I'm fed up with reading disinformation about my film of Leonard Cohen, Bird on a Wire, even to the extent of getting its title wrong. The film I made did not cost $130,000, as quoted in several biographies, nor "several hundred thousand dollars" according to the most recent book by Tim Footman.  Footman can't even get the date the film was made correct, or its title !!

He also fails to mention that BBC had wanted to show in their Omnibus arts programme the film I had made, which had taken my usual month to edit and complete.  When Cohen decided he could do better, he - or rather the editor he appointed - spent the following 9 months re-editing the material and the resulting film was turned down flat by the BBC as being a mess compared with the original.  He also then spent his own money, whereas the original film had been paid for by his long-time manager Marty Machat.

And it was through Machat's son, and an extraordinary series of co-incidences, that we have managed to find all the original material, some of it in very poor condition, but most importantly all the original sound recordings and dubbing tracks of the film.  It was been a joy - although an exceedingly expensive one - to slowly but surely restore the original film. My admiration for Leonard's music and the group of highly skilled musicians who accompanied him on that European tour, has again been rekindled. Above all, my love for the man: a good man, and a great song writer.

In December 1974 Tangerine Dream were invited to play in the grand setting of Rheims Cathedral, a move certainly seen at the time as groundbreaking. Because of this, they were then invited to perform in the cathedrals of York, Liverpool and Coventry. The tour attracted unprecedented coverage in the media, especially at Coventry Cathedral, an iconic building rising like a Phoenix on the ruins of the old cathedral bombed to bits by the Germans in 1940 (Tangerine Dream is, after all, a German band) as a celebration of peace and reconciliation, as well as a lasting showcase for great contemporary art. The nave is dominated by a gigantic tapestry by Graham Sutherland, the main door dwarfed by a scuplture of St Michael & The Devil by Jacob Epstein, and the consecration in 1962 heard the first performance of Britten's incomparable 'War Requiem. To their lasting credit, Tangerine Dream contributed to this celebration. 

This DVD will be  welcomed by the massive Tangerine Dream fan base, and also seen for what it is - a meeting of cultures and for a brief moment in time, a time where the past met both the present and the future.

In 1945, the new Polish Government asked for the heart of Chopin previously buried in Paris.  A woman called Paulina Czernika approached the Polish Government claiming to have some love letters from the composer to her great-grandmother, the Countess Delfina Potocka.  Eventually alarmed, the Ministry began a witch-hunt against Madame Czernika - Delfina Potocka was the only woman to whom Chopin had dedicated any music - these letters were said to be pornographic, anti-Semitic and thoroughly damaging to the image of the composer as a Polish hero. Czernika ‘committed suicide' on 17th October 1949, 100 years to the day after the death of Chopin - or was she murdered, and if so, why? Were the letters in fact forgeries? And what was the truth about Delfina Potocka?   Tony Palmer's dramatised film tells the story of Czernika Potocka, probing a veritable mystery in a series of parallel scenes from 1945 and 1845.  New light is shed on Chopin himself, not least in the interpretation of the music brought to life miraculously by the beautiful young Russian pianist, Valentina Igoshina.

The Soundtrack of Tony Palmer's classic film: The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka - The Mystery of Chopin.

In 1945, the new Polish Government asked for the heart of Chopin previously buried in Paris.  A woman called Paulina Czernika approached the Polish Government claiming to have some love letters from the composer to her great-grandmother, the Countess Delfina Potocka.  Eventually alarmed, the Ministry began a witch-hunt against Madame Czernika - Delfina Potocka was the only woman to whom Chopin had dedicated any music - these letters were said to be pornographic, anti-Semitic and thoroughly damaging to the image of the composer as a Polish hero. Czernika ‘committed suicide' on 17th October 1949, 100 years to the day after the death of Chopin - or was she murdered, and if so, why? Were the letters in fact forgeries? And what was the truth about Delfina Potocka?   Tony Palmer's dramatised film tells the story of Czernika Potocka, probing a veritable mystery in a series of parallel scenes from 1945 and 1845.  New light is shed on Chopin himself, not least in the interpretation of the music brought to life miraculously by the beautiful young Russian pianist, Valentina Igoshina. She explains what the music means to her and plays much of the music contained in the film in a specially recorded recital.

