Sir Simon Rattle is one of the most famous conductors in the world. His enthusiasm, his inspiring charisma and his empathetic manner inspire audiences in the big cities and in he
provinces. ,,1 always have music in my head,“ says the 70-year-old Peter Pan of classical music – we are there when the spark jumps and understand why he can ignite a fire and inspire people to love music like no other. In January 2025, Sir Simon Rattle will be 70 years old – no age for a conductor, but reason enough to look back and see what made him what he is today: A constant innovator who always had to deal with resistance, but who never lost his passion for communicating music.
It was a uniquely magic moment of music. In what would be the first and only time, the BBC dedicated its prime time weekend schedule to broadcast an opera live to an audience of millions. In place of popular motoring programme Top Gear, the British public were treated to La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. Legendary conductor Sir Georg Solti convinced decision-makers at the BBC that it was time to introduce a phenomenal singer and performer to the world: Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu. Until this moment, Gheorghiu was a talent known only to a few. Solti himself was at the podium to conduct La Traviata for the first time in his storied career, while the staging was by theatre and feature film director Sir Richard Eyre – likewise working on his very first opera. Eyre agreed on one specific condition. “I wanted a soprano as described by Verdi himself: young, elegant and with a voice full of passion.” Angela Gheorghiu had all of these qualities and more. In an interview she said: “During the broadcast I felt that my time had arrived. I was in no doubt: it was now or never!” Alongside Angela Gheorghiu, who the film accompanies 30 years later to the Royal Opera House in London – the birthplace of her global success – are memories and reflections from tenor Frank Lopardo, who sang the role of Alfredo, opera director Sir Richard Eyre, BBC film director Peter Maniura, French-Danish singer Elsa Dreisig, conductor Marie Jacquot, opera critic Nick-Martin Sternitzke and the writer Salomé Balthus.
Lang Lang chose a wide-ranging program for his solo debut in 2003. After a more classical first half with works by Robert Schumann and Joseph Haydn, he interprets the Chinese composer Tan Dun after the intermission, finally culminating with Franz Liszt’s Don Juan Fantasy. Even as a small boy, Lang Lang is drilled to be a pianist by his father: He is to become the best piano player in the world. He is rarely allowed to see his mother so that she does not keep him from practicing. When he invites his father on stage at the end of his Carnegie Hall debut to improvise together on a Chinese folk song, one chapter of life ends – and a new one begins. This defining moment deals with the difficult relationship between freedom and the sacrifices we make for it. Lang Lang lives his father’s dream, which becomes his own dream. It is about musical perfection and personal relationships, about virtuosity and emotions – themes that are reflected in Lang Lang’s performance and in his life. Not only for Lang Lang himself, but also for his long-time companions such as conductor Christoph Eschenbach, composer Tan Dun and his teacher Gary Graffman, this concert was a magical moment. Pianist Claire Huangci has also known Lang Lang since a young age, and Bruce Liu is currently considered the new shooting star on the piano. Together with audio producer Christian Gansch and body language expert Stefan Verra, they retrospectively classify Lang Lang’s legendary recital evening.
This documentary, filmed in North and South Korea, explores whether music can overcome the boundaries of a divided country. There is one figure of the two Koreas, whose outstanding biography in itself forms a bridge between both worlds: The Korean composer Isang Yun, one of the very few people acknowledged on both sides. The film traces the course of a life that has been interpreted in different ways, examining the worlds of North and South Korean music and in this way taking the viewer on an exciting journey through two political systems that Isang Yun spent his life trying to reconcile.
Over two years, the film follows conductor Joana Mallwitz to the top of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, one of Germany’s leading classical orchestras, in August 2023. As she embarks on a decisive phase of her international career with debuts in Munich, Paris, Salzburg, and Amsterdam, she and her husband have to reorganize their lives after the birth of their first child. JOANA MALLWITZ – MOMENTUM offers a candid and detailed portrait of the musician. Despite all her success, we feel the enormous pressure that the conducting profession brings with it.
The subject of radio orchestras is a global phenomenon that had its origins in Germany and is associated with exciting stories, great conductors, outstanding soloists and, above all, contemporary composers. The 56-minute documentary “On Air – 100 Years of Radio Orchestras” is the first comprehensive look at how they developed – a cultural history from the technological age closely linked to the history of the 20th century. At the same time, it explores their vision for the future. A film about tradition and innovation, identity, new music and the radio itself.
Music created with the assistance of artificial intelligence is a well-established secret in the world of pop. Today, AI is also making serious inroads in the classical domain, bringing us to the threshold of a new era in classical music. From the recording of the first samples to the premiere performance at the Semperoper in Dresden, the film accompanies the creation of the opera “Chasing Waterfalls”, which was co-composed by artificial intelligence. We follow the AI as it reconstructs Beethoven’s 10th symphony and watch it perform with Robbie Williams, and we see how pianist Dirk Maassen at the Sony Science Lab in Paris and saxophonist Asya Fateyeva at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg interact with AI in real time, and how Spanish professor Eduardo Miranda in Plymouth is using quantum computers to create music entirely from scratch. Experts Kenza Ait Si Abbou and Christian Mio Loclair comment on these fascinating developments as well as the currently highly topical Chat GPT platform.
It was only through the request of the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker that the concert came about in 1992. The legendary Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache and the Berlin Philharmonic were to be reconciled. Celibidache had shaped the orchestra in over 400 concerts between 1945 and 1954 after the end of the Second World War. When, after the death of Wilhelm Furtwängler the orchestra chose Herbert von Karajan as his successor instead of Sergiu Celibidache, a dispute arose, and the two eventually parted ways. Celibidache withdrew, deeply offended, and refused any offer of further collaboration. It took 38 years for Sergiu Celibidache to return to the podium of the Berlin Philharmonic. It went down in music history as the so-called ‘reconciliation concert’. Celibidache made it a condition that he would receive twice as many rehearsals as usual. The program included Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony. In addition to rehearsal and concert excerpts, the film features Celibidache’s son, Serge Ioan Celebidachi, contemporary witnesses from the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestra’s horn player Sarah Willis, the young French conductor Marie Jacquot, his last conducting student Rémy Ballot, and the Romanian conductor Cristian Macelaru. They provide insight into Sergiu Celibidache’s personality, working methods, and understanding of music.
The feature-length film portrait When Music Resounds, the Soul Is Spoken To was created between his 90th and 95th birthdays. It accompanies Herbert Blomstedt in his work with selected orchestras, which are representative of the many international ensembles he has either led or with which he still works regularly, and observes the gifted communicator during rehearsals and concerts. Blomstedt vividly conveys his clear interpretive ideas, turning every orchestra rehearsal into an experience. As an exciting discourse on life philosophies, musical life and experiences as a musician, the film is a portrait of an unpretentious artist who has decisively shaped the classical music world for decades and continues to do so to this day.
Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, the double-bassist and founder of the extraordinary Chineke! Orchestra, explores the remarkable and tragic story of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – one of the greatest composers of the early 20th century (born 1875, died 1912). “He was brilliant, he was British, and he was black.” She asks why he’s been forgotten and questions the ongoing lack of diversity in the world of classical music. World-renowned for his choral work ‘The Song of Hiawatha’, Coleridge-Taylor – a contemporary of Elgar, Holst, and Vaughan-Williams – also enjoyed fame in America for his arrangements of negro spirituals, and was invited to the White House in 1904 by President Theodore Roosevelt – a rare honour for a man of colour so soon after the abolition of slavery in the USA.
