Program notes
Sir Peter is the master in being able to bring the great composers back to life. He reminds us of their most imortant events from their achievements down to their very human and personal encounters.
With knowledge, fine feeling an humour, he leads us through these splendid films focusig on the life of some greatest composers of our time .
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
At just 9 years of age, he performed for the first time and 2 years later, he began composing.
He was renowned as composer, music director and programme planer, as well for his talent as conductor and organizer.
His music is performed and interpreted by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Thomanerchoir. Sir Peter Ustinov steps from this background to take us to some authentic places: to Leipzig where Mendelssohn lived and died, to the former Gewanduas where he resided for a long time as director of music, to Weimar and "Goethe's Gartenhaus," and to Berlin, his birthplace. Sir Peter Ustinov narrates in his incomparable way the remarkable and varied but short life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.