A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.
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.
For the first 18 years of her life, Mozart’s sister shared equal billing with her brother. Musical partners and collaborators, Wolfgang Mozart and Maria-Anna Mozart played together before Kings and Queens, and were the talk of Europe. What happened to her? Forced into retirement by age 16 because she was a woman, a stunning new investigation explores why she was retired against her will and the explosive theory: did Maria-Anna Mozart continue to compose in secret?
Changing colors according to the music.
Utterly astounding, iridescent sand animation from Aleksandra Korejwo based around Bizet's Carmen.
Avant-garde composer John Cage is famous for his experimental pieces and "chance music" but temporarily branched into video in 1992 with this art film about meaningless activity. The work is composed of two segments that are supposed to be played simultaneously: "One 11" contains the artistic statement, and "103" is a 17-part orchestral piece. Also included is a revealing documentary about Cage and director Henning Lohner.
Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and screened at nine film festivals internationally, with three best-of awards. It was named a Recording of the Year 2017 by MusicWeb International.
The Nutcracker is Mikhail Baryshnikov's breathtaking and critcally acclaimed Emmy nominated production. The thisspectacular performance is danced by the magnificent team of Baryshnikov, one of the greatest classical dancers of the century, and Gelsey Kirkland, both chowcased at the peak of the their careers, with members of the American Ballet Theatre.
With this performance of the Missa solemnis Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Honorary Guest Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, once more attained the status of a living legend, due mostly to his wide-ranging expertise of music from the Baroque and Classical era. The highly acclaimed soloists are Marlis Petersen (Soprano), twice the singer of the year by the renowned Opernwelt magazine, Elisabeth Kulman (Alto), Werner Güra (Tenor), winner of the BBC Music Magazine Award for the best vocal performance, and Gerald Finley (Bass), Grammy-Awardwinner for the best opera recording. They are accompanied by the famous Netherlands Radio Choir.
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.
After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
Beethoven spent three years composing the Eroica, an intimate journal of his emotional crises and his dramatic emergence as an original master. Michael Tilson Thomas and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony help you make sense of this voyage into life as it really is.
Around 1536, at Windsor Castle, King Henry VIII of England fell in love with the young queen's lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. In order to free himself from his marriage to Anne Boleyn, the monarch decided to recall Anne's former lover, Lord Percy, from exile, as he still loved the queen. Both were unjustly sentenced to be beheaded for alleged adultery. The outcast Anne Boleyn spends her last moments in the Tower of London, from where she is led directly to the execution site...
The film is a parody of Disney's Fantasia, though possibly more of a challenge to Fantasia than parody status would imply. In the context of this film, "Allegro non Troppo" means Not So Fast!, an interjection meaning "slow down" or "think before you act" and refers to the film's pessimistic view of Western progress (as opposed to the optimism of Disney's original).
Benjamin Britten's monumental anti-war oratorio from the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle in memory of war veterans and victims. British composer Benjamin Britten wrote War Requiem in 1962 on the occasion of the restoration of the war-damaged cathedral in Coventry. He used the traditional, codified Latin text of the requiem – a mass for the dead – interspersed with verses by Wilfred Owen, a British officer who wrote his poems directly in the trenches of World War I. More than two hundred artists then joined their voices in the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle as part of the Prague Sounds festival for a symbolic performance of the work, which is rarely performed due to its demanding nature and large cast.
For their annual season end concert, the Berliner Philharmoniker take the audience on a dreamy, magically journey through the river Rhine with Schumann’s beloved 3rd Symphony Rhenish. Pieces from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen under the baton of dynamic conductor Gustavo Dudamel complete this evening.
Beethoven · Missa Solemnis (Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann)
Beethoven · Missa Solemnis (Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan)
Sir Simon Rattle, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin give an impeccable performance of the powerful biblical oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” by John Adams, one of the most renowned contemporary composers. The sophisticated score with a libretto by acclaimed theatre director Peter Sellars comes to life thanks to the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose intimate knowledge of Adams’s music stems from the composer himself: He attended the orchestra’s rehearsals. In the role of the Evangelist, Bubeck, Cummings and Medley lead through the narrative. A stunning highlight is Lazarus’s aria, sung by tenor Peter Hoare. But at the heart of the piece are Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha during the last days before Jesus’s death, impressively performed by mezzo-sopranos Kelley O’Connor and Tamara Mumford.
In the magical world of dancing fireflies, we follow the story of the main character - naughty Svätojanek, which takes place against the backdrop of the changing seasons. Little episodes from the life of the industrious little bugs, set in the endless cycle of nature, are arranged in dancing images that carry a strong ethical message.