezuelan musician and politician José Antonio Abreu founded El Sistema, a national system of music education designed as a model for social improvement. Today, some 265,000 Venezuelan children and young people are involved in choirs and orchestras around the country, and El Sistema is exporting some of the world’s finest musicians.

El Sistema takes us from the barrios of Caracas and Maracay to the concert hall of the Lucerne Festival, following the lives of children who have found the way to a better future through the model of the symphony orchestra.

This lyrical and moving documentary shows us young children and their families in their home environments. They speak of their everyday hopes and fears: of gang warfare and gunfire, drugs and violence, and the dream of a better life through education and music. “To my mind, our social problems all stem from a sense of exclusion”, says Abreu. “If you look at the world, you see that exclusion in some form or other is to blame for the explosion of social problems everywhere. So we have to fight to bring as many people as we can, everyone, if possible, into our wonderful world: the world of music, the world of the orchestra, of singing, of art.”

El Sistema shows how children as young as two are taken from the dangers of life on the street and taught the rudiments of music. In one of hundreds of “núcleos” created within the communities themselves they are provided with instruments, music lessons, social support and the chance to work as part of an ensemble. Six days a week, four hours a day, children come together and make music in a safe and supportive environment.

Given acceptance, encouragement and inspiration, they quickly develop into capable musicians. For some, that means better tools for future study in other fields. Others go on to play in the world’s top orchestras. Gustavo Dudamel, now in demand on the world’s best stages, conducts the flagship Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in Caracas and talks of his own experience as a child growing up with El Sistema. His is just one of many stories of transformation and hope.

Quirky, exuberant, honest and heart-warming, El Sistema is both an unlikely journey and an exceptional success story. Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier have created a joyful portrait of the power of music as a positive tool for social change.

The film earned several awards like the “Grand Prix” of the Golden Prague Festival, the “Special Jury Prize” in the category “Feature Length Film Awards” and the “Feature Film Competition Award” in the category “The Ecofilms Team Awards” of the Rodos Ecofilms Festival.

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and premiered in 1996, LA Variations highlights the virtuosity and power of this celebrated American ensemble. In an interview with Allan Kozinn for a 2006 New York Times article, Salonen commented on his breakthrough work: “For me, this was the moment when it all came together; when I finally had the harmonic language that produced the sound I want to hear. I felt free.”

Mr. Salonen provided these notes for LA Variations:
“LA Variations is essentially variations on two chords, each consisting of six notes. Together they cover all twelve notes of a chromatic scale. Therefore the basic material of LA Variations has an ambiguous character: sometimes (most of the time, actually) it is modal (hexatonic), sometimes chromatic, when the two hexachords are used together as a twelve-tone structure.

 
“This ambiguity, combining serial and non-serial thinking, is characteristic of all my work since the mid-’80s, but LA Variations tilts the balance drastically towards the non-serial.

 
“This piece, some 19 minutes of music scored for a large orchestra, including a contrabass clarinet and a synthesizer, is very clear in its form and direct in its expression. The two hexachords are introduced in the opening measures of the piece together in the chromatic phenotype. Alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, and two bassoons, shadowed by three solo violas, play a melody which sounds like a kind of synthetic folk music, but in fact is a horizontal representation of the two hexachords transposed to the same pitch. Some of the variations that follow are based on this melody, others are the deeper, invisible (or inaudible) aspects of the material. There are also elements that never change, like the dactyl rhythm first heard in the timpani and percussion halfway through the piece.”

“Those lucky enough to be present will never forget that historic evening, when people from two long-divided nations were united through the beauty and power of music. By the end of the final encore, both the audience and the musicians onstage stood waving to each other in a new-found spirit of understanding. We are honored and pleased that through this DVD we can share this transformative experience with new audiences for years to come.” -Zarin Mehta, President and Executive Director, New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic’s historic February 2008 trip to Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, at the invitation of its government, was an unprecedented event that garnered worldwide media attention and was broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances series. The concert, which took place on February 26 in the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, was led by the Philharmonic’s Music Director Lorin Maazel and featured music by Wagner, Dvořák, Gershwin, Bizet, and Bernstein-along with the national anthems of both countries.

