Barrie Gavin Sussex Archive

Film and Television Documentaries of Music and Musicians

Barrie Gavin Sussex Archive - Film and Television Documentaries of Music and Musicians

Around mid-2012 Ed Hughes (Prof of Composition at the University of Sussex) was introduced to the Film and Television director, Barrie Gavin (1935-2024) by the late composer and former Professor of Music at Sussex, Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012).

Barrie Gavin began making films principally about music for BBC Two in 1964. He continued to produce documentaries about music, musicians and composers well into the 2010s.

Barrie gave Ed a box of DVDs which were digitisations of much of his broadcast work. Under the terms of the ERA license these have been transferred to a hard drive for preservation, and stored at The Keep, University of Sussex, where they are available for consultation by scholars and the general public.  For copyright reasons they cannot be placed online.

Ed recorded a conversation with Barrie Gavin on 10 July 2019 in Lewes, East Sussex:

On the hard drive held at the Keep, there are approximately 80 films on musicians, composers and their music directed by Barrie Gavin.

Barrie's close collaboration with French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), lasting 40 years, resulted in a series of analytical documentaries on 20th century music. During the 1970s Gavin worked with singer and folk song collector A.L.Lloyd to produce a series of documentaries on folk music and culture in the UK and parts of Europe.  

Featuring interviews with composers and performers, footage of rehearsals and performances from some of the world's most esteemed orchestras and ensembles, the work is a valuable resource for music and film researchers alike. The films include portraits of composers Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio and many more.

As well as providing insights into composers' methods, processes and the development of work in rehearsals, the collection evidences a wide range of modern and traditional composition and performance practices, including perspectives on the historical, cultural and philosophical origins of 20th century art music.

Alongside composer portraits there are films focussing on individual works of music. The Beyond the Score series of programmes, with composer and writer Gerard McBurney, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, features analyses of works of music including Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin, Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures from an Exhibition, and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.  

Directed and produced from the early 1960s to c. 2020, the films comprise a unique profile of a distinctive and distinguished contribution to music documentary making, primarily for television.

The majority of the documentaries in the twentieth century decades are shot on film Later works include several examples of digital abstract film accompanying significant works, notably those of Toru Takemitsu and Jonathan Harvey.

Films in the archive:

Volume 1
A Mind of Winter: George Benjamin (music by George Benjamin, words by Wallace Stevens)
Berg [documentary]
Berio: Sinfonia
Berio
Bert (A.L.Lloyd)
Beyond Bartok
Beyond Brandenburgs
Beyond Holst: The Planets
Beyond Mozart. [Symphony 27?]
Beyond Mussorgsky
Beyond Shostakovich
Beyond Sibelius
Beyond Tchaikovsky
Beyond the Score: Tchaikovsky
Boulez Notations
Boulez Now
Boulez on Berg, Schoenberg and Webern: Part 1
Boulez: Portrait
Debussy: La Mer
East Meets West
Espansiva
Face benind the Face
Fantasia for Thirty-four Guitars [The First Segovia International Guitar Competition]
How slow the wind - short film after Emily Dickinson
Jonathan Harvey: Towards and Beyond
Man On The Hill
Matthews, David: String Quartet No 3, Op 18
Miraculous Circumstance: Bartok Centenary (1881-1981) (BBC, 1980)
Nigel Osborne: Finding the Music
Pablo Neruda
Passing of the Year
Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Pears
Rhoda and The Tree of Life
Roberto Gerhard
September Garden
Song of Maramures
Stockhausen
Telemarteau
Toru Takemitsu: Green
Towards Antara
Tower of Dreams
Stockhausen: Gruppen [documentary with Simon Rattle and others]
Virgina Woolf: Mrs Woolf's Room - A Film About Virginia Woolf 1882-1941
Webern: A Different Beauty: the Music of Anton Webern (1883-1945)\
Wege Zur Neuen Musik: with Helmut Lachenmann [German language]

Volume 2
Three Postcards from Arcadia: Music by Charles Koechlin
80 Pictures for Jonathan Harvey
Beyond Dvorak
Bogey-Man, Prophet, Guardian: The Life and Work of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Boulez at 80
Boulez: Living in the Present (BBC, 2006)
Buried Treasure: the story of the rediscovery of Mahler's last symphony (with Simon Rattle)
Chadwick, parts 1 and 2, with music by Toru Takemitsu. Chadwick, Lyn: sculptor (HTV, 1990)
Constant Lambert: In search of Constant Lambert. (BBC: Workshop: A BBC Music Documentary, 1960?)
Eine Reise nach Mu. Schwertsik, Kurt: Eine Reise nach Mu [German language: Hesischen Rundfunks, 1983]c
The Ensemble of Possibilities: 25 years of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Far Away. Gustav Mahler: Far Away. (Barrie Gavin, 2013)
Feiffer: The life and opinions of Jules Feiffer. Jules Feiffer, cartoonist (Channel 4, 1983)
Hamel, Messiaen, Ravel: Concert in Alten Oper
Hommage a Pierre Boulez [26.3.1985 - 60th. (Südwestfunks Baden-Baden, 1985)]
Osborne: Interview with Nigel Osborne. [unpublished?]
Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony. Boston Symphony Orchestra at Kölner Philharmonie - filmed performance
Mind of Winter (George Benjamin - music by George Benjamin, words by Wallace Stevens) - duplicate
Nali - Momentaufnahmen aus dem Panoptikum des H.K. Gruber, Komponist (Hessischen Rundfunks, 1981, German language)
The New Rhythm of Music. Workshop. With Pierre Boulez
[The Noble Savage]. Percy Grainger. (Central Independent Television, 1986)
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Simon Rattle. Bade-Baden. Das Rheingold [Wagner]. Filmed performance
Omnibus at the Proms. Madonna of Winter and Spring. Jonathan Harvey (BBC, 1986)
Omnibus. Rap Her Te Bank. A panorama of the songs of work and city life by A.L.Lloyd [Culture as commodity. The third culture - the hidden seam]. AL Lloyd on folk culture of industrial towns in Britain (Rap her te bank: a pnorama of the songs of work and city life by AL Lloyd) (BBCTV colour, late 1970s)
Vivaldi The Four Seasons [Beyond the Score]
Xanadu. Sir William in Search of Xanadu. The story of the Burrell Collection. (Channel 4, Scottish Television, 1984)

Volume 3
Antony Payne - interview - long form [1hour 46mins]
A Line Through The Labyrinth: Luciano Berio (BBC Omnibus, 1978)
Bartok Centenary The Miraculous Circumstance [duplicate]
Bert. A.L.Lloyd: singer, writer, broadcaster
Boulez. Workshop. Pierre Boulez
Caravan of Sounds (1999). A musical journey through Egypt. A caravan of sounds (Hessischer Rundfunk, 1999)
East to West. East meets West: 13 Steps Around Toru Takemitsu (BBC, 1986)