Documentary | 2021 | arte, NDR [de]
Main data
| Director | Beatrix Conrad |
|---|---|
| Production | 3B-Produktion |
Brief synopsis
"Gautier Capuçon and the Cello" is a musical double portrait dedicated to the unique relationship between the musician and his instrument.
"It took me several years to be able to tame it. It would probably say the same about me," French cellist Gautier Capuçon comments with a wink on the partnership struggle with his more than 300-year-old instrument - a cello made by Venetian violin maker Matteo Goffriller in 1701.
The relationship between the exceptional cellist and his instrument is almost marriage-like. Capuçon reports on the wildness and multifaceted expressive possibilities for almost all repertoire parts of his instrument, but also on bitchiness and the ambivalence between feminine and masculine "demeanor". The Parisian luthier Pierre Bathel, who regularly adjusts the instrument, has a weighty, sometimes mediating, role to play: "He is not only a luthier, but also a doctor, psychologist and friend."
As a major musical work, Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto is the focus of the film. It remains to this day an unsurpassed classic of the Romantic repertoire. For cellists, it is not just any concerto, but simply the Cello Concerto. No one can escape its memorable melodies, its powerful symphonic climaxes, its captivating virtuosity and overwhelming emotionality. In his interpretation with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert in Hamburg, this is impressively palpable.
"It took me several years to be able to tame it. It would probably say the same about me," French cellist Gautier Capuçon comments with a wink on the partnership struggle with his more than 300-year-old instrument - a cello made by Venetian violin maker Matteo Goffriller in 1701.
The relationship between the exceptional cellist and his instrument is almost marriage-like. Capuçon reports on the wildness and multifaceted expressive possibilities for almost all repertoire parts of his instrument, but also on bitchiness and the ambivalence between feminine and masculine "demeanor". The Parisian luthier Pierre Bathel, who regularly adjusts the instrument, has a weighty, sometimes mediating, role to play: "He is not only a luthier, but also a doctor, psychologist and friend."
As a major musical work, Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto is the focus of the film. It remains to this day an unsurpassed classic of the Romantic repertoire. For cellists, it is not just any concerto, but simply the Cello Concerto. No one can escape its memorable melodies, its powerful symphonic climaxes, its captivating virtuosity and overwhelming emotionality. In his interpretation with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert in Hamburg, this is impressively palpable.