Although he was still in his early thirties when this film was made, Itzhak Perlman’s virtuosity was already something of a legend and he was soon to become one of the most popular figures on the international concert stage. This film played a major…

It is not an account of events in an artist’s life, nor is it a critical examination of his music, which speaks more eloquently for itself than any words might do. It is an attempt at using the medium of film to echo something of the spirit of…

Jacqueline du Pré had a very unusual and elevated relationship with the Elgar 'cello Concerto. For critics and public alike, her performances focused new attention on the inherent pathos in Elgar's melancholy masterpiece and had a ringing authority…

This live recording captures the memorable occasion when these two famous jazz pianists met for the first time in the Kongressaal during the Munich Klaviersommer 1983. On two pianos, they play an exciting version of Round Midnight.

The starting point of Shchedrin's composition is the tune from Chopin's Prelude in C minor No.28 Op.20. Recorded in the Kongressaal in Munich, it is performed by Rodion Shchedrin himself, Nicolas Economou, Paul Gulda and the American jazz pianist…

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…

The three Sonatinas Opus 137 were written in 1816, one of Schubert’s happiest and most prolific years. He modelled them on the Sonatas of Mozart, but they are full of unmistakable Schubertian lyricism which was much admired by Brahms. The arpeggione…

A hand-picked ensemble of soloists join together with the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart under the direction of Helmuth Rilling to give a truly definitive performance of this pre-eminent masterwork.

At the close of the 19th century, Vienna presented to the world a picture of ordered elegance and dignified gaiety, but beneath the surface the corruption and hollowness of the late Hapsburg Empire produced widespread and deep-seated confusion and so…

Norbert Beilharz's film looks at this masterwork of 19th century liturgical music through 20th century eyes, presenting the entire work, not as the usual televised concert, but rather as a film collage, concentrating on three locations: St. Mark's…