Autumn 2020. An international cast arrives in Amsterdam for the rehearsals of Mozart's “Le nozze di Figaro” by Dutch National Opera. Hundreds of people have been working on it for three years and the performances are sold out. The young up-and-coming…

It is said that a culture can be better understood by listening to its music than by learning its language. In Portugal this music is the fado: bittersweet, melancholic sounds that reflect the desire for something that has been lost forever. Fernando…

“Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a conductor. The piano fascinated me, but I was even more fascinated by all the different sound of the orchestra and, later on, by the repertoire of the orchestra.” Daniel Barenboim talks about his world of…

A Christopher Nupen film with Daniil Trifonov –– pianist, composer, Russian and a magician at the keyboard. The astonishing musical gifts of Daniil Trifonov have to be seen and heard to be believed. How many have won both the Rubinstein and…

Arriving in La Havana, once we pass through the other side of the tropical mirror, we penetrate into a world where logical has no currency anymore. Havana is the city of the company Danza Contemporánea de Cuba. Here, the temperaments of the dancers…

The dramatic story of an inspired violinist, of a loyal man whose self-imposed silence eloquently betrayed unspoken private suffering. This extensive profile features interviews with David Oistrakh's longtime friends and fellow musicians: Yehudi…

The six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach rank among the undisputed favorites of all baroque fans. They have become a firm fixture in music education and an integral part of our international musical heritage. So what’s their secret? The…

Ludwig van Beethoven’s ninth and last symphony is considered one of the highlights of symphonic music. Through the use of song, Beethoven questions the effect of purely instrumental music, and he exerted a sustained influence on all generations of…

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…

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…