I had long admired Warren Mitchell as an actor. In spite of being crippled to some extent by his most famous creation, Alf Garnett in 'Til Death Us Do Part, brilliant though he was, one always felt instinctively there was an extraordinary actor struggling to get out. And sure enough, when I saw him as Willy Loman in Miller's Death of a Salesman at the National Theatre, I knew (as did everyone else who was lucky enough to see him) that I was in the presence of greatness.

He threw himself into the part of Brahms will enormous gusto. He recognised that this was to be no ‘ordinary' composer portrait, and when the shit hit the fan as the English critics initially rubbished the film, he was its most vigorous advocate, for which I have always been grateful. What had offended more-or-less everyone was the film's affirmation that the familiar image of the stodgy old Brahms was a million miles from the truth. His first musical experience had been playing an upright piano in the brothels of Hamburg where he had grown up, and at the end of his life (in fact for the last 15 years) he had 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'. None of this was thought either factually correct or (worse) relevant to his music - which of course is nonsense.

"Palmer at his most ridiculous",was one of the kinder reviews. Of course, the musical establishment was outraged. The Head of Music at the BBC (which of course refused to show the film) was heard to say "the film was disgusting."

Indeed it is, and I am glad it is so because it helped explode the myth of ‘stodgy old (bearded) Brahms' as perpetuated by dreary films such as Song of Love with Robert Walker, or Spring Symphony with Nastassja Kinski, or all those turgid, mawkish documentaries about the supposed ‘love affair' between Clara Schumann and Brahms. I've counted three made by the BBC alone. In spite of some success around the world, this film has still never been shown in Britain.

And, surprise surprise, some years after the film was finished, a new biography of Brahms by Jan Swafford, the American composer and musicologist at Boston Conservatory, was published ‘proving' (if that is the word) that everything I had ventured about Brahms' life turned out to be essentially true.

But this film is not about scoring points; rather it is a celebration of unabashed, life-enhancing, sexually explosive music. Warren Mitchell, who was more-or-less the same age as the Brahms he portrays in the film, rose to the challenge with fire in his belly.  He loved all the naked girls, and who would not? Brahms did, and that's what made him the great composer he is.

TONY PALMER

Berlioz died in 1869, broken by the failure to get his masterpiece, on which he had laboured for thirty years, performed.  It was not staged complete until twenty-one years after his death. The manuscript was not published complete until one hundred years after his death.

The experience of producing an opera fired my own imagination, and I begged Melvyn Bragg to let me make a film about Berlioz, in spite of the fact that he was not English and was very dead.

I, Berlioz remains one of my favourite films, or at least one which gives me pleasure every time I watch it. More seriously, I was repeatedly reminded of what an astonishingly fresh composer Berlioz is. Mahler and Strauss are known to have studied his scores intimately, such was his absolute and totally original mastery of orchestration. And the famous textbook on the subject by Rimsky-Korsakov, who had actually studied under Berlioz, was on the bookshelves of two other great composers - his pupil Stravinsky..... and Benjamin Britten.

All My Loving? The Films of Tony Palmer is the first book length study of a man who, in a career of over forty years, has directed and produced more than a hundred documentary and theatrical films, directed stage plays and operas, authored books and columns, hosted radio and television programs, and garnered dozens of awards, including multiple Italia Prizes (television's most coveted award) - "the best director in television," according to Ken Russell. Palmer takes us backstage to protest-and-acidfueled rock concerts with his friend John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, glittering Las Vegas shows with Michael Crawford, legendary ballet performances with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, memorable stage productions with Richard Burton and playwright John Osborne, politically-charged operas with John Adams and Peter Sellars, and music festivals with Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, Plácido Domingo in Salzburg, Yehudi Menuhin in London, Maria Callas in Paris and Valery Gergiev in St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre in Russia.  Palmer knew them all.

