Variácie slávy
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.
Ballerina Polina Semionova performs the mythic parts of Odette and Odile (white swan and black swan) with her great partner Stanislav Jermakov. The Zurich Opera House Orchestra is conducted by Russian musical director Vladimir Fedoseyev acclaimed in this repertoire.
Animated interpretation of the Bizet opera, second in a trilogy.
Animated interpretation of the Bizet opera, first in a trilogy
This Royal Albert Hall Concert, presented now on DVD, was also available online through live streaming. It is difficult to remember the last time any concert gave me so much pleasure and insight, and sent my soul soaring to such heights of joy. So many beloved piano pieces, so magnificently performed! Valentina has scaled the heights of technique, knocking off 'impossible' Liszt pieces like a stroll in the park. She melds with the piano with such assured ease that she can milk every piece for musical content and subtlety, reminding us of the great Hoffman, who also loved to play each piece a little differently every time, tapping deeply into the inexhaustible potential of a great composition, perpetually finding fresh ideas and magnificent new interpretations.
Very few people really knew Herbert von Karajan. The conductor gave access to his private life only a little circle of strictly loyal people who kept their secrets even long after the maestro’s death. This documentary for the first time shows in the whole dimension the real man Karajan: not only the image of a dandy that he himself had shown to the public, but the unfiltered image of his personality. Newly discovered original film footage from the inner circle shows Karajan’s private life like it really was.
Can a work of art remain relevant 200 years after its creation? Ludwig van Beethoven’s last completed symphony proves it’s possible.
Verdi's sweepingly ambitious opera on war, religion, love and fate is given a cinematic staging by Christof Loy. The Marquis of Calatrava forbids his daughter Leonora to marry the South American nobleman Don Alvaro. The lovers attempt to elope, but the Marquis catches them. In the ensuing altercation, Alvaro accidentally kills the Marquis, who curses his daughter as he dies. Leonora and Alvaro become separated during their escape. Leonora's brother Don Carlo di Vargas decides to find them and avenge his father.
Johnny Green leads the MGM Symphony Orchestra in a medley of waltzes and other familiar pieces by three members of the Strauss family. Filmed in CinemaScope.
André Rieu’s Magical Maastricht celebrates 15 years of André’s glorious hometown concerts. The King of the Waltz has selected his most spectacular performances and emotional songs and will bring the joyous atmosphere of his iconic open-air concerts in Maastricht straight to your local cinemas.
Documentary about the state of the conducting world in the 1990s. Broadcast as part of the BBC OMNIBUS strand of documentaries.
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.
In 2007, the Berliner Philharmoniker celebrated their 125th anniversary. Film director Enrique Sánchez Lansch took this occasion to tell a hitherto unknown chapter in the history of the Berliner Philharmoniker: the years of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. The film, “The Reichsorchester”, made in collaboration with musicians of the orchestra and its archive.
The first part of this Academy Award-winning short consists of a behind-the-scenes look at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as it prepares to perform Ravel's "Bolero." Individual musicians offer their thoughts as workers set up chairs and music stands; there are also comments by conductor Zubin Mehta and scenes of Mehta and the orchestra rehearsing. The rest of the film features a complete performance of "Bolero" with striking images of the orchestra as the music relentlessly approaches its climax.
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.
A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.
John Eliot Gardiner goes in search of Bach the man and the musician. The famous portrait of Bach portrays a grumpy 62-year-old man in a wig and formal coat, yet his greatest works were composed 20 years earlier in an almost unrivalled blaze of creativity. We reveal a complex and passionate artist; a warm and convivial family man at the same time a rebellious spirit struggling with the hierarchies of state and church who wrote timeless music that is today known world-wide. Gardiner undertakes a 'Bach Tour' of Germany, and sifts the relatively few clues we have - some newly-found. Most of all, he uses the music to reveal the real Bach.
April 5th, 2000... On the heels of their unanimously acclaimed albums "Appalachia Waltz" and "Appalachian Journey", "Appalachian Journey Live In Concert" captures three of the world's most extraordinary musicians live in concert, along with very special guests James Taylor and Alison Krauss, from their sold-out performance at New York City's Avery Fischer Hall.
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.