From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole Porter and his wife, Linda Lee Thomas were never less than glamorous and wildly unconventional. And though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.
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.
Sam Green's intimate portrait of Annea Lockwood shares with us a glimpse into the enthralling world of sound that she has been exploring and creating for many years. It is a touching and personal story of imagination and love.
A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.
Director helmut Dietls and Patric Susskinds illustrate a legendary story of two lovers who cant keep themselves away from death.
The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.
A composer goes to Devil's Island for killing his wife's lover, then writes an opera about it.
A prolific composer and one of the most celebrated poets in Brazilian music, Paulo César Pinheiro is the author of Canto das Três Raças and O Poder da Criação, among other samba, samba-enredo and song classics. Partner of Baden Powell, Tom Jobim and Edu Lobo, was created by Elis Regina, Clara Nunes and Maria Bethânia. Here, sitting on his couch, he reflects on human nature and leads a journey that evokes and involves big names in MPB, covering half a century of music, from the height of the festival era to the period of protest songs against the military dictatorship.
Young Stanzi who is visiting Vienna helps a young corporal and musician to become famous for his marching song "Die Deutschmeister".
Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.
Composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
Upon awaking in the morning, a man finds his thoughts clouded by the possibility that he committed a murder.
As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.
Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.
An early morning phone call in 2017 changed the lives of two teenage brothers bonded by their love of percussion. One died tragically in a car accident while the other determined to make sense of his loss through music.
A profile of composing team John Kander and Fred Ebb, who have written many Broadway musicals. Highlights include interviews with Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey and others, as well as the two men themselves, plus clips of performances of their songs.
As Tobias, a young director, supposes that his girl-friend Ellen had an affair with his brother Markus, front man of "Hansen", one year ago, he decides to shoot a documentary about the band's next tour. When Ellen joins the project, everybody's emotions boil over, although they are observed all the time.
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.