Beethoven · Missa Solemnis (Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann)

A Parade for three managers and four performers. Sketchy drawings in a neatly arranged palette, involving quotes from the French composer Erik Satie, set to the music of Parade performed by the Dutch Willem Breuker Kollektief.

These biographical drama documentaries explore the lives and careers of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov and Chaliapin.

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

Johnny Green leads the MGM Symphony Orchestra in a medley of waltzes and other familiar pieces by three members of the Strauss family. Filmed in CinemaScope.

This was recorded over three nights at the Philharmonie in Berlin. It does, however, provide a fitting close to the career of Claudio Abbado, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1990 until May of 2013, when the music here was recorded.

Recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies with their chief conductor are always a milestone in the artistic work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. So it was with Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, and expectations are correspondingly high for this cycle conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Where does the special status of these symphonies come from? Simon Rattle has an explanation: “One of the things Beethoven does is to give you a mirror into yourself – where you are now as a musician.” In fact, this music contains such a wealth of extreme emotions and brilliant compositional ideas that reveal the qualities of the orchestra and its conductor as if under a magnifying glass.

Animated interpretation of the Bizet opera, second in a trilogy.

Animated interpretation of the Bizet opera, first in a trilogy

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.

Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.