Baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist James Baillieu reimagine Schubert's song cycle Winterreise in the wintry setting of an Alpine landscape at the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland - a place that emphasises the timelessness of Schubert's music
This film is a docufiction on the great Toscanini directed by well-known filmmaker Larry Weinstein; who pushes the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by borrowing tools from fiction films; including dramatic reconstructions and historical cinematic stylings.
This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Bernstein provides two distinct meanings of the term ambiguity. The first is "doubtful or uncertain" and the second, "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses"
Mozart’s Requiem – his final and unfinished masterpiece – is an extraordinary work. Discover the piece at the Salzburg Festival in the hands of conductor Teodor Currentzis, the ensemble musicAeterna, Anna Prohaska (soprano), Katharina Magiera (contralto), Mauro Peter (tenor), and Tareq Nazmi (bass). Few musical works are as steeped in legend as Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K. 626. Commissioned anonymously by the eccentric count Franz von Walsegg, the funereal oeuvre would become Mozart’s last: when he died on December 5, 1791, only the Requiem aeternam and Kyrie movements were fully composed and orchestrated. Completed by other composers (Mozart’s student Franz Xaver Süssmayer in particular) using Mozart’s sketches and notes, the resulting work weaves the emotions we associate with death into a timeless musical exploration of every human being’s destiny, and constitutes a powerful final testament to its creator’s genius.
Like many of John Adams’ operas, Doctor Atomic is based on recent world historical events—here, the effusive Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” anxiously awaits the bomb’s first test in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Adams adapted the work into a symphony, comprising its three main acts. In the second half of the program, Adams conducts his 2015 violin concerto, Scheherazade.2, which restages the tale of the One Thousand and One Nights heroine as a strong woman navigating a patriarchial society, incarnated by the solo violin part. The work was composed specifically for Canadian-American virtuoso Leila Josefowicz and co-commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who perform it to perfection. The evening then closes out with Tromba Lontana, an orchestral fanfare written to mark the 150th anniversary of Texas’s independence from Mexico in 1836.
Contents Boulez: Initiale /Boulez Ensemble (chamber ensemble) Schubert: Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D965 (Von Chezy / Muller) Anna Prohaska (soprano), Jörg Widmann (clarinet), Daniel Barenboim (piano) Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, K493 Daniel Barenboim (piano), Michael Barenboim (violin), Yulia Deyneka (viola), Kian Soltani(cello) Berg: Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Wind Instruments Michael Barenboim (violin), Karim Said (piano), Boulez Ensemble
Beth Gibbons (vocalist for acclaimed UK band Portishead) was formally invited to Poland in 2014 to sing soprano at Warsaw’s Grand Theatre. This performance forms the basis of the film and album titled Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) performed by Beth Gibbons and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki.
This is a 4-DVD set, featuring the Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi and the chamber orchestra (around 40 members) Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. The first 3 DVDs feature live performances of all 9 of Beethoven's symphonies, and the 4th DVD is a documentary produced for DW (Deutsche Welle) on this Beethoven project.
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.
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.