Filmmaker Christopher Nupen (standing, in white shirt) shoots his 1969 documentary The Trout, which featured Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline Du Pré, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, and Daniel Barenboim. Photo by Allegro Films.
“Christopher Nupen has died at the age of 88,” states an unsigned obituary in Monday’s (2/20) Gramophone (U.K.). Nupen was “born in Johannesburg into a family of Norwegian descent … He moved to the UK and initially worked in banking before joining the BBC as a sound engineer…. He was then invited by Huw Weldon, the Managing Director of BBC TV, to make a series of films about classical music starting with Double Concerto which followed Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra. Using the new 16mm cameras, he developed a style of documentary film making that invited the viewer into the act of making music … This was most memorably demonstrated in his film of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with … Itzhak Perlman (violin), Pinchas Zukerman (viola), Jacqueline Du Pré (cello), Zubin Mehta (double bass) and Daniel Barenboim (piano) … filmed at a performance at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in August 30, 1969 … Nupen made a series on composers, including Paganini, Schubert and Sibelius, as well as the 2004 documentary We Want The Light, a study of the complex relationship between the Jews and German music…. One of the younger subjects of his films, Daniil Trifonov said … ‘Christopher Nupen knows how to go into the psychology of an artist and it really shows the art of music making from inside out.’ ”
