Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts Hans Werner Henze's opera "Der Prinz von Homburg".
An aspiring conductor finds himself in his dream position, conducting an orchestra that doesn't exist.
Study of the work of the conductor Václav Neumann and his creative process with the orchestra.
Beyond the Grace Note examines the hard climb to the podium faced by women conductors today. Leading female conductors open up for the first time about the struggles they faced throughout their careers and how their love of music saved them in this difficult and competitive profession.
Diagnosed with leukemia, a successful orchestra conductor learns that he is adopted, and his younger brother is in a village marching band. The conductor decides to help them win a regional contest.
Three generations of a single family live together under a common roof in an uncoordinated choreography. The mother, acting as an orchestra conductor, tries without success to gather everyone around the same table for dinner.
Like many of John Adams’ operas, Doctor Atomic is based on recent world historical events—here, the effusive Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” anxiously awaits the bomb’s first test in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Adams adapted the work into a symphony, comprising its three main acts. In the second half of the program, Adams conducts his 2015 violin concerto, Scheherazade.2, which restages the tale of the One Thousand and One Nights heroine as a strong woman navigating a patriarchial society, incarnated by the solo violin part. The work was composed specifically for Canadian-American virtuoso Leila Josefowicz and co-commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who perform it to perfection. The evening then closes out with Tromba Lontana, an orchestral fanfare written to mark the 150th anniversary of Texas’s independence from Mexico in 1836.
MUHAI TANG – IN THE OCEAN OF MUSIC is a portrait of Chinese conductor Muhai Tang’s extraordinary life. Born in 1949, the founding year of the People’s Republic of China, and raised during the Cultural Revolution, it seemed as if he would have to abandon his dream of a career in music. However, his talent, perseverance and the support of Herbert von Karajan ultimately brought him to the world’s concert halls. Today, Muhai Tang is a global nomad. A wanderer between the worlds which he unites with music. His personal history, interspersed with historical caesurae, is typical for Chinese of his generation. He gained access to western culture early on through music. Muhai Tang’s life and work are exemplary of a changing China and the enrichment of the world by an artist between East and West.
A cellist is murdered during a symphony concert. Shortly afterwards, the manager of the hall is found dead, an apparent suicide. But is it?
Documentary on conductor Herbert van Karajan, focusing on his early adoption of audio and video recording technology and his impetus to make use of it to preserve his musical legacy for future generations.
Between 1981 and 1984 Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms' orchestral works with the Wiener Philharmoniker to honour the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth in 1983. For the concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms interpreters of the time: the violoninst Gidon Kremer, the cellist Mischa Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman. Seeing Bernstein enjoying himself while conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in these lighter, familiar works by Brahms added to the pleasure I got from them. The Academic Festival Overture is especially well done. Some conductors don't seem to get it, but Bernstein did.
Following the success of the Art of Conducting-Great Conductors of the Past, this second edition focuses on a further six of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, complemented by commentary from music personalities who knew the artists firsthand. Rare film clips are also included of Herbert von Karajan, Hermann Scherchen, Andre Cluytens and Vaclav Talich.
A documentary film "Angels of Sorrow", dedicated to the 80th Jubilee of a contemporary Georgian classic composer - Giya Kancheli is filmed during the concert tour in several cities of the world (Berlin, Brussels, Antwerp, Baku, Tbilisi). He is an artist, for whom the most important thing in all time was freedom. During Soviet period, he was accused of introducing morphine with his music and that he rejoiced enemies in capitalist countries with it. Giya Kancheli with his friends replied to all these from theater stage, where they reflected the whole absurdity of the Soviet Union. The war is still going on - Art can't change anything.
Imperfect Harmony is a film about musical control, explored through a clash between two maestros: avant-garde rebel and Holland’s best-known composer, Louis Andriessen, and chief conductor at Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons. Half a century ago Andriessen vowed he would never compose for a symphony orchestra again. But, against all the odds and after much deliberation, he has agreed to do so. The occasion is the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s 125th jubilee year concert and the commission is a present from the Concertgebouw to the orchestra.
With a career that includes a 35-year tenure as composer of the Berlin Philharmonic and record sales topping 200 million, Herbert von Karajan is one of the most legendary figures in 20th-century classical music. Comprised of archival footage, performance highlights and interviews with the likes of Anne-Sophie Mutter, Christa Ludwig and Seiji Ozawa, this retrospective chronicles the life and times of the iconic Austrian maestro.
The Italian Character: a film within music and about music. The Italian character is the story of one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, enriched by archive material of the last thirty years about the great conductors who have been performing on the most famous rostrum in Rome.