Speaking in Strings
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $15.24
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Manufacturer: New Video Group
Starring: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Directed By: Paola di Florio
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780767034852
Format: Color
ISBN: 0767034856
Label: New Video Group
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Video Group
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2001-06-26
Running Time: 75
Studio: New Video Group
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A gorgeous tribute to a phenomenal woman
Comment: I saw this documentary when it was aired on PBS and it made me want to run out in the New York winter and buy every recording Salerno-Sonnenberg ever made. There is footage of her playing winning a competition with the Shostakovich concerto. She seems demonically possessed. She gives you the feeling music is something worth dying for (and living for).
Every musician, nay-- every aspiring artist, nay anyone aspiring in any field of discipline, nay -- every one living, should watch this video for a massive dose of inspiration and enthusiasm for life and art.
Customer Rating:
Summary: wow!
Comment: I think I had heard of SPEAKING IN STRINGS, in passing, when it first came out in 1998. However, I only knew that it was about Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, a phenomenally talented violinst. This woman has been called "possessed," "frightening" and "brilliant" with good reason. I can honestly say that I have never heard (or seen) such an incomparable artist perform great classical pieces with such fire and spirit. Nadja has been criticized as much as she has been proclaimed. The intensity of her connection to the music is so strong that she has the tendency to contort her face and physicalize the mood of the pieces she interprets. This, of course, has generated criticism from the press. For me, Nadja really is feeling the essence of the music she expresses through her instrument.
Not only do we hear great excerpts from some of Nadja's finest performances (including her Carnegie Hall debut, at the age of seventeen in 1982, and an interview with Johnny Carson), as well as a really engrossing look at her formative years (complete with clips from home movies and family photos). We also see a very intimate side of Solerno-Sonnenberg and we really see the personal setbacks that almost put a permanent end to her career. Director Paola di Fiorio was granted a well-earned Academy Award nomination for Best Documementary, and you don't have to look too closely to see why.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Biography With One Disappointment
Comment:
This documentary provides us with a glimpse into the life of a most unusual violinist. Certainly Ms Salerno-Sonnenberg has rightful status as a proficient performer, but beyond that she is well known for her unusual stage presence. She almost literally throws herself into her performance providing the audience with a physical rendition of the music in addition to playing her instrument.
I said above that we get a glimpse of her life, and that is all one can hope for in a 75 minute movie. What we learn here once again is that we can't idealize the lives of talented performers. Nadja's life is a hectic one consisting of up to 200 performances a year. The stress of this routine is manifested in bouts of depression which on one occasion becomes suicidal.
While watching the movie I couldn't help thinking of Jaqueline du Pre, the demonstrative cellist who led a tragic life. Ms Salerno-Sonnenberg tells us that she really feels free only when she is actually performing.
Now to the disappointment. Listening to her recorded performances is very rewarding, but it can be like listening to a Shakespeare play on the radio. The visual part of her playing is an important part of the listening experience. Many of us may never be able to watch her play so I had hoped that the documentary would give us a good sampling of her on stage efforts, but unfortunately the clips of her playing the violin are few, and never more than 60 seconds in length. I wish they had extended the movie another 15 minutes and treated us to the performance of at least one composition. It is for the reason that I gave a rating of four stars instead of five.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Availability
Comment: Although I haven't watched this DVD yet, I am pleased that it was available on Amazon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Message For America
Comment: This is a landmark documentary of home movies, videos, powerful stills and original camera work supported by a unique sound track teasing scenes with audio precursors enabling fast cuts in places where dissolves would be used by less an artist than producer-director Paola di Florio.
Of course Nadja is manic. What could be more unsettling than going from the applause of Carnegie Hall to a lonely life with endless hours of practice, personal denial and dreams that seem more than a little insane?
She is in the prison of great talent. We, who don't know such highs and lows have no way to understand much less judge.