In the words of renowned film critic and historian David Thomson "Palmer has made an absolutely unique contribution to films about art and music. A genius sitting in our own backyard."

Henry Purcell is a mystery. We know where he's buried (next to Vaughan Williams in Westminster Abbey), but that's about it.  We don't even know who paid for his memorial stone in the Abbey.  No-one knows for sure where he was born or even precisely when he was born.  We don't know who his father was, nor the name of his mother.  He lived exactly the same number of years as Mozart - only thirty-five - but we only know in detail what he did for three of those years.  Page after page of the manuscripts of some of his master-works are completely blank.  Purcell was - and is - a mystery, except that we know he wrote over a thousand works, at least one for every working week of his life.

How then to make a film about such a mysterious, almost non-existent, ‘person' whose glorious music remains our principal source of ‘information'? I knew that John Osborne, with whom I had worked several times, played Purcell's music more-or-less continuously in his great house in Shropshire - as he later wrote for the film, "I lived among the hills foot-marked here, rooted here, in ancient English time." Although already very sick, the challenge breathed new life into the old dog, as he would have said.  Tragically he died before the film was finished, and his work was skilfully completed by his friend (he always referred to him as ‘Corporal') Charles Wood.

The film was first shown in its entirety on Channel FOUR in the UK on Christmas Day 1995 to mark the 300th anniversary of Purcell's death.

Rachmaninoff's passionate music is more popular today than it has ever been. This 100-minute documentary, filmed in Russia, Switzerland and America, made with the full participation of the composer's grandson, Alexander Rachmaninoff, celebrates the life and work of a remarkable musician and composer of genius who, forced into exile in 1917, became the greatest pianist of his day.

Featuring soloists Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Mikhail Pletnev (with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, and his own Russian National Orchestra),Valentina Igoshina, Peter Jablonski, Nikolai Putilin and the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg (with which Rachmaninoff was intimately associated) are conducted by Valery Gergiev. 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.

"André Previn at 80! It scarcely seems credible. This is the man who won 4 Oscars almost 50 years ago, and still maintains a full conducting, playing and composing schedule, each discipline of which would exhaust a man half his age. And he really is a phenomenal pianist, a conductor of profound insights, and a composer of considerable tonal originality. I once asked him how many songs he had written. After much hesitation, he told me he couldn't really remember. And that was not modesty; he just had no idea. In fact, there are hundreds, in a sense culminating in his much underestimated opera, A Streetcar Named Desire, which is how we met.

This film was made during the preparations, rehearsals and first performances of that opera in San Francisco. Two anecdotes illustrate for me the extraordinary musician I had the honour to work with. I knew of course that he was a jazz pianist whom even Oscar Peterson held in awe, so I was determined to film him playing jazz. He refused. "I really haven't played jazz in public for years", he told me. Then by chance I discovered that he had been invited to play at bass player Ray Brown's 70th birthday celebrations at the Blue Note Club in New York. I pleaded with Previn to allow me to film this. He refused. So, of course, I hid away in the Blue Note Club and, thanks to the wonders of digital cameras, no extra lights were required, so I was more-or-less invisible. After the first of the two shows, I went backstage to say hello. As always, he greeted me with the utmost courtesy and said: "not bad, eh, for an out-of-practice old timer?" (His playing and improvisation had of course been breathtaking). "Pity you didn't film it...."

Well, um....... He laughed and said: "hope you got it in focus."

So, on the occasion of Previn's 80th birthday, here is the newly re-mastered original film by way of a small tribute. It was, and is, a privilege to know him and to acknowledge his greatness as a musician and his very special qualities as man."

