The Trout and The Greatest Love and The Greatest Sorrow (review)

Abstract

Franz Schubert. The Trout and The Greatest Love and The Greatest Sorrow. DVD. Directed by Christopher Nupen. With Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline Du Pre, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andreas Schmidt, Michael Sanderling, Antje Weithass. Waldron, Heathfield, East Sussex: Opus Arte, 2005. OA CN0903 D. $34.99. This DVD contains two of Christopher Nupen's films: The Trout (1970) and The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow (1994). The first is a documentary and performance of Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet performed in late August 1969 by Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline Du Pre, Zubin Mehta, and Daniel Barenboim. These five musicians were not yet widely recognized names in classical music. The second film is an attempt to portray Schubert's emotional state and its effect on his music following the death of Beethoven. It is not a traditional biographical documentary per se, but conveys the spirit of Schubert's last twenty months with performances of his music as well as readings of his letters and diaries. The first film presents preparations and rehearsals followed by the entire uncut performance of the Trout Quintet. All five musicians featured in the documentary were in their mid- to late twenties and at the cusp of stardom in their individual careers. The television broadcast of this film likely helped these performers to gain a wider audience in a matter of a few years (see, for example, Jim Tosone, Great Performances: The Life's Work of Director Christopher Guitar Review 120 [Spring 2000]: 14-16). This film effervesces with youthful enthusiasm. Nupen films the artists during the week before the performance documenting such things as Pinchas Zukerman selecting a viola in a London violin shop and Itzhak Perlman playing a lullaby to his infant son. The last fifteen minutes before the performance best captures the spirit behind the film. The artists joke with one another and gleefully argue who will go out on stage first. The next film on the DVD, The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow, took many years to complete according to Nupen. By comparison, The Trout only took one week to shoot and eight weeks to edit. Nupen admits in his introduction that The Greatest Love and The Greatest Sorrow was one of the most difficult films that he had ever made. He did not want it to be a film filled with facts and dates; rather it was to depict the essence of Schubert's emotions and creativity after Beethoven's death. The beginning of the film depicts Schubert as a torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral. Nupen, as the narrator, mentions that Schubert had, emerged from Beethoven's shadow and recognized that he himself had become Beethoven's heir. He then refers to the epitaph on Schubert's grave written by Franz Grillparzer, Die Tonkunst begrub hier einen reichen Besitz ooer noch viel schonere Hoffnungen (Music buried here a rich possession but still many fairer hopes [my translation]), as the source of the myth of Schubert's neglect as a composer. …