The many passionate, fiery or lyrical vocal pieces of Spanish zarzuelas have continued to thrive in concerts and recitals all over the world. One of the most renowned and ardent supporters of zarzuela melodies is Placido Domingo. Belying his 66 years, the world-famous tenor sings these rousing, seductive melodies with the beguiling sweetness of a much younger man and transports the enraptured listener to the calles and plazas of Madrid and Seville. Domingo is accompanied by the Mozarteum Orchestra under Jesus Lopez Cobos and, above all, by his partner for the evening, soprano Ana María Martinez, "a beautiful woman with a fascinating voice, full of velvety mezzoish half-tints in the middle and bottom ranges, with a gleaming top." (London Times) Martínez and Domingo serve up an evening of infectious good spirits and exquisite vocal treats. "The dazzle of genuine stars shone brightly over Salzburg!"(Die Welt)

Everything about Piotr Anderszewski is extraordinary: his talent, his repertoire, his constant questioning of his work as a performer. Any film about this highly unconventional pianist owes it to itself to depart from the beaten path: On the borderline between documentary and fiction, this "road movie" is set against the backdrop of a winter journey by train across Poland with a piano installed on board… Punctuated by Piotr's highly personal reflections, the repertoire consists of essential pages by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann and Szymanowski.

Martha Argerich has long been hailed as one of the greatest and most uniquely imaginative pianists. She is most admired for the pure joy of her music-making and her individual approach to each work, each situation and each audience. A wild child and a rebel at heart, this legendary Argentinean musician has often been surrounded by an aura of mystery during her long career. Evening Talks , a film by Georges Gachot, a French film maker specialised in classical music documentaries, lifts a corner of the veil: Martha Argerich shares with us her memories, confides in us her doubts, and transmits to us her incredible appetite for music-making. Martha Argerich has before admitted to feeling "lonely" on stage during solo performances and now focuses on concertos and duo work. The film also shows her performing with some of her closest musical friends such as pianists Nelson Freire and Friedrich Gulda and in various chamber music settings. Images of Argentina, where she was born in 1941, footage of rehearsals in the concert hall or at home, excerpts of recent concerts and archival material complete this unique film portrait of one of the most consummate artists of our time. This outstanding documentation received several awards in Europe and the US and this recording features a highly...

"For me, it's the utmost to play and work on the music of Bach!"

Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann is one of the greatest artists of his generation. Accompanied by Enrico Pace, his pianist counterpart since 1998, he plays the unrivalled violin sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, recorded in one of Germany's most beautiful Baroque halls. And in the documentary Bach and Me he provides us with personal insights into his relationship with this famed Baroque composer as well as into his own life as an artist and human being.

Seldom has the genius of one man so influenced the musical conscience of his age. Leonard Bernstein triumphed as composer, conductor, writer and teacher. The spontaneous joy of his Broadway hits, the bold, spiritual quest of his orchestral works, his intensity and vitality as conductor, made Bernstein one of the central figures in 20th-century music. In Leonard Bernstein – Reflections , he discusses his Boston childhood, his musical growth at Harvard and the Curtis Institute and the influence of great masters like Reiner, Mitropoulos and Koussevitzky. He shares his feelings on the primacy of tonal music and speculates on the nature of the creative process. From Carnegie Hall, scene of his début, to the living room of his home and his private studio overlooking New York's Central Park, Reflections explores the artist's varied and colourful career.

Bonus feature:

Milhaud, D.: Le Boeuf sur le toit - Ballet, Op. 58
Orchestra National de France
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Karl Bohm! The Austrian conductor was respected and feared by his musicians as an uncompromising expert orchestral trainer. Seeing his precision and accuracy of interpretation, it comes as no surprise that he earned a PhD in law before turning to music. He was 100% dedicated to the musical work - and took back his own personality if necessary to produce the very best musical performances. However, many musicians comment that he was their "beloved dictator" who brought out the best in them by just looking at them. An incredible musical experience!

A true celebration, ushering in the New Year with one of the finest orchestras and greatest conductors in the world. The 2007 Gala from Berlin features the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Alexander Borodin's Second Symphony , a richly lyrical work of immense poetic grandeur and fairytale magic, in a programme that also includes one of the greatest classical hits ever: Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition .

The Nobel Prize Concert 2008 was a world-class event featuring a marvellous array of performers: Sir John Eliot Gardiner, one of today's most respected conductors, his legendary Monteverdi Choir with the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, both playing a central role in Swedish and international music circles, as well as an ensemble of dazzling and renowned soloists. As one of the annual highlights of Nobel Week, this concert was eagerly awaited by music lovers all over the world.