That Nadja is an Italian immigrant, working class; street-smart, scrappy New Yorker drives the aristocracy of the music intelligentsia nuts. How dare she poke into the parlors of the high born and challenge their grip on an art? Blinded by their own glitter, they cannot see that she is a hope for classical music. Her success is an inspiration to the young of all classes proving once again that America works, The New York Times notwithstanding. Careers are open to talent in our free enterprise economy. It is a system that creates what it needs. We needed a Nadja to show the world that classical music is not just for snobs.
Nadja's detractors want to tell us what we like much as their kind have long told us what to think. But, the people are not buying it any more. If Nadja attacks the music with powerful skills we applaud in spite of the blue bloods and not because of them. That makes them crazy. They arrogantly tell us dead composers would not like what Nadja does. Composers only write the outlines. Players bring their work to life. We believe every composer would applaud her.
Reviewer Bernard Chapin made outrageous errors in his analysis of this film. He accused Nadja of having said, "...classical music is a joke," when she actually said, "...classical music is a job," perhaps reflecting her working class regard for employment further offending the effete ear of Chapin. The sound track is thin at this point so this mistake may have been honest, but when he picked out "The only time I feel good is when I play," for his review title he stooped to distortion as she said this only for the time she had a flu. This is very clear misrepresentation by Mr. Chapin. But, he tops this with allusions to her homosexuality in response to the friendship shown Nadja by her female friends. He clearly has no acquaintance with the battlefield mentality of creative people and the kinds of friendships that forms. The only moments where Nadja is seen in anything like an intimate moment with anyone are a still photo with Mr. Mandy Potinkin and rubbing the arm of friend Mats Lidstrom in a textbook hominid friendship gesture plus her smiling expressions while playing in an ensemble, all to men. In the Tonight Show appearance shown her conversation is all about her recently having "broken up" with a "boyfriend." And, her scene with the fortune teller where she is told "you will make your family in a year" her response is, "So there will be at least one child in my life..." and expresses she is happy to hear it. From where comes Chapin's homosexual idea but from the depths of a distorting, destructive, sick mind.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A gorgeous tribute to a phenomenal woman
Comment: I saw this documentary when it was aired on PBS and it made me want to run out in the New York winter and buy every recording Salerno-Sonnenberg ever made. There is footage of her playing winning a competition with the Shostakovich concerto. She seems demonically possessed. She gives you the feeling music is something worth dying for (and living for).
Every musician, nay-- every aspiring artist, nay anyone aspiring in any field of discipline, nay -- every one living, should watch this video for a massive dose of inspiration and enthusiasm for life and art.
Customer Rating:
Summary: wow!
Comment: I think I had heard of SPEAKING IN STRINGS, in passing, when it first came out in 1998. However, I only knew that it was about Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, a phenomenally talented violinst. This woman has been called "possessed," "frightening" and "brilliant" with good reason. I can honestly say that I have never heard (or seen) such an incomparable artist perform great classical pieces with such fire and spirit. Nadja has been criticized as much as she has been proclaimed. The intensity of her connection to the music is so strong that she has the tendency to contort her face and physicalize the mood of the pieces she interprets. This, of course, has generated criticism from the press. For me, Nadja really is feeling the essence of the music she expresses through her instrument.
Not only do we hear great excerpts from some of Nadja's finest performances (including her Carnegie Hall debut, at the age of seventeen in 1982, and an interview with Johnny Carson), as well as a really engrossing look at her formative years (complete with clips from home movies and family photos). We also see a very intimate side of Solerno-Sonnenberg and we really see the personal setbacks that almost put a permanent end to her career. Director Paola di Fiorio was granted a well-earned Academy Award nomination for Best Documementary, and you don't have to look too closely to see why.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Biography With One Disappointment
Comment:
This documentary provides us with a glimpse into the life of a most unusual violinist. Certainly Ms Salerno-Sonnenberg has rightful status as a proficient performer, but beyond that she is well known for her unusual stage presence. She almost literally throws herself into her performance providing the audience with a physical rendition of the music in addition to playing her instrument.
