Orem Library

The Bolero (1973): The first part of this Academy Award-winning short consists of a behind-the-scenes look at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as it prepares to perform Ravel's "Bolero." Individual musicians offer their thoughts as workers set up chairs and music stands; there are also comments by conductor Zubin Mehta and scenes of Mehta and the orchestra rehearsing. The rest of the film features a complete performance of "Bolero" with striking...

André Previn tells the story behind Berlioz's Symphony fantastique inspired by his obsessive love for an actress he had seen in a play. Key themes and passages are then examined, and analyzed before the Royal Philharmonic plays the entire symphony.

This program demonstrates how Beethoven brought an unprecedented power and dynamism to the orchestra and tells about his idealistic support of the French Revolution and his triumph over deafness. Includes a performance of Beethoven's 7th symphony and excerpts from the 5th symphony.

In examining the diverse functions and types of portraits, study the important elements of facial presentation and the subject's position and gaze with relation to the viewer and the pictorial space. See how Rembrandt added dramatic power to his group "corporation" portraits, and how David carefully rendered Napoleon in symbolic terms.

Examine geometric and "organic" shapes in painting and sculpture and the crucial relationship of figure to ground and mass to space. Then, explore the illusionistic use of shading, shadows, and overlapping shapes in Caravaggio's and Friedrich's works, and the compositional power of shapes in paintings such as Matisse's "Dance" and Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam".

This lecture integrates elements including color, line, shape, composition, light, symbolism, point of view, and focal point. Using the viewing tools you've developed, look deeply at four diverse masterpieces, including a sculpture by Thorvaldsen, a "vanitas" still life by Van Oosterwyck, a lithograph by Bonnard, and a painting by Van der Weyden.

The richness of signs (signifiers) in art includes the use of symbols, icons, and indexes as they reveal layers of meaning. See how, in different historical eras, symbolic associations change over time, how icons visually represent a subject, and how indexes exhibit direct connections with the thing signified.

A collection of episodes of the program Omnibus that feature conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein.

Discusses the lives of Haydn and Mozart and their influence on musical form and on the development of the symphony orchestra. Presents Symphony no. 87 by Haydn and Symphony no. 39 by Mozart.

What does music mean?: Leonard Berstein told the television audience at the start of the first Young People's Concert: "No matter what stories people tell you about what music means, forget them. Stories are not what music means. Music is never about things. Music just 'is.' It's a lot of beautiful notes and sounds put together so well that we get pleasure out of hearing them. So when we ask, 'What does it mean; what does this piece of music mean?'...