Tony Palmer

Tony Palmer directs this prize-winning film about the great English composer Henry Purcell. Very little is known about his life, but the script - by Charles Wood and the late John Osborne - solves this problem by launching a group of actors in the 1960s on a voyage of discovery into the 1660s & late-17th century England, the extraordinary period in which Purcell lived. But it is Purcell's music which is the driving force of the drama, with a stunning soundtrack conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

Features an all-star cast with Simon Callow as Charles, Michael Ball as Henry Purcell, Letitia Dean as Barbara, Nina Young as Mrs Purcell, Corin Redgrave as William III, Lucy Speed as Nell, John Shrapnel as Pepys, Robert Stephens as Dryden, Murray Melvin as Shaftesbury, Terence Rigby as Cooke, Peter Woodthorpe as Kiffen, John Fortune as Clarendon, Edward Michie as young Harry and Bill Kenwright as Bill.

Subtitles included: English, German, Spanish and Italian.

The original 1971 (uncut) intimate study with and about the legendary actor which, as he later admitted, was "the only portrait which really understood me". Banned by the BBC at the time, this devastating fi lm reveals the full tragedy of a man who had everything, but believed he had nothing. With contributions from RINGO STARR, RAQUEL WELCH, LAURENCE HARVEY, YUL BRYNNER, HARVEY ORKIN, KENNETH TYNAN, GRAHAM STARK and especially SPIKE MILLIGAN and other friends who loved him.

"Palmer's extraordinary films not only keep faith with their subjects, but they do something altogether more unusual these days.  They take an argument about what makes great art and present it to a mass audience, and do so with a passion and conviction which could have belonged to the subjects themselves.  They are therefore quite marvellous portraits, unequalled on television."

GILLIAN REYNOLDS - The Daily Telegraph

On May 8th 1956, Look Back in Anger changed theatrical history. It's a fact. But why? And in what ways? And could it possibly be true that Osborne wrote very little else of consequence, as some of his harshest critics maintain? And what exactly did his outbursts against the world in which he found himself really represent?

Osborne believed in an England which he saw successive governments destroying, and saw himself as almost a lone voice screaming protest - it was as simple as that. But this protest was maintained at a terrible cost, to his wives, to his professional standing, to his health, to his pocket, and eventually to his own self-confidence. He made an epic journey from the most successful playwright of his generation, to a forlorn and almost forgotten figure, railing at those who preferred to ignore him. But what was really extraordinary was that throughout that journey, he never lost the fiery power of tongues.

A unique aspect of this two-hour film is the recent discovery of extracts from some of the original stage performances of Osborne's most famous plays, material of great historical importance not seen for almost 40 years. - Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer; Albert Finney in Luther; Nicol Williamson in Inadmissable Evidence; Robert Stephens in Epitaph for George Dillon; Jill Bennett in A Patriot for Me, with a very young John Osborne as Reidl. Apart from a behind-the-scenes look at Osborne's Oscar-winning film, Tom Jones, other contributions are from David Hare, Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, John Heilpern (Osborne's authorized biographer), Peter Nichols, Christopher Hampton, Jocelyn Herbert, Claire Bloom, Charles Wood, Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson, Natasha Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, Peter Bowles, Ben Walden, Terence Frisby, Bill Bryden, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Page and the late Helen Osborne, with extracts from other plays performed by Peter Egan and Tom Hollander.

"Testimony is one of those comparatively rare events nowadays - a real piece of cinema. Palmer's prowess as an editor, his knack of juxtaposing image and music - something which has remained his forte since he first caused a stir back in the Sixties with Buddhist monks burning to The Beatles - has a field day in Testimony. Most importantly for a movie about a composer, there is always the feeling that Palmer understands the music. For a start he puts to rest the hoary old cliché that the private Shostakovich is only to be found in his chamber music - try listening to the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Fourteenth symphonies - but he also brings vividly alive musical details (like the composer's use of unison scoring) in colour sequences showing the orchestra, as in the climax of the Fifth..... a truly remarkable film."

