GB
Rose Sellars is a middle-aged woman who falls in love with a widower. However, his children believe that their father is too old to start a new relationship.
May 1990
The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.
Nov 1988
A documentary portrait of composer Malcolm Arnold. Broadcast in two parts on The South Bank Show but premiered in its entirety at the Royal Festival Hall
Oct 2004
A portrait of one of England's greatest composers. Winner of the Prix Italia.
Jan 1979
Documentary covering the famous Wigan Casino northern soul venue and the working class kids who spend all their money not on alcohol but on records and dancing all night.
Dec 1977
A biographical look at the career of the acclaimed Margot Fonteyn. As a little girl called Peggy Hookham growing up in Shanghai, she told her mother she would one day become the greatest dancer in the world. Still performing at the age of 67 despite being almost unable to walk, hers is a story of courage and tenacity, of unbelievable devotion to her art and to those whom she loved. Those who ultimately left her penniless and alone, to be buried in a pauper’s grave.
Jan 2005
This is Palmer's highly controversial portrait of Brahms - a film that exploded the familiar image of 'stodgy old bearded Brahms' - a man whose first musical experience had been playing an upright piano in the brothels of Hamburg where he had grown up, and who at the end of his life lived a bachelor in Vienna having his every need satisfied by the prostitutes of the city whom he always affectionately described as his ‘little singing girls'. It is a celebration - of Brahms' unabashed, life-enhancing, sexually explosive music. Warren Mitchell portrays the composer
Jan 1996
Explores the life and career of American soprano Renée Fleming. Share an intimate visit with Renée behind the scenes, at home and on stage as she rehearses and performs in Verdi’s Otello and Requiem, and sings Strauss, Mozart, Dvorák, Korngold, Ellington, Gershwin, Puccini, Massenet, and Rachmaninoff. Other world-class artists featured in this fascinating personal portrait include: Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Sir Peter Hall, Valery Gergiev, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Katarina Witt, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ben Heppner, Daniel Barenboim, André Previn, and Gianfranco Ferré.
Feb 2002