Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72858 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 57 minutes

Customer Reviews

A fitting tribute to a great artist.
Wanda Landowska's recordings continue to be reissued, and reviews of them on the website continue to attract interest. Her admirers will welcome this worthy DVD. It may cost much more than the average price but its value is inestimable.

Somehow the compilers have contrived to tell her story in chronological order without need for a commentator. Pupils, other musicians, critics, friends, and (most valuably) Landowska herself do all the talking. Film clips and stills are incorporated.

Known from her recordings to be a dazzling personality and creative performer, it is no surprise to see that a similarly vivid persona is revealed in her only filmed interview. Amongst other things, when reminiscing, she describes how she spent many hours playing on her harpsichord for the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. "He was the most musical human being I ever met," she comments.

Landowska's personal losses and victories, the genius and the ferocious willpower - all are made evident. There are also all the known film clips of her playing her Pleyel harpsichord. How those fingers arch back, each one poised above the keys like a scorpion's tail!

The documentary material extends for nearly an hour, after which, as a bonus, you can listen to her pioneering 1933 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.