A drummer-turned-composer, Steve Reich has produced some of the most vibrant, original and interesting music of our time, with influences as varied as Bach, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Balinese and Ghanaian percussion. His technique…

Discover Larry Weinstein’s award-winning film “Shostakovich Against Stalin – The War Symphonies”. Described by Shostakovich as his “tombstones for the victims of Stalin”, Symphonies 4 to 9 represented the composer’s weapons against tyranny and remain…

Commemorating the 155th anniversary of Robert Schumann’s death, this film, inspired by the book by Ernst Burger, reveals his human side through a chronicle of his life from 1828 to his death in 1856. While the music features prominently, Burger’s…

Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997), one of the greatest pianists of all time, breaks his lifelong silence and allows himself to be interviewed for this autobiographical fi lm. We see his life on an epic scale as he evokes his wild childhood, his…

Pierre Boulez has already left an indelible imprint on the international music scene, not only as a composer and conductor but also as a music philosopher and teacher. This documentary, a homage on the occasion of his 85th birthday, shows his…

In a little street in Brussels, two identical buildings stand together. In one of these buildings lives the famous concert pianist Martha Argerich. Next door we find the Tiempo – Lechner family, renowned by their lineage of piano prodigies. The…

No-one did more to expand the audience for opera than the tenor Luciano Pavarotti. He reconnected an elite art-form with popular audiences throughout the world, through his unashamed enthusiasm for life and his unique ability to communicate to vast…

In Offenbachs's Secret, Academy Award winning director István Szabó throws new light on the timeless interplay between power, helplessness, courage and conformity in his character studies of two of the most scintillating personalities of France's…

Samba is more than dance and lascivious hip movements. Samba is also word, language, text, lyrics or simply said a certain way of life. The composer and singer Martinho da Vila is guiding us through today’s world of Samba and we meet with his Samba…

New Year’s Eve Concert 2014 opens with Sir Simon Rattle conducting music by Rameau: a suite of instrumental pieces from the opéra-ballet Les Indes galantes show French Baroque music at its finest. For his appearance at this year’s New Year’s Eve…