The Final Chorale. Juxtapositions, 3, and: Arvo Part -- 24 Preludes for a Fugue (review)

In the program booklet accompanying his remarkable films, Frank Scheffer likens music history to a river that flowed into the twentieth century, branched when it encountered Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, and became a delta of styles and practices after World War II. It is a familiar and almost clichéd metaphor, used in countless classrooms and textbooks, but a useful one given the pairing of films in this third release in Idéale Audience International's Juxtapositions series.

The Juxtapositions series is dedicated to exploring contemporary music through the marriage of film and music. It follows Serge Eisenstein's dictum that when two shots are edited together they create not a supplement of the two, but something new. In the case of this series, aural and visual images are combined to explore music in a new way, and in the case of this particular release, two figures often viewed as polar opposites are juxtaposed for a fresh look at their accomplishments.

Frank Scheffer's films form the bulk of the series for good reason; the Dutch filmmaker constructs his films about music as though they were compositions themselves. His style is best seen in the first film on the DVD, The Final Chorale. The film is based on Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and features interviews with Robert Craft and Reinbert de Leeuw as well as archival footage of Stravinsky and images of the musicians from the Netherlands Wind Ensemble preparing for the work's performance. Scheffer mirrors the composition's famous ritualistic construction of juxtaposed blocks of musical material by cutting his shots together in the exact same format. The result is a stunning visual documentary about the Symphonies of Wind Instruments that moves like the work it discusses.

Scheffer follows a similar tactic for Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces. He devotes a section to each movement and explores Schoenberg's intentions behind the enigmatic titles he assigned the movements. Interviews with Charles Rosen, Carl Schorske, and Michael Gielen form the basis of the film's narration. Overall, the format is not as successful as that of The Final Chorale, but Scheffer's proposed interpretations of these landmark compositions are worth consideration.

Both films end with a complete performance of the examined work and this is where the release fails in part to deliver. DVD offers so much potential in the realm of sound reproduction that it is a shame the soundtrack was not remastered for Dolby Digital 5.1. Instead it is presented in a fairly flat 2.0 mix that undermines some of the intricate sounds described by the film's participants. The film's transfer, however, is pristine with only a few moments of artifacts and shimmer. The accompanying program book is complete and informative, although the composers' biographical sketches and the recommended recordings are surprisingly thin in a DVD obviously intended for lovers of contemporary music. Overall, this is a strong release of artistic value to fans of both music and film and bodes well for the future of the Juxtapositions series.

24 Preludes for a Fugue is the first full-length documentary about Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and as such, deserves a place as the fourth release in the Juxtapositions series. But its uniqueness notwithstanding, the film fits comfortably in the series because of its obvious relationship to Frank Scheffer's work. Scheffer constructs his films around the music they examine; they grow organically. Consequently, the structure is visible usually only on repeat viewings. Dorian Supin's approach to Pärt's life and music are strikingly similar. 24 Preludes for a Fugue moves organically from topic to topic and only in hindsight does a...