Andre Previn at the BBC(2015)

Tanglewood: So you want to be a conductor(en)

In 1985, cameras take a look inside the Berkshire Music Center, the most prominent pre-professional classical music academy in the US. Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin and others work with the next generation younger conducting talent.

Carmen Torero z „Carmen-Suity”(pl)

Utterly astounding, iridescent sand animation from Aleksandra Korejwo based around Bizet's Carmen.

Tanglewood: A Place for Music(en)

A look at the activities of the Tanglewood Music Center, America's renowned summer Academy for talented musicians, singers, composers and conductors.

The Life and Loves of Beethoven(fr)

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

The Nutcracker(en)

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.

Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter(en)

The great composer of The Planets, Gustav Holst also taught himself Sanskrit, lived in a street of brothels in Algiers, cycled into the Sahara Desert, and allied himself during the First World War with a ‘red priest' who pinned on the door of his church "prayers at noon for the victims of Imperial Aggression". He hated the words used to his most famous tune "I Vow to Thee My Country" because it was the opposite of what he believed, and died before the age of 60 - broken and disillusioned.

The Other Song(en)

Journeying across Varanasi, Lucknow, and Muzzafarpur in India, this documentary film traces the lost traditions and the culture of tawaifs (courtesans of North India), particularly through a song sung by Rasoolan Bai, "Lagat karejwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar" and its lesser known, earlier version "Lagat jobanwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar" (recorded in a 1935 Gramophone recording). Weaving the past with the present, the film spans between personal stories as it interacts with historical events, ultimately leading to the decline of a great art form.

Everything you wanted to know about conductors but were afraid to ask(en)

Documentary about the state of the conducting world in the 1990s. Broadcast as part of the BBC OMNIBUS strand of documentaries.

Daniil Trifonov spielt Chopins Klavierkonzert Nr. 2(de)

Herbert von Karajan conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9(de)

André Rieu Magical Maastricht - Together in Music(nl)

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.

Saturday Night Swing Club(en)

Leith Stevens leads his orchestra in a nice assortment of standards in a variety of musical styles, including Dixieland and swing. Mr. Stevens was a popular orchestra leader of the era who later became a musical director for an assortment of television shows and his facility with more than one style of music, so important for his later career, is much in evidence here.

Not Mozart: Letters, Riddles and Writs(en)

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

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection(en)

In 2005, the Staatsoper Berlin and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin under musical director Daniel Barenboim, celebrated a series of events to celebrate the 80th birthday of French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez. Artistically associated for decades with Barenboim and Berlin, Pierre Boulez is one of today's most distinguished composers and conductors. As part of the celebration, Boulez conducted a performance of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonie. With his uncompromising approach to the score, Pierre Boulez's Mahler readings have long fascinated critics and audiences alike. Boulez eschews the romanticized readings common in performance tradition and, instead, reveals the real joy and terror in Mahler's large-scale symphonies.

What Difference Does It Make?(en)

A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.

The Reich's Orchestra(de)

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.

Bach: A Passionate Life(en)

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.

Artur Rubinstein: The Legendary Moscow Recital(en)

Arthur Rubinstein's 1964 recital in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, filmed and recorded by Soviet television and preserved in its archives, in a program of work of Chopin and — in encores introduced from the stage by Rubinstein — Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, and Villa-Lobos.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped(fr)

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.

Beethoven - Symphonies 1-9 (Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle)(de)

Recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies with their chief conductor are always a milestone in the artistic work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was with Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, and expectations are correspondingly high for this cycle conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Where does the special status of these symphonies come from? Simon Rattle has an explanation: “One of the things Beethoven does is to give you a mirror into yourself – where you are now as a musician.” In fact, this music contains such a wealth of extreme emotions and brilliant compositional ideas that reveal the qualities of the orchestra and its conductor as if under a magnifying glass.