During the 1999 Holland Festival, the New York group, Bang on a Can, performed their new instrumental version of Brian Eno's ambient composition of the seventies Music for Airports . The performance features Frank Scheffer's digitally shot images of Schiphol Airport, with the cooperation of musicians: Steve Reich, Brian Eno and Louis Andriessen. Frank Scheffer's In the Ocean is unique in the genre of music documentary. This recording explains the complex contemporary pictures of the past thirty years as well as showing how ideas move back and forth between continents. Scheffer explores the relationship between American and European composers, of how they view and influence each other. This is personified in the film by the story of Bang on a Can, one of the most popular and vital movements in music today. The founders and artistic directors of Bang on a Can are three young American composers: Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. They established themselves as heirs to the legacy of American composers Charles Ives, John Cage, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

Gidon Kremer is not only one of the leading violinists in the world, but also - thanks to his unquenchable curiosity and search for new impulses - one of the most fascinating musical personalities of our time. His repertoire ranges from Bach to the present, whereby a number of contemporary composers have achieved international recognition through his commitment. This video presents a very original program with hardly ever performed pieces and Kremer's own version for string orchestra of Schubert famous String Quintet in C major which makes it particularly attractive. Since 1997 Kremer has devoted a large part of his activities to the chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica, which he founded. The ensemble consists of young musicians from the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The average age is 25. The debut of the chamber orchestra in February 1997 corresponded with Gidon Kremer's 50th birthday. With this orchestral project, Kremer wants to pass on his artistic experiences to young musicians of his native country and to draw international attention to the outstanding musical situation of the Baltic nations. The Kremerata Baltica performs in all of the world's major musical venues.

The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) had its premiere at Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1905. The operetta, which tells the story of a wealthy widow in search of a new husband was a major success for its composer Franz Lehár (1870-1948) and quickly travelled to London and became a major Broadway sensation. Often called 'The Queen of Operettas', this is certainly the most celebrated and successful show of its kind ever written. The melodies and songs - "Vilja", "The Merry Widow Waltz" or "You'll Find Me At Maxim's", to name but a few - are lovingly played and sung the whole world over. Combined with the frivolous Paris-set story line they make the operetta a sure box-office attraction. Frequently staged in an abridged version, this production from the Staatsoper Dresden features many musical numbers that are usually omitted. With Petra-Maria Schnitzer and Bo Skovhus the cast includes some of the most prestigious singers of the younger generation under the expert leadership of conductor Manfred Honeck. This staging by the famous opera director Jérôme Savary makes the Merry Widow a very colourful and a subtle tribute to the golden age of Hollywood, congenially directed for video by Don Kent, who has garnered much respect as TV director.

Max Lorenz was at the height of his career as a heldentenor in 1941. As a homosexual with a Jewish wife in Nazi Germany, he would have faced deportation. However, as Hitler’s favourite tenor and a symbol of his times, he was protected by Hitler and Göring. This gripping, well - researched documentary which is nominated for the FIPA festival boasts original footage of Max Lorenz, Haus Wahnfried and Hitler’s visits to Bayreuth (e.g. the first coloured picture of Hitler). Includes interviews with great artists such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and René Kollo.

This Claudio Abbado recording captures a very special night at the 2007 Lucerne Festival with the massive Third Symphony by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Ever since its debut in 2003, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra has been enthusiastically received by public and press alike. The orchestra is the realisation of a dream for Claudio Abbado, who handpicked famous soloists, chamber recitalists and orchestral musicians to form this ensemble. Time and again it has been praised for its extraordinary sound and refined playing in the finest spirit of chamber music under the direction of the exceptional Italian conductor. The line-up includes such luminaries as Kolja Blacher and Sabine Meyer, alongside sundry members of the world's great orchestras. The cello section alone boasts Natalia Gutman, Clemens Hagen and Valentin Erben. On this video, the viewer can join in the imposing experience of a live performance of Mahler's No.3 with its awesome silences and towering climaxes recorded in the acoustically superb Congress and Concert Hall Lucerne in August 2007. Mahler completed the symphony in 1896 and it counts among the longest ever composed, with a performance lasting at least one and a half hours. The popular work became famous through Luciano Visconti's film Death in Venice , where...

Attrazione D'Amore shows the unique relationship between conductor Riccardo Chailly and his famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Featuring their rehearsals and magnificent performances of the works of Mahler, Mozart, Debussy, Stravinsky and Varese as well as Puccini. Frank Scheffer paints a fascinating portrait of mutual love between a conductor and an orchestra based on the magical attraction of music. The film also features interviews of Luciano Berio and Ricardo Chailly himself.