On September 16, Medici Arts, distributed by Naxos of America, released this remarkable concert on both DVD and Blu-ray disc. This is the first time a performing arts new release has been offered simultaneously in both formats on street-date.

The New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang (Medici Arts 2056948 and BD2056944) includes, in addition to footage of the historic performance, the never before seen documentary film Americans in Pyongyang: The New York Philharmonic Trip to North Korea, directed by Ayelet Heller. Heller’s film features footage of orchestra members giving master classes, as well as other memorable moments from the trip.

“The piccolo played a long, plaintive melody. Cymbals crashed, harp runs flew up, the violins soared. And tears began forming in the eyes of the staid audience … And right there, the Philharmonic had them. The full-throated performance of a piece deeply resonant for both North and South Koreans ended the historic concert in this isolated nation … in triumph.”
-Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times

PROGRAM
National Anthem of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Aegukka
National Anthem of the United States of America The Star-Spangled Banner
Richard Wagner Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III
Antonín Dvořák Symphony No.9 in E minor, From the New World
George Gershwin An American in Paris
Georges Bizet Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite No.2
Leonard Bernstein Candide: Overture
Traditional Arirang

Documentary: “Americans in Pyongyang”
The New York Philharmonic’s Trip to North Korea
Directed by Ayelet Heller

The New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world. Lorin Maazel became Music Director in 2002, succeeding Kurt Masur in a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that has included Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, and Pierre Boulez; Mahler, Walter, and Toscanini. Since the Orchestra was founded in 1842 it has championed the new music of its time, commissioning or premiering many important works, from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893) and Gershwin’s An American in Paris (1928) to John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls (2002, the CD of which received three Grammy Awards), and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto (2007).

The Philharmonic has long played a leading role in American musical life, and over the last century has become renowned around the globe, having appeared in 420 cities in 58 countries on 5 continents, in capitals such as London and Paris, São Paulo and Buenos Aires, and Hong Kong and Tokyo. Long a media pioneer, the Philharmonic began radio ew York Philharmonic To Perform in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea/4 broadcasts in 1922, and is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week; the program is syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year, streamed on the Orchestra’s Website, nyphil.org, and carried on XM Satellite Radio. In addition, the Orchestra’s concerts are now broadcast throughout Europe on BBC Radio 3. On television, in the 1950s and ’60s the Philharmonic inspired a generation of music lovers through Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, telecast on CBS; its presence on television has continued with annual appearances on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center, which began with that series’ inaugural episode in 1976. In 2003 the Philharmonic made television history as the first Orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy Awards telecast, one of the most-watched television events worldwide.

The New York Philharmonic may be the most recorded orchestra in history, with more than 1,500 authorized releases to its credit, starting with its first pressing in 1917. The Internet has expanded the Orchestra’s reach, and in 2006 the Philharmonic became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, which are available on the DG Concerts label, exclusively on iTunes.

Lorin Maazel, who has led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances, became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2002. His appointment came 60 years after his debut with the Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium, then the Orchestra’s summer venue. As Music Director he has conducted seven World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commissions, including the Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams; Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3; and Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto. He has led cycles of works by Brahms and Beethoven, and in 2007 led a Philharmonic festival devoted to Tchaikovsky. He also conducted the Orchestra’s inaugural performances in the DG Concerts series – a groundbreaking initiative to offer downloadable New York Philharmonic concerts exclusively on iTunes.

Mr. Maazel has taken the Orchestra on numerous international tours, including the May 2007 Tour of Europe; the November 2006 visit to Japan and Korea; the June 2006 Tour of Italy, sponsored by Generali; and in autumn 2005, the two-part 75th Anniversary European Tour to thirteen cities in five countries. In addition to the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Maazel is music director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain, and Italy’s Symphonica Toscanini. He has served as music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (1993-2002), and has held positions as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1988-96); general manager and chief conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper (1982-84) – the first American to hold that position; music director of The Cleveland Orchestra (1972-82); and artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1965-71).

On August 26-and in time for the Bernstein 90th Anniversary concert celebrations which begin in September- Medici Arts, distributed by Naxos of America, releases Leonard Bernstein a 5-DVD Anniversary set devoted to performances by the legendary conductor.

