The Art of Violin (2000)

Drawing on archival performance footage and interviews, The Art of Violin evokes the vast panorama of the world of the violin in the twentieth century and its most outstanding performers. It is hard to express the explosions of joy occasioned by the discovery of long sought-out but undreamed-of archives, such as some silent - and later resynchronised - film footage, or the brief moments of Chausson's Poéme played by Ginette Neveu, the silent yet moving (in every sense of the word) images of Kreisler and Ysaÿe, the awe of a young Menuhin, the superb single camera shot of David Oistrakh performing the cadenza from Shostakovich's First Concerto" - Bruno Monsaingeon.