Recalling a life of love, tyranny and triumph, Zuzana Ruzickova endured forty years of persecution in Czechoslovakia for her refusal to join the Communist Party, while becoming a legendary harpsichordist and interpreter of Bach around the world. ‘I…

In 2018 Yannick Nézet-Séguin will end his tenure with the Rotterdam Philharmonic for which he will stay Honorary Conductor to become Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Yannick has worked with many leading European orchestras and…

In Spring 2009, the year of Joseph Haydn, Xavier de Maistre was invited to the Esterházy Castle in Eisenstadt, where the composer officiated nearly thirty years. After an introduction in which he plays a solo Fantasy on a Theme of Haydn by Marcel…

The earth on which we live silently remembers the catastrophies of our history but if we listen to the silence of the earth it will remind us of the fate of others who lived before us and from whose suffering we may yet learn. A television film by…

The 420-member company of the Deutsche Oper Berlin brought "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", "Tristan and Isolde" and "Lohengrin" to Tokyo. The privately-operated Tokyo Ballet performed "Kabuki" and "M", in Berlin. Our film takes a look at the work…

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…

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…

Virtuosity searches for the musical souls of the most gifted young pianists on the planet as they try to make a name for themselves at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competiton. The pressure on these kids is overwhelming, because the stakes…

In October and November 2010, Valery Sokolov recorded the Tchaikovsky Concerto and the Bartok second Concerto for Virgin Classics with the Tonhalle-Orchester-Zürich conducted by David Zinman, in the Tonhalle Great Hall. On this occasion, Bruno…

"There are today magnificent virtuosos, the Yitzhak Perlmans, Vadim Repins,Hilary Hahns, Maxime Vengerovs and the like, but none of them, in my opinion, bears the indisputable mark of that which made the intensely original art of the great violinists…