This fascinating film tells the exciting life-story of the world-renowned composer Antonio Vivaldi, the redhaired priest. Famous artists and musicologists describe the great importance of Vivaldi’s music for our time. Highlight of the film is the terrific world premiere of Vivaldi’s great choral work ‘Dixit Dominus’, which was attributed to his contemporary Baldassare Galuppi for more than 200 years. Recorded at original locations in Venice, Vienna and Dresden and others.
Lang Lang & Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Mission Mozart
In spring 2014 the Vienna Musikverein turned into a music laboratory, a recording studio and into a venue for a very exciting enounter of two seemingly very different artists: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, well-known as an intellectual musician who came to attention as a period-practice and Lang Lang, a superstar, a pianist of stunning virtuosity and freewheeling music instincts, together with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra record the Mozart Piano Concertos No. 17 K453 in G major and No. 24 K491 in C minor. This documentary is a revealing insight into the creative process of two of the most distinctive and influential musicians in the world today.
Sound of the Sidewalks
You can find them standing in walkways, in front of bars or in the Paris metro, playing rock music, classical, Latin American or Caribbean rhythms on the world’s largest public stage: the street. This series is dedicated to street musicians in Europe ‘on the road’ with artists of life, dropouts, and virtuosos. Some of the résumés that can be discovered here are incredible, touching, and yet written by life. Whether getting up in the morning in Paris in search of a suitable location for the next performance, in dispute with the local authorities in Cologne or on nightly strolls through the lonely streets of Amsterdam, the camera is always there, allowing the audience to participate in the lives of these artists of life.
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Recomposed By Max Richter – The Berlin Concert
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons may be the most widely heard piece of classical music ever composed. As the composer Max Richter suggests, “The piece is part of the musical landscape, and a part of my daily life. I hear it in supermarkets, and it’s always turning up in TV ads.” He has approached his “Vivaldi Recomposed”-project as an admirer of Vivaldi, but no less importantly, as a composer. “Anything that a composer writes is part of a conversation with music that has gone before,” he says. Max Richter’s co-conspirator in the documentary on this project is Daniel Hope, the British violinist; and the orchestra “l’arte del mondo” with violinist Werner Ehrhardt, its artistic director.
Mirella Freni – A Life Devoted to Opera
Mirella Freni is one of the most remarkable soprano singers in the world of opera. She has been winning over audiences for half a century with her ever fresh and youthful vocals and a voice quality which remains undiminished. In 2010, the year of her 75th birthday and the 55th anniversary of her stage debut, she receives the MIDEM Classical Award in the category ‘Lifetime Achievement’. The portrait shows Mirella Freni during a Singing Class at the Centro Universale del Bel Canto (CUBeC) in her hometown of Modena. Interviews with colleagues and friends such as tenor Plácido Domingo complete the portrait.
Murray Perahia – Not Of This World
After over thirty years on the concert stage the pianist Murray Perahia has himself become a legend, one of the most sought-after pianists of our time. This film is not designed to be a conventional portrait. The documentary observes Perahia at work on the interpretation of some pieces by Chopin and Schumann at his holiday home in Switzerland. It shows him as conductor of the famous Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, follows him into the recording studio and a master class in Hanover and finally captures a concert performance at a Warsaw Chopin recital in February 2010. Interviews with Murray Perahia cast light on his approach to music, his personality and the way he has managed to cope with the personal crises that has beset him.
Lang Lang – The Highest Level
“The Highest Level“ explores the Berlin recording session of Lang Lang and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. The documentary provides insight into processes that are usually veiled: the recording of an album in a league of its own: the preparation of the musicians, the recording in the Philharmonie Berlin, the battle for the perfect sound, the mixing and balancing units during the audio post-production. It is the striking distance to the artists that makes the film an intimate experience. Lang Lang, Sir Simon Rattle, and the musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker, but of course the audio engineers as well are taking the centre stage. The musical pieces to be recorded are Béla Bartóks Piano Concert No. 2 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
Loud, Hard, Magical – The Sound Of Finland
The film takes the audience on a road trip into the unique Finnish music scene: a mixture of melancholy, metal and humour. Bassist and Sibelius descendent Lauri Porra, and the cello quartet Apocalyptica interpret Finnish’s unofficial national anthem ‘Finlandia’ in their own style and in doing so, delve deep into the culture and psyche of this young nation.
The Finns nurture an eclectic mixture of musical styles, they do so with a dark and anarchistic humour, as well as a deeply felt melancholy. The breadth of musical style ranges from Finnish Tango to deafening heavy metal, from all male choirs that shout to a long line of successful Finnish conductors.
Kurt Masur – Adventures in Listening
Kurt Masur, one of the world’s great Maestros, challenges and teaches the next generation of young musicians and conductors by stretching their limits and transforming their perspectives and abilities. Following master classes around the world over a period of few years, the film is a carefully constructed collage organically interviewing the maestro’s teachings and his personal life experiences. The result is a comprehensive emotional portrait of one of the most respected music conductors of our time.
Welcome to the Eigthies!
Welcome to the 80s – This 6 x 52min music documentary is a unique production showing a fascinating musical journey through the 80s featuring all the facets of this exciting area: Synthiepop & New Romantic, Charts, Clips & Commerce, Rap, Breakdance & Graffiti, House Nation & Acid Parties, Gothic, Industrial & Black Metal.