Here is the most convincing presentation of Brahms' symphonies that I personally have ever experienced. There is no explaining a gift like Leonard Bernstein, a true legend and one of the truly great ones of the 20th century (and a great Brahms conductor!). I have followed his career and recordings both at the NY Philharmonic and at Vienna (other places too). His brilliance and incandescence are revelatory in these Brahms performances. His view of a thorough-going romantic Brahms expressing his passionate control of an inner rage in classical form is convincing. He and this great Vienna orchestra give a consistent statement of it. And, of course, Bernstein's introductory comments are without peer.
Here is the most convincing presentation of Brahms' symphonies that I personally have ever experienced. There is no explaining a gift like Leonard Bernstein, a true legend and one of the truly great ones of the 20th century (and a great Brahms conductor!). I have followed his career and recordings both at the NY Philharmonic and at Vienna (other places too). His brilliance and incandescence are revelatory in these Brahms performances. His view of a thorough-going romantic Brahms expressing his passionate control of an inner rage in classical form is convincing. He and this great Vienna orchestra give a consistent statement of it. And, of course, Bernstein's introductory comments are without peer.
1984-01-01
0
Towering Performances!
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.
After the great success of his Beethoven cycle, Christian Thielemann now turns with his new orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, to the symphonic work of Johannes Brahms. Bonus features include: an extensive 52 minute interview with Christian Thielemann on Brahms' Symphonies and provides and in-depth look into his interpretation of Brahms.
Mickey guest-directs a radio orchestra. The sponsor loves the rehearsal, but come the actual performance, Goofy drops all the instruments under an elevator, so they sound like toys. The sponsor hates it, but the audience loves it anyway.
Karajan's very best video Beethoven 9th Symphony, recorded December 31, 1977. The Quartet of vocal soloists and Chorus in IV are superb. This is much better than Karajan's 1968 Berlin Philharmonic Beethoven 9 video (DG), filmed in the Philharmonie with no live audience present.
The charismatic and inspiring Claudio Abbado and the magnificent mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, hold the audience spellbound in this live recording from Lucerne Festival in Summer. Mahler’s five Rückert-Lieder – in a profoundly moving and rapturously received performance – precede Mahler’s sublime and deeply personal Fourth Symphony. This extraordinary work is executed with power, passion and sensitivity, with Magdalena Kožená giving a transcendent rendition of the final movement.
Claudio Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in this performance of Mahler's seventh symphony recorded in 2005.
The release of Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1 + 2 starts the release the complete Mahler cycle with Paavo Jarvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra on DVD and Blu-ray. Each Symphony will have an introduction by Paavo Jarvi.
The charismatic and inspiring Claudio Abbado and the mesmerising young pianist Yuja Wang, with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, hold the audience spellbound in this opening concert of the 2009 Lucerne Festival. Prokofiev's popular and vibrant Third Piano Concerto demonstrates the composer's sharp musical wit, and Yuja Wang is a brilliant exponent of the work. Following this, and chiming beautifully with the festival's theme of the relationship between art and nature, Mahler's First Symphony is given an illuminating and rapturously received performance.
Two decades after the album’s critically acclaimed release, hip-hop artist Nas teamed up with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to stage a symphonic rendition of “Illmatic,” one of the most revered albums in hip-hop history. Nas: Live From the Kennedy Center captures the energy and nostalgia of this collaborative performance.
American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
A concert by contemporary instrumental musician, Yanni, recorded live at the Herodes Atticus Theatre in Athens on 25 Sep 1993.
A section from the life of composer Franz Schubert as a material for a love story. Also known in English as Gently My Songs Entreat. An English version called Unfinished Symphony would follow in 1934.
To play Beethoven's music is to give oneself over completely to the child-spirit which lived in that grim, awkward, violent man. Without that utter submission it is impossible to play the Adagio of the Ninth. Or, Heaven knows, the first movement. And the Finale? Most of all! It is simply unplayable unless we go all the way with him, as he cries out "Brüder!" - Leonard Bernstein
“What is this life—and this death?” Gustav Mahler famously asked when composing his second symphony. Does consciousness “continue” on a higher cosmic level, he wondered, or is it “only an empty dream?” Narrated by renowned baritone Thomas Hampson, this film explores the musical, biographical, and philosophical background of the monumental work. Viewers are treated to beautifully produced historical reenactments as well as interviews with many of the world’s most respected Mahler scholars and biographers, including Henry-Louis de La Grange, Donald Mitchell, Morten Solvik, and others. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum and theologians Catherine Keller and Neil Gillman also add their insights. Woven throughout is a critically acclaimed performance of the symphony featuring members of the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of maestro Neeme Järvi.
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.