Derek Elley ‘Films & Filming'

Menuhin, a name that was legendary for over 60 years, and remains so today. A good man and a great violinist, whose childhood was blessed with happiness and success unparalleled even among child prodigies. At least, that was the legend. The truth was painfully different. The violinist who inspired Einstein to remark; "Now I know there is a God in heaven", was also a man of whom his sister could say: "We have done more harm to people we love than we ever believed ourselves capable of doing to people we didn't love".

Filmed in Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Moscow, New York, San Francisco and Switzerland, and using much material not seen previously from Menuhin's own archive, this heart-rending and multi-award winning film included all the members of Menuhin's family living at the time, who struggle to piece together what had really happened to the son of Russian/ Tartar parents who was defiantly named Yehudi - ‘the Jew'.

Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort were two bands with a common thread. Ian Matthews. Ian Matthews had been a founder member of Fairport Convention and performed on the bands first two albums Fairport Convention and What We Did On Our Holidays. When he left the band in early 1969 he formed his next band Matthews Southern Comfort. By the time the summer of 1970 had rolled around Fairport Convention had also undergone many changes and the line up now included founder members Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol alongside Dave Swarbrick Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks. The band had recently released the album Full House and this particular line up became known as the “Full House” line up

In July 1970 Fairport Convention found themselves alongside Matthews Southern Comfort playing at the Maidstone Fiesta an open air concert. This concert was captured on film by the renowned British film director Tony Palmer. The restored film was released on DVD for the first time in 2007.

This CD is the audio portion of the concert performance and captures the Full House line up at their height. The band performs the song Sir Patrick Spens alongside various jigs and reels and also the song Now Be Thankful which had been released as a single at the time.

Matthews Southern Comfort is also featured performing two songs and at this point in their career just a few months away from a number one single with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock. Alongside Ian Matthews the band featured Carl Barnwell, Gordon Huntley, Ray Duffy, Mark Griffiths and Andy Leigh. Songs performed by Matthews Southern Comfort are; My Front Pages and Southern Comfort.

This performance has never been released on CD and as such will appeal to the large and dedicated following that both Fairport Convention and Ian Matthews enjoy.

The true story of CARMINA BURANA, this ever-popular masterpiece, performed in Orff’s original orchestration and sounding utterly different from what we normally hear. It forms the backbone of Tony Palmer explosive film about its composer Carl Orff, a man wracked with guilt about his mendacious and tragic behaviour during Hitler’s Germany. This film will change forever our understanding of this tormented soul.

With Carl Orff himself, interviewed before he died, three of his wives & his daughter; filmed in Germany, Greece, South Africa, Japan, China and England.

1 hour 55 mins; Isolde Films 1995/2008

Few composers have been more loved in their lifetime than William Walton.  And the strange thing is that, despite an almost inevitable dip in his popularity following his death in 1983, since the turn of the 21st century, here we are discovering once again the extraordinary power and richness of his music.  His capacity to astonish and move us profoundly remains undiminished.  In a soulless world, he confronts us repeatedly with our darkest fears but also our most joyful aspirations.  And in the end, that is why we love him. The composer of Belshazzar’s Feast, Crown Imperial, concertos for Cello, Viola & Violin, Façade,  film scores, especially the three great Shakespeare films of Laurence Olivier, the opera Troilus & Cressida………..this Italia prize-winning film includes the only full-length interview ever recorded with Walton.  Filmed at his home on Ischia and in Oxford, London & Oldham, it includes contributions from Laurence Olivier, Sacheverell Sitwell and Lady Susana Walton. Specially performed extracts of his music are conducted by Simon Rattle in his first substantial contribution to television when he was in his early 20s, with Simon Preston, Julian Bream, Yvonne Kenny, Yehudi Menuhin, Iona Brown, John Shirley-Quirk, Elgar Howarth & Ralph Kirshbaum, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford & Los Paraguayos.

