A film by Jan Schmidt-Garre

Francesco Piemontesi, a BBC Music Magazine award-winning pianist and lauded as a ‘wonderful Mozartian’, has an intense curiosity about his fellow artists – their pianos, the sonorities they cultivate, the secret elements that animate their playing, and what drives them. In this documentary by Jan Schmidt-Garre, filmed over one year, Piemontesi talks with some of the world’s leading performers, including his mentor Alfred Brendel, Maria João Pires, Stephen Kovacevich and Antonio Pappano, in a series of revealing encounters that illuminate their individual approaches to the instrument, its colour and form. The film is complemented by a bonus 60-minute recital by Yulianna Avdeeva, Zlata Chochieva and Francesco Piemontesi, played on Rachmaninoff’s Steinway piano at Villa Senar, his home in Switzerland during the 1930s.

with
Francesco Piemontesi
Alfred Brendel
Ermonela Jaho
Jean-Rodolphe Kars
Stephen Kovacevich
Antonio Pappano
Maria João Pires

Eldar Nebolsin as Sergei Rachmaninoff

also featuring
Yulianna Avdeeva
Zlata Chochieva
Benjamin Heisenberg
Marieke Schroeder
Erwin Stürzer

Bonus:
- At Sergei Vassilyevich’s Piano: A tribute to the pianist Sergei V. Rachmaninoff (A recital at Villa Senar with Yulianna Avdeeva, Zlata Chochieva and Francesco Piemontesi)

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Audio language: English, German
Subtitles: English, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 90 mins (documentary) + 60 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Also available on Blu-ray (NBD0186V)