The Art Of Piano

Sometime back in the 1840s, a composer and performer named Franz Liszt tried something that was, at the time, entirely new. Sitting at a piano on stage in front of a curious audience, he performed what is believed to have been the first piano recital - and while the term “piano recital� may in itself sound rather dull, Liszt had other plans. He turned the act of playing a piano into an all-stops-out show, with the emphasis being as much on the performer and his unique performance as it was on the music itself. Since then, both the piano and the recital have come a long way; the instrument itself went through substantial change during the 19th century, as compositions by the likes of Beethoven demanded more and more from it. And with a huge body of solo and concerto works to feed them, the piano virtuosi of the 20th century pushed the sheet art of playing the instrument further and further, taking both piano and classical music into unexplored and unexpected places.

A 1999 entry in the ambitious and inspiring Art Of... series of documentaries about specific aspects of classical music, The Art Of Piano chronologically profiles and illustrates the great piano virtuosi of the 20th century through two methods. Highly respected contemporary pianists, conductors and record producers offer their thoughts on each individual artist, while rarely-seen archival footage of those artists at work is presented to give the viewer some idea of what each was capable of, as well as to put each virtuoso’s individual technique, approach and philosophy into perspective. Comments are supplied by luminaries ranging from Daniel Barenboim and Sir Colin Davis to Zoltan Kocsis and the pianist who really should be played by Brendan Fraser should a film ever be made about him, Evgeny Kissin; there are many others also interviewed. The virtuosi that are the subject of this documentary - many of whom get fairly decent screen time, while others do not, probably due to a lack of available footage - represent the cream of 20th century pianists, starting with Paderewski and visiting the astonishing talents of Horowitz, Gould, Arrau, Rubenstein, Cziffra, Richter and the entrancing, remarkable Rachmaninoff, who also composed a good deal of the music that his contemporaries and successors play here.

The whole thing is drawn together by narration that’s spot-on in tone - it provides plenty of information and colour for each artist, while never being patronising, and the narrator’s tone is one of pure enthusiasm, which is never less than infectious. Needless to say, the performances are first-rate - you’re quite literally left wanting more of each artist (and you can, too, on the three disc companion audio CD set!).

It’s worth mentioning that, like the other entries in the Art Of series, this documentary is not a history of the piano itself, nor is it intended to delve especially deeply into the life and times of those who are profiled. The key word here is art - this is, essentially, a collection of performances by some of the greatest and most innovative pianists of the past century, and the art is in their interpretation of the classic works they play, the way in which they physically play them, and in the boundless exploration of what seems to many to be a rather limited musical instrument. The piano is, of course, one of the most expressive instruments in all music - in the right hands. And a great many of those hands are on display right here.

As with any disc that involves the extensive use of archival material, the subject of video quality has to take into account one simple fact - namely, that issues of grain, film artefacts and all of the other things that tend to annoy DVD reviewers are completely irrelevant. With source material ranging from ancient newsreel film to ‘60s and ‘70s television recordings, there is obviously going to be a fair amount of visual distractions - and of course, there are here. But the producers have done a fine job transferring this material to digital video, and it’s fair to say that it all looks as good as it’s ever going to. In fact, some of the clips on offer here look remarkably fresh for their age - and anyway, who’s going to quibble when you have the chance to see an actual performance by Horowitz, Gould or the marvellously over-dapper Michelangeli?

The modern interview material and the production’s titles are telling when it comes to quality - they look utterly flawless, with not a compression problem in sight. All of the interview footage was recorded at a 16:9 aspect ratio, but due to the use of large amounts of full-frame footage throughout, they are presented without anamorphic enhancement. This can’t be avoided, but with a fine encoding job such as this, we doubt many will mind.

Like many NVC Arts DVDs, subtitles are provided for the composer and title of the pieces being played, as well as to translate any non-English interview material. Interestingly, though, on our review player the subtitles were turned off by default - but the subtitles for the titles of the works still appeared. When starting up the disc you’re presented with a language selection menu, then the main menu. You’ll need to turn English subtitles on from there before watching if you want to comprehend what’s being said in some sections.

Unlike The Art Of Violin (which incorporated brief stereo material in its second half), all of the audio here is in mono. Quality widely varies, of course, due to the source material; some restoration has been done, but in order to preserve the timbre and texture of the original sound a lot of tape hiss has been left intact by necessity. Overall, though, it’s remarkable how good most of the archival pieces here sound.

Narration is crisp and crystal-clear, as one would expect from a modern production. The only (minor) complaint is that this Dolby Digital 2.0 track has been mastered at too low a level for our liking.

All that’s offered in terms of extra features is a single HTML file for DVD-ROM users, which contains only a “refresh� tag to direct the browser to the NVC Arts Video web site if you’re connected to the internet. Ironically, that site now redirects you a second time, to NVC Arts’ new location on the Warner Classics web site.

For those without DVD-ROM drives - or those who couldn’t be bothered sticking the disc in the drive to read a 391 byte HTML file - the link to that site (without redirects!) can be found in the “Related Links� section to the right of this page.

If you’ve never discovered the absolute thrill of virtuoso piano playing and have instead spent much of your life thinking of the piano as That Annoying Instrument That People Attempt To Play Ballads On, this is undoubtedly the DVD for you. Just under two hours with some of the finest pianists of all time will change your mind forever about the piano and the music that was written for it. But if you’re already a fan of classical music or even solo piano in particular, you’ll still find plenty about this offering that is worthwhile - not least the chance to see some of the greats in action, rather than merely listen. And when it comes to this corner of the classical world, seeing is almost as important as hearing.

NVC Arts’ DVD is of the highest visual quality possible - and remarkably well authored on a humble single layer disc - and presents this production exquisitely. Highly recommended.

Oh, and if anyone at NVC Arts is reading this - can we please have the greatly-anticipated and mysteriously vanished The Art Of Conducting on DVD sometime soon? Ta.