How can marks on a 150‐year‐old page transform into the unflinching emotion of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony? From decoding the score, to uncovering Tchaikovsky's history, Michael Tilson Thomas gives us a backstage pass to the making of a performance.
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Leonard Bernstein performs three of his own compositions with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Philharmonic in Berlin.
Icelandic pop-star Paul Oscar joins with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra to give a performance during Covid19 lookdowns.
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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
In the ancient theater of Delphi, against the backdrop of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, musicAeterna, conducted by Teodor Currentzis, performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, in conjunction with a new choreography by Sasha Waltz and her company.
The unforgettable performances by Claudio Abbado and the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1−7 are newly celebrated in a set which showcases their exceptional quality – both audiovisual and musical. Claudio Abbado has set new standards in the interpretation of Gustav Mahler’s works; he and his exclusive ensemble of hand-picked musicians held audiences spellbound in these concerts. REPERTOIRE: Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-7; Five lieder based on poems by Friedrich Rückert; Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
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.
Kenya, a bold five-year old girl, is reluctantly dragged to a symphony by her mother. Through the power of the orchestra, the young girl's passion for music blossoms before her own eyes.
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.
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.
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.
For this performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3, recorded live in 2007 at the Congress and Concert Hall Lucerne, Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are joined by the Arnold Schoenberg Chor and the Tölzer Knabenchor. The soloist is Anna Larsson.