Info:
Duration: 39’ 52”
Narrated by Christopher Nupen
Year of production: 1979
Award:
BAFTA International Award - 1979 (Outright Winner)
The International Emmy Award - 1979 (Performing Arts category)
The RAI Prize at the Prix Italia - 1980
A television film directed by Christopher Nupen, based on Cristobal Halffter's three orchestral pieces "Elegias a la Muerte de Tres Poetas Españoles" composed in 1975.
Cristobal Halffter is recognised as Spain's leading contemporary composer. In 1968 he was commissioned by the United Nations to write a large orchestral work in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. He wrote his cantata "Yes. Speak out, yes", which has turned out to be a seminal work for him and has influenced the style and content of much of what he has written since then.
His three orchestral pieces "Elegias a la Muerte de Tres Poetas Españoles" were commissioned by Sudwestfunk, Baden-Baden in 1975. They are written in homage to three great Spanish poets who died as a result of the Spanish Civil War; Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernandez and Federico García Lorca. They are also written as a protest against political violence and as a plea for an end to the tragedies of war.
The Elegies are written for full symphony orchestra with five additional percussion groups. In this film they are performed complete by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin conducted by Cristobal Halffter himself. Each Elegy is preceded by a filmed introduction describing the circumstances which inspired the composition, the lives of each of the three poets and the tragedies of their deaths.
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From BAFTA jury member, Mark Zakharov at the awards presentation:
The idea of uniting several images into one shot, the idea of synthesizing music, words and movement, the brave use of electronic effects - all that is of great interest to all people working in television today. We have seen quite a few attempts at achieving such a synthesis: some of them were very interesting.
However, in ELEGIES FOR THE DEATHS OF THREE SPANISH POETS I saw something new, which excited me and forced me to think about things I had stopped thinking about. For me, this musical film became a discovery in the field of truth: a political film without politics: a happy story about the suffering of man.
To make such a film one must get closer to a higher intelligence, to look up and not down and to think about God. For me this film asks the earth, on which we live, to forgive us for the wounds which we inflict on it.
Spain is not unique in our common history. The earth of Russia, Germany, Japan, China, England, France and other countries, which has suffered so much, remembers the catastrophies of our recent history; and if we listen carefully to the silence of this earth, it will remind us of our common guilt.
The film is almost without words. There is only mourning and reflection about the fate of people who lived before me on this earth and who, by their suffering, atoned for my steps on this planet, which has suffered so much: which is so small and so full of wonder.
Produced by: Allegro Films, London, in association with Clasart, Munich
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