Remember we recently talked about a Brahms play? I can't remember where that thread is and I'm in a hurry now. So anyway, I just learned from one of my Facebook groups that these is an older movie about Brahms. It's titled, "Song of Love" made in 1947 and stars Kathrine Hepburne as Clara. I like these kinds of movies! Why didn't I know about it before?!

The title rings a bell, but I thought it was about someone else. Is it not about Schumann with Brahms playing 2nd fiddle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Love_%28film%29

It's supposed to be about Brahms and Clara after Robert's death. It's probably been Hollywood-ized (new word?) but Hepburne is always doog.

Yet Robert is a character of the film.

Have you seen the film about Chopin, also from the '40s?

A Song to Remember (Cornel Wilde is Chopin). Iirc, it's the film in which Chopin bleeds tubercularly over the piano during a recital.

The description I read about the movie says it is after Robert is dead, so maybe they do some flashbacks or something like that. I really want to watch that movie so I guess I will have to buy it.

I do already have A S omb to Remember. I don't l like it very much, b utut it's been a while since I've watched it so maybe I should give it another chance. Bleeding all over the piano keys makes me a little queasy, though.

I do not remember seing that; I remember the cough, then a handkerchief, then a black (I watched it on television in the days when black and white was the norm) mark on it.

In the old days one knew things happened without needing to make them explicit. These days... I have not watched a single recent film that has not disgusted me in one way or another.

Yes, I like scary movies a lot! but don't like to see a lot of blood and guts..

Monica, are you all right?

Oh, that does look like I had a siezure while I was typing that.

Dr. del Rio, maybe you should give me an examination...haha..

I wrote that while sitting on a train this morning, plus I was wearing my sun glasses instead of my reading glasses and I was using Swype technology to write and the train was bumpy.

(seriously, thank you for bothering to ask, Eddy! )

Since you like biographies of composers, try this one:

http://cinema.mosfilm.ru/OnlineMovieVer ... 6d5f16&t=1

This is a life of Glinka, but I am afraid there are no subtitles.

Thanks, Richard. That looks just like the kind of movie I would enjoy. But too bad I can't understand Russian. You can, though, right? I have an idea - when I'm ready to watch the movie, I will call you on the telephone, put you on speaker phone, and then as I watch and you listen, YOU can translate for me. Okay?

My Russian is a bit sketchy but I did get the gist of the film. We (daughter and I) only watched it today, after sending you the link. It is quite good. The scenes in Venice remind me of Canaletto, while the Russian outdoor scenes are straight from a Russian painting. Glinka looks just like his several portraits and there is a scene where he is reclining on a pillow, which is exacly how Repin posthumously pictured him. Pushkin looks like Pushkin and he seemed indeed to have African ancestry, which of course he did (his grandfather or great-grandfather, a little boy, was an Ethiopian prince who had been made a slave by the Turks. He was captured by Peter the Great during one war or another. Peter was so impressed with the boy that he adopted him and sent him to France to be educated at the court of one of the Louises, XV, if I remember rightly.) Gogol also appears and looks just like Gogol, as well as Dargomyzhsky, but the most impressive is Liszt, the child of German parents (originally List) who could not even speak Hungarian, who appears speaking perfect Russian, even getting the declentions right! (Maybe he can interpret for you ). That is a very funny scene, where he improvises on a theme from Ruslan and Lyudmila: hands high in the air and dropping on the keys, hair flying and so on.

The intersting thing is that Glinka's 1st opera was originally called "Ivan Susanin" (a hero who helped to expel the Poles from Russia - Whenever you hear Chopin whining about "Russian butchers occupying Warsaw", remember the "Polish butchers occupying Moscow" at an earlier date!). The Emperor (the correct title: the title "Tsar" was abolished by Peter the Great, being substituted by "emperor") was so impressed he insisted in its being renamed "A Life for the Tsar" (the action takes place before Peter). The Bolshies took exception to that and reverted to the original tiltle, but, in the film, the opera is renamed by the Emperor "A life for the Tsar". And this film was made in the '50s.

Give it a try: it is complete and free, but beware it takes 45 seconds to start!

If Liszt is in the movie, then for sure I want to see the movie! But actually, I don't really have time to watch a whole movie these days unless it rains a lot, or my piano croaks. Still, I'd like to see that part with Liszt so maybe I'll put on the movie while I am doing work on the computer and try to skip ahead. Thank you for all the nice information, Richard!

Monica, just invite a bunch of friends over and everyone make up the dialogue as the movie rolls along. That activity is particularly good with plenty of wine.

Scott