Sviatoslav Richter

A Russian animated short.

The young composer Mikhail Glinka performs his new work at a soiree at earl Vielgorsky's house. However, the public is accustomed to Western music, and reacts coldly to the creation of the composer. This makes him very sad, but soon he decides to go learn the art of music in Italy. After returning from Italy, he is full of desire to write national Russian opera. Vasily Zhukovsky proposes a subject: a feat of Ivan Susanin. Tsar Nicholas I change the name of the opera to A Life for the Tsar and assigns a librettist - Baron Rosen. Acquaintance with the future co-author shocked Glinka: Rosen speaks Russian with a noticeable German accent. The premiere was successful, but Glinka was still not entirely happy with the libretto: "False words were written by Rosen". When Nicholas I learned that Ruslan and Lyudmila was written on Pushkin's subject, he sees it as sedition. The bitter experience of the composer brighten his supporters.

A behind-the-scenes look at the Aldeburgh Festival and the opening by The Queen of the new concert hall at Snape.

A portrait of one of England's greatest composers. Winner of the Prix Italia.

This biography of Sviatoslav Richter, the great Russian pianist who dedicated his life to music and had little regard for fame in the West, shines a light on his formative years and places him against the setting of a chaotic USSR culture.

On November 26, 1976, Massimo Bacigalupo was in Catania with his 16mm camera, filming the streets of the city at the foot of Mount Etna and the people lingering and strolling about. The movement and the pauses in everyday life —seemingly boring and not particularly appealing— captured the filmmaker’s attention. Bacigalupo recalls those diary-style film shots, edited years later into a film:

Experimental short film