Michael Crawford has starred in some of the biggest box-office hits of all time.  From Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, to the original Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, both in London's West End and on Broadway; from circus showman in Barnum to EFX, the multi-million extravaganza at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the biggest hotel in the world, which he dominated for over two years, playing Merlin, Houdini and H.G.Wells, and which broke all existing box office records. He is the only actor to have won an Olivier Award as 'Best Actor' at the same time as 'Best Actor in a Musical'. And then there was Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand, The Knack, How I Won The War with John Lennon…And all this for a man whose first stage role was in an opera by Benjamin Britten!

This is a behind-the-scenes intimate portrait of one of the funniest and most versatile of actors, whose popularity in the United States outshines any other British entertainer in the last 30 years, and whose television shows in Britain are just repeated and repeated in all English-speaking countries purely by public demand.

The Salzburg Festival has hosted every great star of the opera and concert hall, from Toscanini to Anne-Sophie Mutter, from Fischer-Dieskau to Barenboim, from Pollini to Mitsuko Uchida. In this film, the first to tell the story of this remarkable Festival, set in the birthplace of Mozart, director Tony Palmer has been granted unprecedented access to Austria's film archives. Highlights include performances of Jedermann from 1920 to the present day featuring actors such as Maximilian Schell and Klaus Maria Brandauer; Don Giovanni (with Furtwängler in 1954 and a controversial performance directed by Peter Sellars in the 90s); a wealth of footage of Herbert von Karajan, including performances and never-seen-before home movies; and film of the Nazi hierarchy at the Festival during the Second World War. Alongside this historical footage, the film interviews contemporary stars such as Placido Domingo, Valery Gergiev, Lang Lang, James Levine, Anna Netrebko, Riccardo Muti and Simon Rattle, who tell their stories and open their hearts about this unique Festival.

Taken from the soundtrack of the film God Rot Tunbridge Wells, this unforgettable collection of Handel’s ‘hits’ was rightly praised at the time for making Handel sound, well, like Handel, full of life and fury, and not the usual syrupy stodge served up by  massed choirs of thousands.  Conducted by the great Handelian, Sir Charles Mackerras, his fiery cast – Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Elizabeth Harwood, John Shirley-Quirk, Simon Preston, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Valerie Masterson, Andrei Gavrilov, Simon Preston and the Westminster Abbey Choir & the indefatigable English Chamber Orchestra – blaze their way through some of Handel’s most famous music.  Mackerras had insisted on hearing the Royal Fireworks Music (for instance) as it had been written – for a veritable battery of wind and brass instruments, not to mention twenty side-drums – but how on earth were we going to assemble that number of period-looking instruments to film? Easy, said the cameraman, use mirrors. And so we did. No-one noticed, nor that the ‘harpsichord’ on which the deaf and almost blind Handel doodles from time to time is actually a grand piano painted by Burne-Jones in 1890, almost 150 years after Handel had died. (Ironically, the one person who did spot this was Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who then tried to buy the piano).  Mackerras adored the film, and for a time went round slightly misquoting one of Handel’s speeches from the film. Handel/Osborne/Trevor Howard says, with appropriate insouciance: “What have I done for the Georges of England?!” Mackerras said: “What have I done for the Handels of England?!”  Rescued them, great Sir.  Rescued them.

