Joaquín Achúcarro: 50 Years On and Joaquín Achúcarro in Concert 2009
Distributed by Films Media Group, 132 West 31st St., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10001; 800-257-5126
Produced by Angela Alvarez Rilla for Opus Arte
Directed by Robin Lough
DVD, color, 42 min. and 53 min.
College - General Adult
Music
Date Entered: 07/08/2011
Reviewed by Bonnie Jo Dopp, Librarian Emerita, University of MarylandThese two programs of about equal length document the first fifty years of the career of Spanish pianist Joaquín Achúcarro, who won an English piano competition in 1959 and went on to become a distinguished international performer. He has been a professor of piano at Southern Methodist University for more than two decades. Joaquín Achúcarro: 50 Years On contains testimonies about his artistry and character from his friends and collaborators Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, and Plácido Domingo, his student Lucille Chung, and his wife Emma. The pianist himself speaks charmingly of his education, musical influences, memorable concerts, and artistic philosophy. Video clips of past performances, old photos, and scrapbook shots of reviews and programs are appropriately inserted. Joaquín Achúcarro in Concert presents his full performance of the Brahmns second piano concerto (a work he discusses in the biographical DVD), with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis conducting. Cameras focus on orchestral instruments as they are heard and show the soloist from various angles. This is a ‘50th Anniversary’ performance, honoring Achúcarro’s 1959 debut with the LSO.
The educational values of this admiring biography and its accompanying Brahms presentation are relatively small; recommended only for comprehensive library collections of piano performance DVDs.