Product Details

• Actors: Rachmaninoff, Gielgud, Gergiev
• Directors: Tony Palmer
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Subtitles: English, Italian
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: KULTUR VIDEO
• DVD Release Date: July 31, 2007
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000Q66Q10
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,364 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Harvest of Sorrow - Tony Palmer's Film About Sergei Rachmaninoff" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Specially commissioned performances conducted by VALERY GERGIEV with the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus of The Mariinsky Theater
Chorus Master Valery Borisov

Rachmaninoff s letters and other reminiscences spoken by Sir John Gielgud.

Used in films like Brief Encounter and Shine; on TV in The South Bank Show and Panorama; on radio in Semprini Serenade; and including some of the most famous melodies of the 20th century, Rachmaninoff s romantic, passionate music is as popular today as it has ever been. This 100-minute documentary film, shot in Russia, Switzerland and America, is made with the full participation of the composer s grandson, Alexander Rachmaninoff.

Featuring soloists Mikhail Pletnev (with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, and his own Russian National Orchestra), Dmitri Hvorostovsky and young stars Valentina Igoshina, Peter Jablonski and Nikolai Putilin, the music is specially recorded with the great conductor Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus of the Mariinsky Theater in St Petersburg, with which Rachmaninoff was intimately associated. Tony Palmer s film, with Rachmaninoff s own words spoken by Sir John Gielgud, is a unique and loving insight into a world long gone, but definitely not forgotten.

Extracts from home movies of Sergei Rachmaninoff © Alexander Rachmaninoff used by kind permission of Alexander Rachmaninoff.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing Musical Biography, August 9, 2007

By 

A. Pfeffer "apfeffer" (San Marcos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Harvest of Sorrow - Tony Palmer's Film About Sergei Rachmaninoff (DVD)

I saw this film in a commercial-ridden broadcast on the Ovation Channel and enjoyed it, so I expect the commercial-free DVD to be even more attractive. I'm not always a fan of Tony Palmer's bio-pics--like all biographers these days and as his title suggests, he portrays his celebrity subjects as exploited victims, no matter how successful, acclaimed, privileged, and controlling they really were. Here, though, "sorrow" emerges not from villainous parents, impresarios, lovers, capitalists, or fascists, but from the composer's life as a victim of history. Specifically, crushing critical hostility toward his early works and then, just as he settled in as a renowned master composer, the Bolshevik revolution and permanent exile from his beloved homeland. This story is told compellingly and quite objectively, with stirring musical examples and without melodramatic re-enactments. No sign either, thank goodness, of snooty modernist musicologists denouncing Rachmaninoff's music as "kitsch." Some of the photography of the Russian countryside with its birch forests is stunning. I didn't expect that consummate non-Russian John Gielgud to serve well as the voice(-over) of Rachmaninoff, but he turns out to be ideal and very droll, capturing the composer's dourness, frustration with bustling Western society, and nostalgia for the old country and the ancestral estates. Music-lovers and Rachmaninoff-lovers, you ought to see this film.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rachmaninoff, October 23, 2007

By 

Rita Campbell (Wasilla, AK, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Harvest of Sorrow - Tony Palmer's Film About Sergei Rachmaninoff (DVD)

This film by Tony Palmer shows performances of Rachmaninoff's works by Valery Gergiev and others. It includes scenes of a Rachmaninoff museum, and places where he lived in Russia. It recounts historical events, his travels and concert tours, and interviews with some of his grandchildren. Best of all it shows many home movie segments where Rachmaninoff is cavorting, smiling, and showing an intimate and surprisingly lighthearted side. Sir John Gielgud gives voice to Rachmaninoff's letters and reminiscences about his life. I don't see how anyone could watch this wonderful film, and not come away loving Rachmaninoff more than ever.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Moving Tribute to a Great Composer, November 6, 2007

By 

Kevin M. Moore "pianist/teacher" (Syracuse, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Harvest of Sorrow - Tony Palmer's Film About Sergei Rachmaninoff (DVD)

This video reviews the life and music Rachmaninoff. It is touchingly and movingly done, interspersing first-rate performances of the music with extraordinary film clips of Rachmaninoff at home. Anyone who loves this music must see this magnificently done documentary.