Bach & Friends

Bolero is played every 15 minutes in the world. This film tries to answer how this famous melody inspired and influenced the world pop-culture? It explores the complexity and the richness of a piece so simple in appearance: the emotions it triggers, vertigo it creates, the words it inspires.

A memorable intellectual journey to rediscover Baroque music, from the handmade fabrication of a harpsichord by master luthier Titus Crijnen to the interpretation of several scores by Bach and other Baroque composers by the Spanish ensemble La Reverencia.

The first part of this Academy Award-winning short consists of a behind-the-scenes look at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as it prepares to perform Ravel's "Bolero." Individual musicians offer their thoughts as workers set up chairs and music stands; there are also comments by conductor Zubin Mehta and scenes of Mehta and the orchestra rehearsing. The rest of the film features a complete performance of "Bolero" with striking images of the orchestra as the music relentlessly approaches its climax.

Relationships, rehearsals, performances, hobbies, and family life of the members of the Guarneri String Quartet.

Documentary on the life and accomplishments of the members of this uniquely talented musical family. The film focuses on the Figueroa family’s history within the context of its creative universe, dating back to the 19th century. Through the use of photographs, historic film footage, recordings, sheet music, newspaper clippings, and posters, the musical trajectory of the family is brought to life and their role in transforming the musical history of Puerto Rico and the world is portrayed.

Maestro follows Grammy award-winning conductor Paavo Järvi and an array of brilliant musicians as they perform to sold-out music halls across the world.

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Syntax refers to the study of the structural organization of a sentence, or as Bernstein summarizes, "the actual structures that arise from that phonological stuff."

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Bernstein provides two distinct meanings of the term ambiguity. The first is "doubtful or uncertain" and the second, "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses"

A documentary by Tony Palmer on English composer Sir William Walton (1902–1983), made shortly before his death. The film includes the only full-length interview ever recorded with Walton. Filmed at his home on Ischia and in Oxford, London & Oldham, it includes contributions from Laurence Olivier, Sacheverell Sitwell and Lady Susana Walton. Specially performed extracts of his music are conducted by Simon Rattle in his first substantial contribution to television when he was in his early 20s, with Simon Preston, Julian Bream, Yvonne Kenny, Yehudi Menuhin, Iona Brown, John Shirley-Quirk, Elgar Howarth & Ralph Kirshbaum, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford & Los Paraguayos.

After more than 60 years, the uncrowned king of 20th century pianists returned to his freedom-torn homeland to perform his swan song in a piano recital. In the mid-1980s, a breathtaking concert took place in Moscow that many still recall with emotion. The great Ukrainian-American pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed there for the first time in more than half a century. At that time, the border between East and West was impassable. The Cold War was in full swing. The two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, considered each other enemies. The race to produce atomic weapons threatened everyone's lives. The legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, then eighty-two years old, began one evening discussing with his concert agent Peter Gelb what he dreamed and wished for. One of the things was to look back to Russia.