1970 was the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth and, to mark the occasion, Daniel Barenboim and Christopher Nupen collaborated on a thirteen-part series about the man and his music. Close friends at the time, Barenboim as artist and…

Towards the end of 1976 Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman made a European tour together, playing duos for two violins and for violin and viola with Zukerman playing the viola part. The tour began with a concert in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in…

A series of recitals by the master pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy at a new peak in his career. Both his audiences and the critics have been aware in recent years of new dimensions in Ashkenazy's playing. This may stem in part from his broadening…

A television film about a single work, Modest Mussorgski’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”. Written as a tribute to a lost friend, Victor Alexandrovich Hartmann, it is a strange and moving masterpiece which has become Mussorgski’s most popular work. It…

Vladimir Ashkenazy has had a particular affection for the music of Rachmaninoff throughout his professional life, and his performances have long had the ring both of authenticity and of deep commitment. This is not surprising in a Russian-born and…

John Dew's production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin represents a triumphal comeback for this timeless work. Presented here in a trendy, contemporary interpretation.

The final concert during the Münchner Klaviersommer 1992 in the sold-out Philharmonie was given by Wynton Marsalis and his septet. The only 31 years young star trumpet player presented one of his own jazz suite under the title of „In This House, On…

This film is a perfomance of the work recorded in Tokyo during the Deutsche Oper Berlin's 1993 Japan tour in Götz Friedrich's highly respected, much-discussed staging.

Lord Yehudi Menuhin, relaxing at his home in the Greek isles, tells the story of his wonderful career on the eve of his 80th birthday. A wealth of rare archival material illustrates this highly informative and entertaining profile of the world's…

The historical opera by Tchaikovsky is set in the events of the years at the turn of the 17th and 18th century when Peter I. became Tsar of Russia and Mazeppa, the leader of the Ukrainian cosacks. It is a story of Mazeppa's political power and…