The set features performances of Brahms Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (1973); and the first DVD release of Bernstein conducting the Orchestre National de France in a 1976 performance of Franck’s Symphony in D Minor and Darius Milhaud’s ballets La Création du monde and
Le Boeuf sur le toit.

Additionally, the set includes rare audiovisual footage from a 1981 performance with the Vienna Philharmonic of Bernstein performing as piano soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453 (paired with Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543); the historic concert performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, recorded at Schauspielhaus Berlin on December 25, 1989 to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall; and Bernstein’s final appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9, a work he came to at the end of his life.

It took the French film director Georges Gachot 20 years to convince the very private and elusive Martha Argerich to agree to appear on camera for this intimate portrait. The resulting film, Martha Argerich: Evening Talks (Medici Arts 3073428), pays tribute to this great pianist’s 40-year career with a blend of informal conversations and superb performance footage. It also contains rare archival material from across the globe, including footage from her 1957 First Prize win at the Geneva Competition when she was just 16.

The film allows Argerich to express her feelings about music, composers, and musicians and to discuss her background and early career and how they shaped her as an artist. Argerich reminisces about her early studies with Austrian pianist Frederich Gulda, whom she credits with “[teaching] her how to listen.” She also recounts her yearlong stint with Michelangeli, during which time she received only four lessons. Moreover, she recalls the crisis she experienced in her early 20s, which spurred fellow Argentinean pianist (and conductor) Daniel Barenboim to once say, “Martha, you are like a very beautiful painting without the frame.” It becomes clear that her abandonment of solo performance so early in her career grew partly out of the intense loneliness she felt during this period.

However, through her commitment to concerto and chamber music repertoire, Martha Argerich developed into a deeply generous artist, never satisfied with herself and always looking for new meanings and approaches to her repertoire. “I find something new all the time,” she explains. “I hope I always will; I always doubt and I’m always groping.” She finds her deepest satisfaction in communicating with other musicians and communing with composers, whose music is inarguably part of her DNA. Gulda once told her “It’s not your fault that Schumann was not Argentinean.” As she plays Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor (effortlessly, it would seem), the listener notes that the music appears to be a natural extension of her being. “I hope I’m not bad for him,” Argerich remarks. “Schumann is very intimate for me, but I hope he likes me.” It is not surprising to hear this unique artist make such a humble comment about her work. Argerich appears utterly possessed by the composer’s essence each time she performs his music-but constantly critiques her own playing.

In a 2001 article about Martha Argerich for The New Yorker, critic Alex Ross wrote “Argerich brings to bear qualities that are seldom contained in one person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose native language is music. This last may be the quality that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that allows them to embody the music rather than interpret it.” One listen to the Scarlatti encore from her performance in Zurich, and the viewer will know what Ross means.

FEATURED MUSIC INCLUDES:

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.4, Op.58; Claudio Arrau, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (audio only).

Piazzolla/Hubert: Libertango; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Pescara, 2000

Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1; Martha Argerich, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf. Paris, 1973

Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1, Op.11; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de l’ORTF, Franco Mannino. Paris, 1969

Beethoven: “Moonlight” Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2 – Friedrich Gulda, piano. Vienna, 1968

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2, Op.19 – Martha Argerich, piano & conductor, London Sinfonietta. Milan, 1980

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Charles Dutoit. Paris, 1991

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 26; Martha Argerich, London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn. Croydon, 1977

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 – Martha Argerich, piano (aged 15). 1957 (audio only)

Chopin: Scherzo, Op. 39 No. 3 – Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1965

Bach: Partita No. 2, BWV 826: Capriccio – Martha Argerich, piano. Zurich, 2001

Schumann: Piano Concerto, Op. 54; Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Jörg Faerber. Heilbronn, 2001

Saint-Saens: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28 (arr. for violin and piano); Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Geneva, 2000

Dvorak: Slavonic Dance, Op.72 No. 2, Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Pescara, 2000 (arr. for violin and piano)

Lutosławski: Variations on a Theme by Paganini – Martha Argerich, Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Pescara,
2000

Ravel: Ma Mère l’oye: Laideronette, Impératrice des Pagodes; Martha Argerich & Nelson Freire, piano 4 hands. Buenos Aires, 1999