In 1968, composer and pioneer of electroacoustic music Luciano Berio created Sinfonia , a memorable orchestral piece and a harmonic journey through his reference composers: Stravinsky, Boulez, Schönberg, Stockhausen and most of all, Mahler. Voyage To Cythera navigates through wonderful music quotes made of performances conducted by Berio, rehearsals, archival documents and interviews featuring Riccardo Chailly and Louis Andriessen.

Conducting Mahler documents the interpretations of Gustav Mahler's compositions by conductors Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado and Simon Rattle, who detail the special relationship they have with Mahler's work. The film includes fantastic rehearsals and performances of each of Gustav Mahler's ten symphonies by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Phiharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Mahler Festival in May 1995.

I Have Lost Touch With The World is based on Mahler's 9th Symphony . In the four parts of this film, renowned conductor Riccardo Chaily and Mahler's internationally acclaimed biographer Henry-Louis de la Grange analyse the four movements of this masterful musical piece. Reaching into the heart of Mahler's music, the film marks Riccardo Chailly's celebration of his departure from Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in June 2004, after sixteen years of close collaboration.

One of the great legends in American music, the virtuoso saxophonist Charlie Parker – nicknamed Bird – created a new style of jazz and won equal fame as the king of the hipsters. Celebrating Bird – The Triumph of Charlie Parker is a revealing look at an enigmatic yet endlessly appealing man, who soared to the heights of creative freedom but couldn't beat a lifelong addiction to heroin, and it includes Parker's only surviving TV appearance playing Hot House. With Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Haynes, Jay McShann, Frank Morgan, Chan Parker and others.

Lady Day - The Many Faces of Billie Holiday invites viewers to see the many faces of this "dark lady of the sonnets", as one poet called her, and to appreciate her undying art more deeply. Most presentations feature Lady Day as the sad victim of hard times and drugs. The single fact of her life that matters above all others is that she was a great artist who, with Louis Armstrong, invented modern jazz singing. Mining a treasure trove of completely new information, the producers set the record straight – and beautifully. In a voice that is Billie-like in its rasping wiseness and its ring, stage and screen star Ruby Dee reads from Holiday’s autobiography Lady Sings the Blues .

Masters of American Music is an award-winning television series – as entertaining as it is educational and memorable – that celebrates a pantheon of the greatest innovators in jazz. Individual programmes trace the lives and works of master musicians who defined the course of America's classical music. From its birth in New Orleans to swing, the big bands, bebop, free jazz and beyond – all of it is explored with sensitivity and in unique depth.

Over 80 interviews were filmed in the making of the series. Featured artists come to life through...

The Story of Jazz puts the crown on the Masters of American Music series. As entertaining as it is informative, this is a seamless array of performances, comments and compelling historic insight. This colourful tale of cross-cultural influences that produced a constantly evolving and enduring music is a rich 98-minute weave of sounds, rare film clips, stills and interviews. Never before have the filmed comments of so many important jazz artists been assembled for one project, and never before has the history of jazz been told as vividly and with such attention to historic detail.

Masters of American Music is an award-winning television series – as entertaining as it is educational and memorable – that celebrates a pantheon of the greatest innovators in jazz. Individual programmes trace the lives and works of master musicians who defined the course of America's classical music. From its birth in New Orleans to swing, the big bands, bebop, free jazz and beyond – all of it is explored with sensitivity and in unique depth.

Over 80 interviews were filmed in the making of the series. Featured artists come to life through these conversations, exciting rare performances, period footage and vintage photographs meticulously...

Through a more personal and conversational style of documentary,
Thelonious Monk – American Composer was the first fully rounded portrait of this terribly misunderstood man and musician. He was the pianistic ringleader of the bebop revolution and, after Duke Ellington, jazz' first major composer. Thelonious Sphere Monk – a most original talent – remained a highly productive musician after more than thirty years of musical activity and continued to be a growing artist, exploring his art and extending his range.

Masters of American Music is an award-winning television series – as entertaining as it is educational and memorable – that celebrates a pantheon of the greatest innovators in jazz. Individual programmes trace the lives and works of master musicians who defined the course of America's classical music. From its birth in New Orleans to swing, the big bands, bebop, free jazz and beyond – all of it is explored with sensitivity and in unique depth.

Over 80 interviews were filmed in the making of the series. Featured artists come to life through these conversations, exciting rare performances, period footage and vintage photographs meticulously reproduced. Both the video and audio content has been...