This film was originally shown in 1985 on British television, Channel Four, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Handel’s birth.  Written by John Osborne, it  strips away what seemed like centuries of bad Handel performances (no names here, but Malcolm Sargent gets a swipe) and reveals a composer who had burst upon London like a tornado and not only shaken the smugness of Georgian England to its roots, but laid the foundations of an entirely different tradition of British music making – bold, brassy and brilliant. The words Osborne put into Handel’s mouth, moreover, although completely invented, derived from a clever reworking of those texts which Handel himself had used in his various operas & oratorios and come singing onto the screen in unforgettable resonance, with the gin-soaked and pickled voice of Trevor Howard (his last great performance) relishing every last syllable.  The title of the film comes from a letter Osborne claimed Handel had written after a visit to the Tunbridge Wells Ladies’ Music Circle who had invited him to hear “their Messiah” only months before he died. “I always thought it was my Messiah”, Handel had written back. Anyway, off he went and suffered it for the first hour, what with the massed choirs of Tunbridge Ladies and no doubt a scratchy orchestra. Back home he wrote a furious letter describing the appalling occasion, which finished with the immortal line: “so God rot Tunbridge Wells”.  It was an ‘up yours’ to all those who had used and abused him throughout a long life of struggling against the pricks.

Robert Stephens gives a devastating performance as Puccini, and Virginia McKenna, lured out of semi-retirement, gives an emotionally draining performance as Elvira. When the finished film was shown to Simonetta, Puccini’s granddaughter, she said she was astonished at how close the film had come to the heart of the matter and in particular to the heart of that extraordinary – and still underestimated – great composer, Giacomo Puccini.

The first ever full-length film biography of the great man, produced by the multi-award winning director, TONY PALMER, is to be shown on Channel FIVE on New Year's day.

"Tony Palmer's film is now complete. Undoubtedly controversial it will also be very important in raising awareness of RVW. Two and a half hours long, it looks at Vaughan Williams' life as a disturbed and frustrated one. Powerful with some harrowing imagery, the film firmly dispels the myth that VW was a cuddly folk song collector and recycler who was affectionately known as "Uncle Ralph". As well as exploring his musical legacy, Palmer also focuses on the human side of VW. His frustration at living in a cosy market town, looking after an invalid wife (which he did devotedly) and the fury as well as the kindness and humanity which were all features of his remarkable character and which in their turn affected his music. The music passages are superbly played and filmed. The film is available on DVD. An absolute must see." - www.rvwsociety.com

With many of those who knew and worked with him, including the GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL CHOIR, conducted by ANDREW NETHSINGHA,
• archive performances by BOULT and BARBIROLLI,
• newly discovered interviews with VAUGHAN WILLIAMS himself,
• specially recorded extracts from The Symphonies, Job, The Lark Ascending and of course The Tallis Fantasia
• And with unexpected contributions from HARRISON BIRTWISTLE, JOHN ADAMS, RICHARD THOMPSON, MARK ANTHONY TURNAGE, BARBARA DICKSON, MICHAEL TIPPETT & NEIL TENNANT of The Pet Shop Boys.

Apart from the footage contained on this DVD, the Full House line-up was unfortunately never filmed commercially until reunions at the band's regular Cropredy Festival years later.  The film, directed by renowned British film director Tony Palmer, captures the band at the Maidstone Fiesta during the summer of 1970 as they run through their set of the time.  This included various jigs and reels, and the songs Sir Patrick Spens and Now Be Thankful.  Now Be Thankful, incidentally, although originally recorded for the band's album Full House, was even released at the time as a single.  The film also features two songs from Matthews Southern Comfort, the band led by former Fairport Convention member, Ian Matthews. As well as having the Fairport connection, Matthews Southern Comfort would also go on to have a massive hit single
with a cover of the Joni Mitchell song Woodstock in late 1970. 

The film has only recently been rediscovered and the restoration overseen by Tony Palmer.  The DVD also includes bonus footage of an exclusive interview filmed in spring 2007 with director Tony Palmer where he explains how he first met Fairport Convention and his thoughts on the band and the film over thirty five years later.

Telegram from Paul McCartney
'This is just great; absolutely what we meant'

Daily Telegraph
'If Mr. Palmer's intention was to disturb, he succeeded brilliantly. It was absolutely chilling.'

Observer
'It said more about pop than a year of Top Of The Pops.'

