Piano Rivals (Premiere in October 2024)
Project description
Excerpt
Selected Episodes
1848 – Funérailles
Chopin’s Heart
Paganini
Director & Cast/Musicians
Per Tengstrand
Joachim Gustafsson
Hana Mundiya
András Batta
Zsuzsanna Domokos
Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá
Project description
Piano Rivals is the working title of a documentary about the two leading pianists and piano composers in Europe during the romantic era, Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. It is the second part of a planned trilogy with focus on classical music and how it connects with history and people. The first was “Beethoven – Freedom of the Will” which received prizes at film festivals in Japan, Singapore and Sweden.
Piano Rivals will tell the story of two composers from small countries in the middle of Europe, squeezed between much more powerful countries and their interests. Neither Poland nor Hungary existed as independent nations, ruled by Russia and the Habsburg monarchy respectively. Both Chopin and Liszt associated strongly with their nations . Born only a year apart, both composers became symbols for their countries and their fight for independence. This lives on until this day. In the world, only two airports situated in a capital bear the name of a composer: Ferenc Liszt airport in Budapest, and Chopin Airport in Warsaw.
The film will be filled with music, of course. The music is the main reason these composers touched and inspired people, and the music performed will show this. As is the case in “Beethoven – Freedom of the Will”, whole movements will be performed, performed especially for the film. This is something rather unique: usually only fragments of works are heard in documentaries.
Other parts will be about historical events that make the viewers understand and feel the connection between music and history, between music and people and their lives. Three geographical places will be the main focus: Paris, Warsaw and Budapest. Paris was the place where both composers lived at the same time, and it was the home of Chopin for most of his adult life. Warsaw and Budapest are, of course, the capitals of the native countries of the composers.
As the working title alludes, these were two very different men on a personal level. Liszt was perhaps the first real international star in history, creating mass hysteria which even had a name, “Lisztomania”. Chopin refused to play in public, and only performed in salon settings with friends. Liszt lived a long life, Chopin died young. Liszt was greeted as a national hero in Budapest, being carried through the streets on the shoulders of his supporters, Chopin was never able to return to Poland. Liszt used his fame and fortune to help young and unknown composers and raised enormous amounts of money to charity, Chopin was constantly struggling to make ends meet. There was no open animosity between the men, but while Liszt admired Chopin, Chopin could be quite resentful of Liszt, and what he thought was mannerisms and bad taste.
Excerpt
Selected Episodes
Here follows a list of some planned episodes of the film.
The year 1848 – “Funérailles”
1848 was a year when revolutions or uprisings took place in all the three main places for the film: Poland, Paris and Hungary.
In Poland, there was a Polish uprising against Prussia, which was crushed. In Paris, with a sickly Chopin living in the city, urban fighting ended with the abdication of King Louis Philippe. In Hungary, a revolution to create a state independent from Austria with a new constitution took place, a constitution which was the most liberal yet in Europe with freedom of the press, equal rights before the law and taxation of the nobility. After considerable successes by the Hungarian army, it was finally brought down with the Austrian Emperor getting help from Russia with 200 000 troops.
Liszt’s friend, the Hungarian Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány, was executed in October 1849, and Liszt composed the piece “Funerailles”, with the subtitle “October 1949”. As it happened, October 1949 was also the month of the death of Chopin, which has led people to believe the piece is about Chopin’s death. However, it is not. It is an elegy, lamenting the brutal deaths of his country’s martyrs. Of course, a performance of “Funérailles” will be filmed for the documentary.
Chopin’s heart – Home is where your heart is
The story of Chopin’s heart is surreal, and full of drama and history. The dying Chopin was terrified of the thought of being buried alive, mistaken for being dead. He therefore asked his sister, Ludwika, to make sure that his heart was taken out from his body before the funeral. And not only that, he wanted his heart to return to his motherland. Ludwika smuggled the heart to Poland in a jar of cognac, and it was placed at the Holy Cross Church, being the only Chopin “monument” allowed by Russian authorities. When the second world war broke out, the heart was hidden, then forgotten, found, returned to Polish hands by a Nazi commander famous for his brutality…and the story goes on. It will be told in the film, as it is a unique story of how a composer’s heart captures the heart of a nation.
