The Italian canzone needed new input, but what kind? Gino Paoli found the answer by studying italianità closely and critically before he co-founded the ‘Genovese School’ in the fifties, laying the foundation for today’s cantautori scene. Today Paoli is the honoured godfather of all cantautori. He plays peaceful, melancholically beautiful songs that are carried by his sheer lightness. Italianità has been redefined.
Tom Principato & Powerhouse play Avo Session
Legendary singer and guitarist Tom Principato gives us blues at its best: relaxed and down-to-earth. He has performed on dozens of blues recordings and is still making ground breaking American music enjoyed by fans the world over.
Mariza plays Avo Session
Music is language. Nowhere else is that more obvious than in Portuguese, where a single word became the key to an entire culture of music: ‘Saudade’. Happiness mixed with sadness is the blues of Portugal and Brazil, where Mariza also lived for a while, influenced too by the musical rhythms of that country’s popular music.
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.
Lang Lang in Vienna
‘The most popular pianist on the planet’ (CNN) performs at the stunning Musikverein in Vienna, recorded for the first time at a special TV recital! “For me, there are few halls around the globe that have the same prestige as Carnegie Hall and the Musikverein. Of course there are other great halls, but I always feel these two have a unique place in people’s hearts. So I felt that after Carnegie Hall, the Musikverein would be the place where I should do another live recordings.” (Lang Lang) The programme also includes special backstage features, interviews and much more. ‘To his millions of fans worldwide the 27-year-old Chinese musician is a God-like star, whose skill and energetic performance style put him in a league of his own.’ (CNN) Works: Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2, Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata”, Albéniz: Iberia Book 1, Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat major, Op. 83, Chopin: Étude No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 25, Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op. 53 “Heroic”, Grande Valse Brillante No. 2 in A flat major, Op. 34, No. 1
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.
Joshua Bell plays Tchaikovsky
C Major is proud to present the young and brilliant world famous American violinist Joshua Bell, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major at the Nobel Prize Concert 2010, produced by Accentus Music. As part of the official Nobel Week, the world’s most renowned artists are gathering each year to pay tribute to the Nobel Laureates. The concert is a special highlight in the series. On the rostrum: Sakari Oramo the Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The evening starts with Beethoven’s Leonore Ouverture and ends with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E flat major.
Kinshasa Symphony
Two hundred orchestral musicians are playing Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in total darkness. A power cut has hit the Ngiri Ngiri district of Kinshasa, only a few bars before the last section of the work. Kinshasa’s power stations and main networks are insufficient to supply electricity to all the 8 million inhabitants of what is Africa’s third-largest city. Once again the lights have gone out in the “Salle des fêtes”, a kind of open garage where the orchestra practises. But for its members this is no reason to stop rehearsing. Most of them know their parts by heart. Small lapses of memory are compensated for by a talent for improvisation and the grace of God.
Frédéric Chopin – The Anniversary Gala Concert
The internationally celebrated concert event from Warsaw on the occasion of Frédéric Chopin’s 200th birthday – two Russian piano stars in one program: Nikolai Demidenko with a marvelous performance of Chopin’s Concerto No. 1, Evgeny Kissin with a most thrilling interpretation of Concerto No. 2. The former wunderkind delights the audience, which still can not get enough even after three encores. A unique performance and truly a gift for Chopin lovers all over the world.
Claudio Abbado conducts the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra
The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela was the orchestra in residence at the Lucerne Festival at Easter 2010. Under the baton of their strong supporter Claudio Abbado, the orchestra once again reaches out to the audience on this special evening, spreading its lively enthusiasm at highest musical level, it is both famous and loved for. After a brilliant performance of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite Op. 20, the ensemble is accompanied by the young and talented Austrian soprano Anna Prohaska. The evening is concluded by a most emotional interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’.