How did artists survive in the Soviet Union? How tricky did they have to be in the face of authorities? What kind of danger and difficulties did they have to fear? Sviatoslav Richter and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky talk about authorities, watchdogs and…

When Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s opera was first performed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, it caused a sensation among music critics worldwide. Based on Lewis Carroll’s famous and fascinatingly enigmatic novel Alice in Wonderland, it is a…

Il matrimonio segreto is Cimarosa's most famous opera buffa and it is one of the few comic operas to have maintained its place in the repertoire until today. At its first performance in 1792, Austrian emperor Leopold II is reputed to have liked this…

Claudio Abbado - Hearing the Silence conveys an intensely moving view on one of the leading musicians of our time. In several interviews, Abbado is talking about artistical, musical and biographical aspects of his life. The film shows excerpts from…

Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, composed between 1861 and 1868, continues to inspire musicians and audiences to this day. His requiem is addressed to the living, who are to be offered comfort in this world and freed from fear of death. This…

Claudio Arrau was considered the complete pianist because he went beyond mere technique, and took listeners into the mind of the composer as if he were a medium through whom the composer was speaking. He was therefore known universally as ‘The…

Only rarely do musicians win fame as great interpreters of everything they touch. However, the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau was one such virtuoso. Like his great predecessors Liszt and Busoni, Arrau was renowned for reaching to the stylistic core of…

Ten years ago Russia’s Wonder Children documented the struggles and triumphs of four extraordinary piano prodigies. Now, in Competitors, the cameras return to discover how their lives and careers have developed, and whether time has brought the…

What made Claudio Abbado stand out was his unpretentious, noble character, his democratic understanding of music making and his ability to celebrate the live moment on stage. Claudio Abbado empathized with his musicians. In order to be able to…

“I cannot begin even to describe what I have learnt with these musicians. Maybe they have learnt a little something from me, but that is nothing compared to what I have learnt from them, and the generations that came before.” (Zubin Mehta about the…