Daily Express
'With hideous, clamorous force, Tony Palmer's film about the pop world burst out of the TV screen last night - a disturbing piece of televisionwhich no parent could afford to miss. It was certainly not a film which will die,a psychedelic experience which 10 years from now will be the definitive document of its time. How often does TV really make you sit on the edge of your chair?' 

Disc & Music Echo
'Magnificent - honest, accurate, unbiased and totally frank. As a comment on today, it was horrific and powerful, and as a protest it was stunning. Director Tony Palmer offered no personal comment. Questions were raised and thoughts recorded, but no editorial explanation or reason was forced on us. The conclusions were our own. It was absolutely superb'

New Statesman
'Brilliant and frightening.'

Spectator
'Remarkable...I have no doubt that wherever it is shown the film will win professional acclaim.'

There are so many astonishing facts about Maria Callas...

First, she was born not in Greece but in Manhattan and went to school there.  Second, considering her colossal influence and in contrast to the pumped-up, preposterous, overpaid pipsqueak divas of today, her actual international career was tiny - 18 years at most.  Third, and in spite of her reputation, her cancellation record was the lowest of any great singer of her day.  Fourth, she rarely looked at the conductor during an opera, simply because she could not see him - she was very short-sighted, and often appeared (partly as a result) to be in a trance while on stage.  Fifth, she was betrayed by most of those intimate with her throughout her life, and eventually abandoned by many of those who should have known better and who claimed to have loved her.  Sixth, she died almost penniless - even her grotesquely rich long-time lover, Onassis, whose marriage to Jackie Kennedy she only discovered by watching the 6 o'clock news, had invested her money in half a cargo boat, which sank.  Paradoxically, although she died 30 years ago, her records today outsell every other recorded classical artist, and single handedly keep EMI Classics afloat.  Last, hers was not the most beautiful voice of her time, as she frequently admitted.  Some days it worked; other days it just didn't.

In the end, those who met her in Paris in the seventies agree that she was one of the loneliest, most desperate of women they had ever encountered, slowly drugging herself to death.  "Every day, thank God, is one day less", she told Di Stefano.  A summons to tea (for half an hour at most) often lasted until the early hours, with the guest or guests pleaded with not to leave.

It was pathetic and horrible, but it was Callas.  It was always Callas, and that was the secret and the magic.  We witness on stage a broken woman who sings nakedly from her heart, about herself and her life, who acts with such incredible power and unashamed truth that we stagger back before what we know, in our hearts, is all of her.  No artifice here; no vulgar posturings to which her absurd imitators - and there are many - aspire.  Gheorghiu, Battle, Garrett - they cannot touch her hem.

Maria - just a woman, who often spoke of Callas in the third person, in trouble, asking, begging sometimes, for our understanding and our love.  She deserves it, because there was no greater singing actress in our time.  And she was only 53 when she died.

Tony Palmer

This film is a celebration of that achievement. THE SPACE MOVIE, made in 1979 at the request of NASA to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's historic journey, was itself a special achievement. First, NASA and The United States National Archive made all the footage (which is now famous the world around) available for the very first time, including never before seen film of the lunar landscape, life aboard the spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, Mars, Venus and beyond. Even more importantly, NASA released the extraordinary (and scary) soundtracks of the all the conversations between the astronauts and ground control in Houston.

The film's soundtrack was written, arranged and performed by MIKE OLDFIELD. He used extracts from his ground-breaking symphonic tone-poems such as ‘Tubular Bells’ and 'Hergest Ridge‘, including previously unreleased orchestral versions, and wound these in and out of the NASA soundtracks together with new music which was eventually released on the in a different form on 'Incantations’. The result is a unique soundtrack for a unique film.

No wonder it was described as "the best British film of the year". Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard

Bonus material:

Previously unseen 6 minutes of footage

26 minute Interview with Tony Palmer on the making of The Space Movie