From the Munich Philharmonie comes a live recording of Sir Colin Davis conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat K364, featuring the internationally-acclaimed soloists Yuri Bashmet (viola) and Vladimir Spivakov (violin). An introduction to the concert performance is available, which shows Sir Colin Davis working with the soloists and the orchestra, documenting the painstaking preparation that goes into achieving the conductor’s musical vision.
A Concert of Music by Ludwig van Beethoven
The highlight of the celebrations in March 1987 during the fifth anniversary of the opening of the London Barbican Centre was the concert of the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir George Solti. The special event was held to celebrate the creation of a cultural centre and a residential complex which with ist numerous theatres, cinemas and galleries is the largest of ist kind in Europe and whose new large concert hall has now become the home of the “LSO”. Solti””s programme concept for the evening was to offer variety with a unified theme, an appropriate concept for the place. Solti said “I have selected this Beethoven programme to represent three very different moods – the heavyweight Coriolan overture, the light, Mozart-like first piano concert, and finally the wonderful glorification of dance represented by the seventh symphony.”
Don Juan
Marches and Polkas
The internationally-acclaimed Czech maestro Václav Neumann (1920-95) conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert of marches and polkas by Julius Fucik. This live recording comes from the Smetana Hall in Prague.
Dvorák: The Wood Dove / Janácek: Taras Bulba
This concert, recorded live from the Smetana Hall in Prague features The Wood Dove Op. 110 by Antonín Dvorák and Taras Bulba by Leoš Janácek. Neumann conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
Julian Bream Plays Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez
This live recording, from St. John’s Smith Square in London, features the celebrated classical guitarist Julian Bream playing Rodrigo’s haunting Concierto de Aranjuez, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Charles Groves. This piece is a lasting tribute to Spain and to the instrument that has personified and illuminated so beautifully her musical culture.
Romeo and Juliet Suite
Sir Georg Solti conducts the Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra in a performance of extracts from Prokofiev’s music for the ballet Romeo and Juliet, recorded live from the Herkulessaal, Munich.
Symphony No. 5
A rare opportunity to see the work of the great conductor Sergiu Celibidache (1912-96). He agreed to set aside his long-held antipathy to recordings of his work to enable the cameras to capture this concert from the Philharmonie in Munich, in which he conducts the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
Violin Concerto
Recorded live from the Herkulessaal Munich, Sir Colin Davis conducts the Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, with soloist Gidon Kremer, in a performance of Alban Berg‘s elegiac Violin Concerto. Alban Berg completed this concerto for violin and orchestra in 1935, impelled by the news of the death of Manon Gropius, the beautiful eighteen-yearold daughter of Mahler‘s widow by her second marriage, to the architect Walter Gropius. He dedicated it “to the memory of an angel”.
The secret life of Alban Berg
Alban Berg (1885-1935) lived in the mainstream of well-to-do Austrian society. His marriage to the beautiful Hélène was thought to be made in heaven. But how can this doyen of Viennese respectability be reconciled with the composer who wrote the dark operas Wozzeck and Lulu? In this multi-layered film, director Krišs Rusmanis explores the private world behind the composer’s public image and reveals the double life Berg led, despite his moving protestationsof fidelity and devotion to his wife.
Ma Vlást (My Homeland)
Towards the end of his life, the composer Bedrich Smetana (1824-84) wrote a cycle of symphonic poems, Má Vlast (My Country), a vivid, patriotic musical portait of his homeland, Bohemia. This superb recording features the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik.