Music on Two - The Secret Island: Sergei Rachmaninov in Exile (BBC Two 10-10-1992)

Composer, conductor and one of the greatest pianists in the history of music, Rachmaninov seems to be the model of the essential romantic artist - sad, obsessed with death, isolated from homeland and culture. Yet at the same time he was a convivial friend and devoted family man. This portrait, written by British composer Gerard McBurney, presents the paradoxes and contrasts of a mysterious creative personality, drawing on previously unseen home movies of the composer. With pianists Howard Shelley and Hilary Macnamara.
First in a series of documentaries about 20th-century music.