Paganini
The story of violinist Nicolò Paganini is one of the most fascinating in music history. He became a touring sensation, and played the violin in a way that people thought he was in a pact with the Devil. If a string broke, he could play the whole piece on three strings instead of four. In fact, he was heard finishing a recital on one string only. He came to Warsaw in 1829, performing for the Russian Tsar who was in the audience, which also included a young promising pianist, Frédéric Chopin, who immediately wrote a virtuoso set of variations, called “Souvenirs de Paganini”. Liszt heard him in 1831, and it was a defining moment in his life: he decided to be the Paganini on the piano. Together with this story, the famous Caprice no. 24 by Paganini will be performed by Hana Mundiya, who played the Kreutzer Sonata in “Beethoven – Freedom of the Will”.
Cast Biographies
Per Tengstrand, piano, director & producer
Per Tengstrand has been described by The Washington Post as “technically resplendent, powerful, intuitively secure,” and by The New York Times as “a superb Swedish pianist.” After winning 1st prize in Cleveland’s International Piano Competition, he has performed in venues such as the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Musikverein Vienna, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
He has performed as a soloist with Detroit Symphony, National Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, Singapore Symphony, and Orchestre National de France. Tengstrand is the subject of the acclaimed Swedish documentary “The Soloist”, directed by Magnus Gertten and Stefan Berg, which was featured at the International Festival of Cinema and Technology in New York. He is the recipient of the Royal Medal of Litterus and Artibus, which he received from the King of Sweden.
Joachim Gustafsson, conductor
Joachim Gustafsson is widely recognized as one of the major Scandinavian conductors of his generation. He performs with virtually all of the Swedish and Danish orchestras and has been a regular guest conductor of the Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota since 2011, also taking part in the development of youth orchestras and teaching young conductors.
Orchestras Joachim Gustafsson works with regularly includes Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Bogotá Philharmonic, The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, The Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Gothenburg Opera Orchestra, The Royal Navy Band, Gothenburg Wind Orchestra, Sinfonica Nacional de Colombia,The Dala Sinfonietta, Filarmonica Juvenil de Bogota, Aarhus Sinfonietta to name a few.
Gustafsson is also regular guest conductor at The Danish National Opera where he in 2014 conducted the world premiere of The Picture of Dorian Gray , an award-winning opera written by the Danish composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen. This also resulted in a highly praised DVD on the Da Capo label.
In 2021, after a secret ballot by the musicians of the orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson was appointed as the new Music Director of Bogotá Philharmonic.
Hana Mundiya, violin
Hana Mundiya made her concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 13 at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center as a part of the orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts. Since then, she has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in major concert halls throughout the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Concert Hall, as well as internationally in Sweden, Japan, Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Switzerland. She is a recent top prizewinner in the International Brahms Competition in Austria, Leopold Mozart Competition in Germany, Kosciuszko Foundation Wieniawski Competition, and Adelphi Orchestra Young Artist Competition.
A believer in the universal ideals outlined in the United Nations Charter, Hana is a member of the UN Chamber Music Society, and performs regularly at the UN Headquarters, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center for UNHCR, UNESCO, the Red Cross, and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is on the artist roster of the VISION Collective, an ensemble that raises awareness of the global refugee crisis through music. Hana has also performed for RAINN, the largest anti-sexual assault organization in the United States, to offer solace to Asian survivors of gender-based violence and sexual assault.
Born to a Japanese mother and Indian father, Hana is a native of New York City. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Princeton University specializing in French and Japanese Literature, and a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School.
András Batta
András Batta is one of Hungary’s most prominent music historians, author of multiple books and recipient of many awards. He was the Director of the Liszt Academy from 2004 to 2013 and oversaw major changes and projects in the famous conservatory’s development. He has worked in Hungarian television and radio as well as at the Könemann Publishing House in Cologne, Germany. He is currently the Director of House of Music in Budapest.
Zsuzsanna Domokos
Zsuzsanna Domokos is the director of the Franz Liszt Memorial Museum and Research Centre in Budapest. She has done significant and important research on Franz Liszt’s life and music, and has held lectures on this subject in different European universities.
Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá
The Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogota has touched people’s soul throughout more than 50 years, in that way, it has become part of Bogotá’s heritage. The Orchestra has been in all 20 locations of the city with the highest artistic quality.
The Orquestra has won two Grammy Awards: Best Instrumental Album in 2008 for the album «40 years» (40 years) and Best Engineered Album Award with the album «50 años tocando para ti» (50 Years Playing for You) in 2018.
It has conquered new audience with concerts where remarkable artists performed such as Plácido Domingo, Kraken, Medrano and Aterciopelados among others.
Piano Rivals 