I said above that we get a glimpse of her life, and that is all one can hope for in a 75 minute movie. What we learn here once again is that we can't idealize the lives of talented performers. Nadja's life is a hectic one consisting of up to 200 performances a year. The stress of this routine is manifested in bouts of depression which on one occasion becomes suicidal.
While watching the movie I couldn't help thinking of Jaqueline du Pre, the demonstrative cellist who led a tragic life. Ms Salerno-Sonnenberg tells us that she really feels free only when she is actually performing.
Now to the disappointment. Listening to her recorded performances is very rewarding, but it can be like listening to a Shakespeare play on the radio. The visual part of her playing is an important part of the listening experience. Many of us may never be able to watch her play so I had hoped that the documentary would give us a good sampling of her on stage efforts, but unfortunately the clips of her playing the violin are few, and never more than 60 seconds in length. I wish they had extended the movie another 15 minutes and treated us to the performance of at least one composition. It is for the reason that I gave a rating of four stars instead of five.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Availability
Comment: Although I haven't watched this DVD yet, I am pleased that it was available on Amazon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Message For America
Comment: This is a landmark documentary of home movies, videos, powerful stills and original camera work supported by a unique sound track teasing scenes with audio precursors enabling fast cuts in places where dissolves would be used by less an artist than producer-director Paola di Florio.
Of course Nadja is manic. What could be more unsettling than going from the applause of Carnegie Hall to a lonely life with endless hours of practice, personal denial and dreams that seem more than a little insane?
She is in the prison of great talent. We, who don't know such highs and lows have no way to understand much less judge.
That Nadja is an Italian immigrant, working class; street-smart, scrappy New Yorker drives the aristocracy of the music intelligentsia nuts. How dare she poke into the parlors of the high born and challenge their grip on an art? Blinded by their own glitter, they cannot see that she is a hope for classical music. Her success is an inspiration to the young of all classes proving once again that America works, The New York Times notwithstanding. Careers are open to talent in our free enterprise economy. It is a system that creates what it needs. We needed a Nadja to show the world that classical music is not just for snobs.
Nadja's detractors want to tell us what we like much as their kind have long told us what to think. But, the people are not buying it any more. If Nadja attacks the music with powerful skills we applaud in spite of the blue bloods and not because of them. That makes them crazy. They arrogantly tell us dead composers would not like what Nadja does. Composers only write the outlines. Players bring their work to life. We believe every composer would applaud her.
Reviewer Bernard Chapin made outrageous errors in his analysis of this film. He accused Nadja of having said, "...classical music is a joke," when she actually said, "...classical music is a job," perhaps reflecting her working class regard for employment further offending the effete ear of Chapin. The sound track is thin at this point so this mistake may have been honest, but when he picked out "The only time I feel good is when I play," for his review title he stooped to distortion as she said this only for the time she had a flu. This is very clear misrepresentation by Mr. Chapin. But, he tops this with allusions to her homosexuality in response to the friendship shown Nadja by her female friends. He clearly has no acquaintance with the battlefield mentality of creative people and the kinds of friendships that forms. The only moments where Nadja is seen in anything like an intimate moment with anyone are a still photo with Mr. Mandy Potinkin and rubbing the arm of friend Mats Lidstrom in a textbook hominid friendship gesture plus her smiling expressions while playing in an ensemble, all to men. In the Tonight Show appearance shown her conversation is all about her recently having "broken up" with a "boyfriend." And, her scene with the fortune teller where she is told "you will make your family in a year" her response is, "So there will be at least one child in my life..." and expresses she is happy to hear it. From where comes Chapin's homosexual idea but from the depths of a distorting, destructive, sick mind.
Described as "possessed, "frightening," and "brilliant," Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg has either enraged or enraptured critics while earning herself the nickname "the bad girl of the violin." Academy Award® nominee Speaking In Strings explores the controversial and fascinating life of this funny, fearless, irreverent, and world-renowned musician. A deeply private look at the woman behind all the accolades and controversy. DVD Features: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Biography; Docurama Previews; Interactive Menu; Scene Selection
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