Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

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.

The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past

Documentary about sixteen great conductors of the 20th century.

Sommernachtskonzert der Wiener Philarmoniker Schönbrunn

The renowned orchestra presents the world's biggest annual classical open air concert live from their hometown Vienna, Austria on Thursday, May 29th, 2014. The Summer Night Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic is an annual open-air event that takes place in the magical setting of the Schönbrunn Palace Park in Vienna with the palace as a magnificent backdrop. Everyone is invited to come to this unique occasion with free admission. Each year up to 100,000 people can take up the invitation, or enjoy on radio and TV in over 60 countries.

Etuda o zkoušce

Study of the work of the conductor Václav Neumann and his creative process with the orchestra.

Lindsey Stirling: Brave Enough

Beginning on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, “Brave Enough,” documents violinist Lindsey Stirling over the past year as she comes to terms with the most challenging & traumatic events of her life. Through her art, she seeks to share a message of hope and courage and yet she must ask herself the question, “Am I Brave Enough?” Capturing her personal obstacles and breakthrough moments during the “Brave Enough,” tour, the film presents an intimate look at this one-of- a-kind artist and her spectacular live performances inspired by real-life heartbreak, joy, and love.

CODA

This short animation draws on advanced digital technologies to offer a new vision of dance in cinema. With motion capture (MoCap) and particle processing, designers Denis Poulin and Martine Époque create virtual dancers free of their morphological appearance. In this balletic and hypnotic film, dynamic traces carry the motion of the real dancers behind the on-screen movements. Addressing environmental themes by way of metaphor, CODA is a fused universe where space and time collide, deploy, and dissolve. In this technically and formally innovative film, luminous bodies in the infinite space of the cosmos transform and evolve to the rhythms of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Vier Minuten

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté

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.

Jiří Bělohlávek: „Když já tak rád diriguju…“

Not Mozart: Letters, Riddles and Writs

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

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff in Venedig

The Choir and Orchestra of the La Fenice Theatre, conducted by Fabio Luisi, take over Piazza San Marco in Venice for a grandiose concert. Facing the basilica, the musicians perform the famous cantata "Carmina burana", twenty-four medieval poems set to music by Carl Orff between 1935 and 1936.

Casa Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Karajan – Porträt eines Maestros

An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

Benjamin Britten: Válečné rekviem

Benjamin Britten's monumental anti-war oratorio from the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle in memory of war veterans and victims. British composer Benjamin Britten wrote War Requiem in 1962 on the occasion of the restoration of the war-damaged cathedral in Coventry. He used the traditional, codified Latin text of the requiem – a mass for the dead – interspersed with verses by Wilfred Owen, a British officer who wrote his poems directly in the trenches of World War I. More than two hundred artists then joined their voices in the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle as part of the Prague Sounds festival for a symbolic performance of the work, which is rarely performed due to its demanding nature and large cast.

Zubin Mehta: Dirigent und Weltbürger

Zubin Mehta is one of the most charismatic conductors of our time. A citizen of the world with many facets: Indian culture and Parsi spirituality, North American lifestyle and European musical tradition. The portrait accompanies Zubin Mehta to current places of activity and important stages of his life. [arte.de]

Beethoven Missa Solemnis

With this performance of the Missa solemnis Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Honorary Guest Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, once more attained the status of a living legend, due mostly to his wide-ranging expertise of music from the Baroque and Classical era. The highly acclaimed soloists are Marlis Petersen (Soprano), twice the singer of the year by the renowned Opernwelt magazine, Elisabeth Kulman (Alto), Werner Güra (Tenor), winner of the BBC Music Magazine Award for the best vocal performance, and Gerald Finley (Bass), Grammy-Awardwinner for the best opera recording. They are accompanied by the famous Netherlands Radio Choir.

Beethoven · Missa Solemnis (Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann)

Beethoven · Missa Solemnis (Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan)

The Planets

Based on the famous Gustav Holst musical suite, this musical film takes watchers on a magnificent journey of the planets of the Solar System.

Písně z Gurre

A brilliant performance of Schönberg's monumental work at the Prague State Opera. Arnold Schönberg composed Gurre-Lieder to a text by J. P. Jacobsen about the tragic love of the Danish king Waldemar and his mistress Tove Lille, who was murdered out of jealousy by Queen Helviga. He orchestrated the composition for a monumental orchestral and vocal ensemble: five vocal solos, a narrator, a male and mixed choir, and a huge orchestra comprising 25 woodwind instruments, 25 brass instruments, four harps, a celesta, 16 different percussion instruments (including iron chains), and an exceptionally large string section. Every performance of this masterpiece, composed down to the last detail, is truly an overwhelming experience. SOČR chief conductor Petr Popelka seized this unique opportunity, as at the time of the performance of Songs he was also chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and in this unique project he brought together the two ensembles entrusted to him.