Schumann: Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, Op.15 No.1 – Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1980
Prokofiev: Toccata, Op.11 – Martha Argerich, piano (audio only)

EXTRAS (duration: 38 min.):

Witold Lutosławski, Variations on a Theme by Paganini; Martha Argerich & Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000

Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54; Director’s cut of the rehearsals. Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, conducted by Jörg Faerber. Recorded at Heilbronn, Germany, 2001

Astor Piazzolla, arr. Eduardo Hubert; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000.
Libertango
Tres minutos con la realidad

Encores by Martha Argerich
Recorded in Zurich, Switzerland, 2001.
Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, K141
Frederic Chopin, Mazurka in F minor, Op.63 No.2
Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV826: Capriccio

This 1989 London recital features Richter in performances of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, K 282, K 545, K 310; Chopin’s Études, Op.10: No.1 to No.6 and No.10 to No.12, and Études Op.25: Nos. 5, 6, 8, 11. Bonus material includes a BBC broadcast from1969 with Richter performing Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, Nos. 4 and 12; and Rachmaninoff’s Étude-Tableau, Op. 39, No.3.

Richter enthusiasts will enjoy comparing the Barbican performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, No. 4 to the performance included in the bonus material, which features Richter at his peak in 1969. Richter closes the Barbican recital with a towering performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 25/11 in A minor, which brings the house down, highlighting his legendary artistry.

The distinguished pianist, composer, and teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993) represents the wealth of piano talent to flood from the former Soviet Union during the 20th century.

Shostakovich’s cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues always held a special place in Nikolayeva’s heart: she inspired and premiered the work in Leningrad in 1952, and it was the piece she performed when she died in concert in San Francisco in 1993. She also made three recordings of the work. The lifelong friendship between Shostakovich and Nikolayeva began when the 26-year-old pianist won first prize at the 1950 Bach Piano competition, organized in Leipzig for the bicentennial of the German composer’s death. As a member of the jury, Shostakovich (1906-1975) was so impressed and inspired by her playing that he returned to Moscow to compose his own set of Preludes and Fugues in 1950/51. This DVD features a broadcast recording from December 1992 of the complete cycle and includes more of Shostakovich’s music played by Tatiana Nikolayeva in a documentary bonus film.

Born in 1929 in Sofia, Bulgaria, pianist Alexis Weissenberg studied both in Bulgaria and Jerusalem before attending The Juilliard School, where he studied with famed pedagogue Olga Samaroff (conductor Leopold Stokowki’s first wife).

This extraordinary document features a 1965 film by Swedish filmmaker and former assistant to Ingmar Bergman, Åke Falck, which shows Mr. Weissenberg performing the Petrushka Suite. The shooting took 10 days and required a special “silent” piano be built; Weissenberg performed in sync with a playback of his actual performance, while he listened through loudspeakers set at a distance from him (the viewer learns much more about the making of the film in the bonus material). The result is an amazing feat of both pianism and filmmaking, which brings the complexity of Stravinsky’s fiendishly difficult piano score into sharp focus (he transcribed the Petrushka Suite note-for-note from the orchestral version). .

In addition to Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka, the film includes other archival performances taken from various broadcast sources from the 1960s, which feature repertoire including Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 3; Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9, No. 2; Rachmaninoff’s Prelude, Op. 23, No.6; Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 – Largo, Nocturne Op. Posth. in C minor, Étude, Op. 25, No. 7; J.S. Bach’a Chromatic Fantasy, BWV 903, Partita No.6 – Courante; and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 83, with the Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Georges Prêtre, conductor – 8/31/69

In his film Helicopter String Quartet, Frank Scheffer documents the complex preparations in the month leading up to the premiere of this work, eliciting insights from the composer on its conception and execution. Stockhausen tells Scheffer that the idea came to him in a dream about musicians who could fly. He subsequently produced a fascinatingly original score in which the music for each instrument is written in a different color, and in which the four string lines frequently jump from one staff to the other in imitation of birds flying in formation. Stockhausen also analyzes the content of the work for Scheffer, highlighting how the writing for the quartet merges with the sonic characteristics of the helicopters. Scheffer goes behind the scenes and, stage by stage, depicts the enormous effort behind the realization of Helikopter-Streichquartett.