Riccardo Muti's conducting of one of Mozart's most beloved operas was hailed in the press for its "freshness, rapidity and wit" and for "its wonderfully balanced rollercoaster of emotions". Muti's authoritative approach to Mozart's music and the remarkably homogeneous team of international soloists were equally applauded. The outstanding performances by four of today's leading Mozart singers - Barbara Frittoli Angelika Kirchschlager, Bo Skovhus and Michael Schade - were matched by the thoroughly musical approach to Mozart's score taken by director Roberto de Simone. Così fan tutte is one of Mozart's most beloved operas. Così was written quickly, over the autumn and winter months 1789 and premiered on January 26, 1790, on the eve of the Mozart's 34th birthday. Muti gives both the musicians and the audience time to appreciate Mozart's music in all its beauty, formal mastery and, above all, its endless variety of depiction of human foibles. He manages to achieve a wonderful and entirely Mozartian balance between seriousness and comedy, between depth of emotion and Mediterranean light-heartedness. A co-production of Wiener Staatsoper with the Wiener Festwochen, this performance was recorded live at the Theater an der Wien in 1996: a grand night at the opera!

With this wonderful production, Mozart's "Munich" opera returns to the place where it was first performed in 1781, the lovingly restored Cuvilliés Theatre, a veritable jewel of Rococo architecture. In Dieter Dorn's production, the characters are real people of flesh and blood, their emotions and conflicts intelligible to every member of the audience. The cast includes some of the finest Mozart singers of our day, headed by the British tenor John Mark Ainsley in the title role, while Kent Nagano in the orchestra pit appears to unleash an elemental force of nature.

Mozart is the most pervasively dramatic composer in history. The spirit of opera informs very nearly his every work. Themes are characters; characters interact; they change. András Schiff's alertness to the dialogue in Mozart is reflected both in his acute sense of characterisation and his immensely sophisticated use of articulation. Every line breathes. Not only that, every tone tells. Just as the voice in conversation subtly reflects the speaker's state of mind, so Schiff's deployment of sonority derives from an acute perception of the notes' psychological as well as their purely musical character. This recording from the historical and stunningly beautiful Teatro Olimpico affords us numerous insights into Schiff's approach to music and music-making, and more besides. Schiff's joy in performance is as evident to the eye as to the ear.

For the Carinthian Summer Festival, which was founded in 1969 and which is now one of Austria's leading music festivals, this concert has positively historic significance: this was the first live TV broadcast in the festival's history and was filmed at the famous Abbey Church at Ossiach whose beautiful Baroque design dates from the middle of the 18th century. But for the music lover, the concert is worth treasuring for it features the young Claudio Abbado conducting a performance of Pergolesi's Stabat mater with two of Italy's leading singers of their generation. The rest of the programme comprises two magnificent examples of Vivaldi's "concerti con titoli".

Who would have thought it? An American orchestra performing in North Korea! Hundreds of millions watched this historic New York Philharmonic concert on television in February 2008 and for a few hours the cold war hostilities seemed to be forgotten. Music became diplomacy when conductor Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, the USA's most eminent orchestra, opened the concert in East Pyongyang's Grand Theatre with both the American and the North Korean national anthems. The programme included music by Wagner, Dvořák, Gershwin, Bizet and Bernstein and prompted the North Korean audience to standing ovations. This courageous musical project also united Korean and American musicians, who, together, produced a technically brilliant performance. The musicians barely spoke to one another, communicating in exchanged glances and body language, and when Lorin Maazel raised his baton at the end of the concert and the orchestra embarked on Arirang , a lilting folk song emblematic of the North and South Korean people, the audience was obviously touched.

A previously unreleased documentary with 53 min of exclusive material shows members of the New York Philharmonic on their historic trip to North Korea's capital. Many concerns and doubts arose before departing...

Christoph Prégardien is one of the most established singers of our time and has especially excelled in his interpretations of German Romantic Lieder. He has won Orphée d'Or of Académie du Disque Lyrique - Prix Georg Solti, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Edison Award, Cannes Classical Award and Diapason d'Or. This is easy to understand when one hears his controlled, beautifully phrased yet emotional and tender singing.

Bonus feature:

- Christoph Pregardien on Schubert and Die Schone Mullerin

The Hagen Quartett is regarded internationally as one of the foremost string quartets. Their mentors included stars such as Harnoncourt and Kremer. Having played together since their childhood (the three siblings), the musicians combine exceptional freshness and passion with their unique depth of experience. They are renowned for the warmth and emotion of their interpretations. It doesn't come as a surprise that their interpretations of Ravel's String Quartet in F major and Schubert's String Quartet in D minor are intensely beautiful.

