Beethoven's Birthday: A Celebration in Vienna with Leonard Bernstein(1970)

Amadeus(en)

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story(en)

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty(en)

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.

Currentzis conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 9(de)

Ludwig van Beethoven headed for Symphony No. 9 literally his entire life. As early as the 1790s, he had an eye on Ode to Joy, perhaps the most well-known poem by Friedrich Schiller, written on the threshold of the French Revolution (1786). In his mature and, in particular, later years, the deaf composer with an acute ‘hearing vision’ increasingly distanced himself from conventional forms and genres and wrote parts beyond the possibilities of instruments of his day. He nurtured the idea of a symphony with a choir for at least several years. The history of the Ninth’s interpretations includes 200 years of staggering revelations and lingering stagnation. Performed by the musicAeterna orchestra, choir, and guest soloists under the baton of Teodor Currentzis, Beethoven’s opus magnum acquires the original poignancy and energy of a recent discovery.

Alltagsgeschichte – Treffpunkt U-Bahn(de)

Ignaz Wuzel and Gerhard Jeschko are regulars at the espresso in the Südtiroler Platz underground station. Warden Leopold Prinz knows the problems of the children from Karlsplatz. In 1993, Elizabeth T. Spira filmed people on the Vienna subway network. Above all, it is the desperate, the lost and the forgotten who find refuge and a home in and around the subway.

Khatia Buniatishvili and Zubin Mehta: Liszt & Beethoven(de)

Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven serve up an evening of glittering virtuosity and transcendent melody in this unusual, all-concerto program. Filmed at Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium in July 2015. Zubin Mehta leads the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as they accompany three very different 18th-century concertos performed respectively by trumpeters Ram Oren and Yigal Meltzer, clarinettist Ron Selka, and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. Set-List: Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto for 2 Trumpets in C Major, RV 537 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622 / Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15.

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas(en)

In this recording, seven-time GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim tackles the so-called 'New Testament' of music, Ludwig van Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas, composed over twenty-five years and embodying the shift of musical taste from the Classic to the Romantic, their performance requires a musician of extraordinary versatility. Daniel Barenboim is one such pianist his recordings run the gamut from Bach and Mozart to Bruckner and Bartók.

Daniel Barenboim: Beethoven - Piano Concertos 1-5(en)

If Daniel Barenboim is not the world's greatest living classical musician he is certainly the most versatile. In a career spanning more than 50 years, his name is attached to many of the celebrated recordings of opera, symphony, small ensemble and piano solo. With the later half of his career marked by distinction at the podium, one may forget that he is still an accomplished concert pianist. Here we are treated to both talents as Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin and plays all five of Beethoven's piano concerti. From the accompanying booklet we find that Barenboim first recorded these works in 1967 at the age of 24 under Otto Klemperer. Now he is revisiting them 40 years later on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

Wiener Barock - Der Architekt dreier Kaiser(fr)

The Gypsy Baron(de)

In the Temesvar Province, a landowner returned from exile marries a gypsy girl who is revealed to be the daughter of a Turkish Pasha and the rightful owner of a hidden treasure. Next to "Die Fledermaus", DER ZIGEUNERBARON is Johann Strauss’s most popular operetta. The libretto gave Strauss the chance to revel in such contrasting musical forms as the Csárdás and the Viennese waltz. The style of the lied forms and ensembles is so original and finely balanced that the "Gypsy Baron" can truly be called a comic opera. Among the leading names of the stellar cast in this exuberant 1975 film of the operetta are Wolfgang Brendel, Ivan Rebroff, Janet Perry, Ellen Shade, Martha Mödl and, in the role that launched his career, Siegfried Jerusalem as Sándor Barinkay.

We Feed the World(de)

A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.

A Corny Concerto(en)

Elmer Fudd introduces two pieces of classical music: "Tales of the Vienna Woods" and "The Blue Danube", and acted out by Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Laramore the Hound Dog, a family of swans, and a juvenile Daffy Duck.

Immortal Beloved(en)

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Vienna, City of My Dreams(de)

In the made-up country of Alanien, King Alexander I has been overthrown while abroad. Now, he's in Vienna with his daughter, the city of his fondest memories since studying there as a boy. It doesn't take long for the charm of Vienna to work its magic on the former king: he quickly comes to terms with the new situation and is able to enjoy the Austrian capital sans all the ceremony and trappings which would otherwise accompany him on a state visit. The princess is content with preparing herself for a career as a pianist concert, while the former king takes a job as a chauffeur in the embassy of the country he once ruled. The revolutionaries are shocked; and his days in Vienna are numbered.

Never Be Boring: Billy Wilder(de)

A funny walk through the life story of Billy Wilder (1906-2002), a cinematic genius; a portrait of a filmmaker who never was a boring man, a superb mind who had ten commandments, of which the first nine were: “Thou shalt not bore.”

Keeping Score: Beethoven's Eroica(en)

Beethoven spent three years composing the Eroica, an intimate journal of his emotional crises and his dramatic emergence as an original master. Michael Tilson Thomas and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony help you make sense of this voyage into life as it really is.

War in Vienna(de)

A film about news, life and death. Before the media became so prevalent, we were concerned about our immediate neighborhood. At the end of the day, news was the subject of our conversations, but now it's possible to converse with someone at the other end of the globe. We do it all the time. It's simple. The world has become one big neighborhood. Now Headline News has replaced the back fence. That's the news service of the eigthies. It's a new idea and a new approach.

The Great Waltz(en)

A musical based on the life and music of Johann Strauss, Jr.

Octopus Alarm(de)

Alex is intersex. Although he has XY chromosomes, his sex is ambiguous. When Alex was an infant, his mother authorised genital reassignment surgery, and he was thereafter raised female. Now Alex is an adult, and he is consumed by feelings of anger and loss. After meeting other "XY women" and doing a lot of soul-searching, he decides he wants to live as a man.

Egon Schiele: Between Love and Hate(de)

An account of the short life and the astonishing and provocative work of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918), seen through the peculiar point of view and the critic voices of the women who defined the paramount milestones of his existence: Gerti, his sister; Wally, his main model and lover; and Edith, his wife. A brief story of love, hate, betrayal and misfortune.