Karajan - Bruckner - Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9

The Nutcracker is Mikhail Baryshnikov's breathtaking and critically acclaimed Emmy-nominated production. This spectacular performance is danced by the magnificent team of Baryshnikov, one of the greatest classical dancers of the century, and Gelsey Kirkland, both showcased at the peak of their careers, with members of the American Ballet Theatre.

Le Concert de Paris 2024

El Sistema at the Salzburg Festival

Hudba na zámku v Roztokách

A popular production from 2021, straight from the historic building of the National Theatre. This star-studded title is directed by experienced director Magdalena Švecová, with soloists, the National Theatre Orchestra and Choir, and conducted by Jaroslav Kyzlink. The Barber of Seville was composed by the then 23-year-old Gioachino Rossini in just three weeks, resulting in a witty and dynamic work that perfectly captures the genre of Italian opera buffa. Rossini based his work on the 1772 play The Barber of Seville, or The Misguided Precaution by French dramatist Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. The two-act opera tells the story of the young love between Rosina and Count Almaviva. However, her guardian Don Bartolo also has his eye on her. Almaviva does not give up and asks the local barber Figaro for help, who comes up with a daring plan to bring the couple to their dream wedding.

Abbado Conducts Mahler No. 1 & Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3

Modrá ruža

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #9 was of a concert on March 22, 1952, at Carnegie Hall, featuring Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Respighi's Pines of Rome. (Concerts #8 and #9 were released on "Vol. 5" in the DVD series.)

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. This concert, broadcast in two parts, on 26 March and 2 April 1949, from NBC Studio 8H, features the opera "Aida" by Giuseppe Verdi. (Both broadcasts were released as "Vol. 3" in the DVD series.)

Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

The Triple Concerto is one of Beethoven's less frequently performed works - probably also because it requires three soloists and makes considerable demands on them. ARTE presents the Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra in C major at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, performed by an excellent trio of soloists. It is accompanied by the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt.

Johannes Brahms: Sinfonie Nr.3 F-Dur, op. 90

Distinguished Bach specialist Sir András Schiff returned to the BBC Proms in 2018 to present Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Bach's effortless brilliance and new-found sonorities push harmony and counterpoint further than ever with a combination of ancient and modern styles, church austerity and galant lightness. Schiff has said that no-one combines the sacred and the secular as Bach does, and this is comprehensively demonstrated in Bach's fascinating and challenging sequence. This performance in the Royal Albert Hall was described as a musical meditation for our troubled times by the Independent.

Das Mauerkonzert

Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) is one of the choreographer's most joyous and colourful creations. Inspired by his love for the Suffolk countryside, the ballet is set on a farm and tells a story of love between Lise, the daughter of Widow Simone, and Colas, a young farmer. It contains some of Ashton's most stunning choreography, most strikingly in the series of energetic pas de deux that express the youthful passion of the young lovers, performed here by Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae. The ballet is laced with exuberant good humour, and elements of national folk dance, from dancing chickens and a maypole dance to a Lancashire clog dance for Widow Simone, performed by Philip Mosley.

The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #8 was of a concert on March 15, 1952, at Carnegie Hall, featuring Sibelius's En Saga, two of Debussy's Nocturnes, and Franck's Redemption. (Concerts #8 and #9 were released on "Vol. 5" in the DVD series.)

Welshman Sir Karl Jenkins is the most-performed living composer in the world. To mark his 70th birthday on the 17th February 2014, S4C broadcast a film portrayal of the pioneering musician in the programme Karl Jenkins: Pencerdd Penclawdd.