Uwe Scholz, former ballet director in Leipzig, was hailed as one of the most brilliant choreographic minds of his generation and he was certainly one of the most important German choreographers when he died in November 2004 at the early age of 45. The fragile-looking man, who had enjoyed a full dance and musical education from childhood, took up his first position as a choreographer with Marcia Haydée in Stuttgart when he was 22. He saw himself as a mixture between his teacher John Cranko and the influential George Balanchine, and the well over one hundred magically beautiful and extraordinarily musical choreographies that he created for houses such as the Opera in Vienna, La Scala, Zurich and Leipzig owe much to neoclassicism. This recording focuses on the two interpretations of Le Sacre du Printemps that he created for "his" Leipzig Ballet, the company that he led to international fame from 1991 to his untimely death. The evening opens with a legendary solo interpretation, danced by Giovanni di Palma to Stravinsky's own adaptation for two pianos of his impressive The Rite of Spring . Often seen as Scholz's autobiographical legacy, this choreography shows a dancer's loneliness and despair in heartbreaking images. An emotive ensemble interpretation to the original...

The Final Chorale tells the story of Igor Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments , a piece he composed in 1920 in memory of Claude Debussy. Using montage technique juxtaposing short musical sequences and blocks of sound, Stravinsky constructed his work boldly with complex tempo relations which until today, still strike musicologists, musicians and audiences. Frank Scheffer tells this neo-classical musical adventure in a moving documentary, taking the structure and character of the composition as the basic form for the style and editing of the film. His narration includes an interview with Robert Craft, archival material on Stravinsky and performances by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

Written in 1909, Five Orchestral Pieces is one of Arnold Schönberg most famous compositions, presenting the evolution from tonal to atonal music. In the composer's own words, he said "No architecture, no build up, just an uninterrupted flow of colours, rythms and moods". Conductor Michael Gielen rehearses and performs Schönberg's Op.16 with the Netherlands Radio Philarmonic. Each of the five movements is interspred with interviews of Gielen, Carl Schorske and Charles Rosen who discuss various aspects of Schönberg's life and works. Rosen...

Tea recounts how Chinese composer Tan Dun wrote the opera Tea , a tragic love story set against the background of the Japanese tea ceremony. He combines Eastern and Western composition techniques to create unique fusion of music between two great musical traditions. The Tea opera is the door to the mystical world of Chado, the Way of Tea. A world in which the ultimate objective is, as Tan Dun himself states, "To hear colour and to see sound". Beautifully crafted by Franck Scheffer, Tea includes interviews of Tan Dun, librettist Xu Ying and director Pierre Audi, as well as performances with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Dutch Chamber Orchestra conducted by Tan Dun.

Broken Silence draws the portraits of five Chinese composers widely known as the founders of Chinese contemporary music : Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Wenjing, Mo Wuping and Qu Xiasong. Children of Mao's cultural revolution, a troubled time when classical music was forbidden in China, they grew up listening to local folk songs and the Communist Party's revolutionary operas. When China opened in 1978, Tan Dun and his fellow students discovered Beethoven, an experience that will change their lives. Filmed in China, New York, Paris and the Netherlands, Broken Silence won the Grand Prix...

This film is a docufiction on the great Toscanini directed by well-known film-maker Larry Weinstein who pushes the boundaries of conventional documentary storytelling by borrowing tools from fiction films, including dramatic reconstructions and historical cinematic stylings. Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), arguably the greatest and most famous conductor in history, was paradoxically one of the most private. He never granted interviews, left diaries or journals of any kind. But during the last years of his life, his son Walter secretly recorded 150 hours of intimate conversations that Toscanini shared with friends and family who visited his home. TOSCANINI: In His Own Words , is based on these tapes which remained vaulted for more than 50 years. Recreated conversations reveal aspects of the Maestro never seen before. Subjects such as his loves, opinions about colleagues, his clashes with Mussolini and Hitler, his personal memories of Verdi, Puccini, Furtwangler, Stokowski, as well as his greatest joys and causes of his endemic sadness are all part of his frank conversation. Interwoven throughout the film are many of Toscanini's greatest musical performances.

In 2003, after a career spanning nearly forty years, Julia Varady discreetly retired from the public stage. She now dedicates her time to teaching. While for most great singers the transition from performing to teaching generally follows signs of vocal deterioration, Julia Varady's voice has never been so dazzling. She constantly sings in full voice during her classes, with the same intensity and generosity of spirit that made her one of the very finest lyric sopranos of our time.

Bonus feature:

The complete master class with Julia Varady (110 mins)