Born in Montbrison, France in 1925, Pierre Boulez studied under influential figures such as Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris. Boulez's career began in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris, and…

András Schiff plays Schubert´s four Impromptus D. 899.

The film portrays Igor Stravinsky, one of the most fascinating artistic personalities of the 20th century. Numerous visual and audio documents trace his most important stations in life and work in Russia, Western Europe and America. Stravinsky is…

Throughout his life, Johannes Brahms was uneasy with women. Many of his works have their origins in his unfulfilled passions, but he was never prepared to commit himself to a woman. Several years of intensive research have resulted in this impressive…

János Darvas joins the composer György Kurtág during a masterclass for chamber music held at the International Bártok Festival in Szombathely, Hungary. This film is an amazing and somehow intimate document showing György Kurtág’s various methods of…

The film portrays Bruno Walter (1876-1962), one of the most important conductors of the 20th century. The Italian biographer Michele Selvini speaks about the musician Bruno Walter who formed the musical life of the capitals of Europe and the United…

Antonio Pappano has been announced the successor of Bernard Haitink as Music Director of the Royal Opera in London’s Covent Garden. Since 1992, when he was named Music Director of the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, he has been working with…

Joseph and Anthony Paratore, two brothers from Boston, are one of the foremost piano duos of our time. After performing together for over a decade on the world’s most important stages, they came together in 1989 to record two of Brahms’ piano pieces…

The composer Claude Debussy was born in St. Germain-en-Laye, a few miles outside Paris, in 1862. While a pupil at the Conservatoire, he composed music that did not conform to the theory of the times. He contradicted his teachers by claiming that…

Renowned Austrian clarinetist Wenzel Fuchs and acclaimed Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova come together to perform Johannes Brahms Sonatas No.1 and No.2 for clarinet and piano. These sonatas were the last chamber music pieces Brahms wrote before his…