Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor is the last Symphony the composer completed. When Bruckner sent it in 1897 to Hermann Levi, the conductor who had lead his 7th to great success, he did not understand this very different work at all and…

Testing Mozart is a 60 minute film about the "Mozart Effect", the power of Mozart's music to fight disease and increase the mental ability of its listeners. It is common knowledge that cows give more milk and tomatoes grow bigger when played Mozart…

There’s no question about it - this man is annoyed. His violin bow swooshes through the air like a saber. Again and again, the final bar of the famous E Major Partita for Solo Violin fills the empty baroque church in Lockenhaus. Gidon Kremer has…

Even a master like Mozart does not fall from the heavens. With all his divine genius, he was born into a particular environment and was decisively formed here from his childhood and youth. "Mozart in Salzburg" makes the Composer's Salzburg years…

Traditional Jazz has never been associated with Europe. Miles, Dizzy and Charlie Parker stand for the great era in Jazz, but who knows Miroslav Vitous, Pierre Michelot, Krzysztof Komeda, Palle Mikkelborg, Tomasz Stanko, or René Urtreger? „Play Your…

This festive concert from the Gethsemanekirche in Berlin marks the 60th anniversary of the RIAS Kammerchor. Under the baton of the new chief conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann, the RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin are performing…

The best way to get through the streets of the metropolis of Mexico City is with one of the famous green Volkswagen Beetle Taxis. In this city of 18 million people, Tenor Rolando Villazón was born. With a look somewhere between latin lover and Mr…

The Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler is arguably the best known Mahler symphony. The musical canvas and emotional scope of the work are huge. Herbert von Karajan said once that when you hear Mahler's Fifth, “you forget that time has passed. A great…

No composer before Mahler had ever devoted himself exclusively to two genres so apparently incompatible as the intimate lied and the grandiose symphony. Thus it is fascinating in “Das Lied von der Erde” to see him combining, at this late stage of his…

One of the world's finest and most-respected conductors, seventy-year-old Claudio Abbado is legendary in stature, having held the post of musical director with La Scala in Milan from 1968 to 1986, with the Vienna Opera from 1986 to 1991, and the…