Notes on film: Classical music on the big screen

Time was when a feature film about classical music was an excuse to get a lot of great musical stars on-screen. The renowned ­pianist and sometime statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski played in 1937’s “Moonlight Sonata”; in 1947, “Carnegie Hall” presented cameos by such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Ezio Pinza and others, linked by a flimsy tissue of a story. Rags to riches, boy meets girl, what did it matter; the key thing was that there was...