Isaac Stern Movies

After devoting his career to such horror films as Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Last House on the Left, director Wes Craven makes a dramatic change of pace with this inspiring drama about a teacher who helps change the lives of her students. Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras (Meryl Streep) teaches at an elementary school in Harlem, where discipline is a higher priority than the lively arts. But Roberta believes that studying music will give the children a sense of purpose invaluable in later life. Despite indifference from the school administration and budget cuts that force her to seek outside funding (and even threaten her job), Roberta struggles to teach the violin to her students, instilling a love of classical music in kids who might otherwise never have heard Bach or Mozart, and leading to a student recital at Carnegie Hall. Angela Bassett, Cloris Leachman, and Aidan Quinn highlight the supporting cast, and virtuoso violinists Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Mark O'Connor appear as themselves. The Music of the Heart is based on a true story; the real Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras and her students can be seen in the documentary Small Wonders. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The popular artist Yo Yo Ma is presented in a live concert performance at the renowned Tanglewood Music Festival. The personable cellist plays a wide range of music, from Bach and Brahms, to Beethoven and Gruber. He manages to entertain, inform, and delight his audience on a warm summer night in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide

Violin virtuoso Henryk Szeryng is the featured soloist in this recording of highlights from the 1983 Huberman Festival, featuring the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Zubin Mehta. The Huberman Festival, Vol. 3: Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi features performances of Tchaikovsky's "Concerto for Violin in D Major, Op. 35" and Vivaldi's "Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 3, No. 8", in which Szeryng is joined by second soloist Chaim Taub. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A musical presentation featuring the world-renowned Israel Philharmonic Orchestra are featured here. ~ All Movie Guide

In 1979, violin virtuoso Isaac Stern embarked on a goodwill tour of Red China. Filmmaker Murray Lerner went along for the ride, and the end result was the unforgettable feature-length documentary From Mao to Mozart. The best scenes involve Stern's tutoring and coaching of gifted Chinese students, and Shanghai Conservatory of Music director Tan Shuzhen's recollections of his travails in the less enlightened China of the 1960s. The film is extremely well balanced, treating Eastern and Western musical culture with equal respect and (sometimes) awe. From Mao to Mozart won the 1981 "best documentary" Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This color documentary chronicles the musical concert on Mount Scopus in Israel a mere three weeks after the Six Day War. Leonard Bernstein and Isaac Stern join the Yoi Yisrael Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, and the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir for stirring classical renditions by Mahler and Mendelssohn. The concert was recorded by Columbia records for release at a later date and accurately captured the live music in all its classic splendor. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sits proudly in the front row as the symphonies play to a capacity crowd. Scenes of the war, the Wailing Wall, schools and hospitals are also included as Bernstein and Stern tour the country and meet the people of Israel. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This video features the renowned ensemble, comprised of pianist Eugene Istomin, cellist Leonard Rose, and violinist Isaac Stern, in a performance made for the Canadian Broadcasting Company on June 23, 1965. Brilliant playing and sensitive interpretation characterize the trio's rendering of Beethoven's Trio in C Minor, op. 1, no. 3; and Brahms' Trio in C Major, opus 87. Performing before a live audience, the legendary trio is engaging in its rapport with the listeners, inspiring in its virtuosity on the instruments. The film is a visual and auditory delight. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide

Fannie Hurst's novel Humoresque is the lachrymose tale of a famed Jewish-American violinist who forgets all about his friends and family in his rise to fame. Screenwriters Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold refashioned this timeworn material into a first-class, big-budget soap opera, completely dominated by the high-octane talents of Joan Crawford and John Garfield. A gifted musician, Garfield rises from the slums to the upper echelons of society, thanks to the patronage of wealthy, alcoholic Crawford. Virtually ignored by her husband Paul Cavanaugh, Crawford adopts Garfield as her lover as well as her protégé. He is only mildly offended by the setup; she, on the other hand, becomes jealous and possessive. It is not a woman who comes between Crawford and Garfield: it the intensity of his talent, not to mention the spectre of the great composers whose works he interprets so brilliantly. Garfield's virago of a mother (Ruth Nelson) feeds upon Crawford's jealousy, planting the seeds of guilt for (allegedly) holding her son back. The ultrastylish suffering of Joan Crawford and the street-punk insouciance of John Garfield (who looks like a "Dead End Kid" even while wearing a tux) is counterpointed by the phlegmatic comedy relief of Oscar Levant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide