Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8

Leonard Bernstein made these recordings during his wonderfully productive collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker in the mid-1970s when he was at the peak of his career. Humphrey Burton's direction is, as always, very fine, giving the viewer/listener both the larger picture and highlighting individual soloists, players or groups of musicians and, of course, the maestro. The video and audio tracks show their age, but are quite acceptable even for today's standards. Bernstein's Seventh is everything one could desire: dark and spooky, highly sensual, but also structurally strong and assertive where needed. Bernstein's reading does not gloss over breakdowns in tonality and the foreshadowing of later musical developments.

Ennio Morricone: Peace Notes - Live in Venice

From his impressive back catalogue as a cinematic composer, the illustrious Ennio Morricone conducts a moving and uplifting tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks and to all victims of unjust tragedies throughout history. Filmed in 2007 in high definition at the historic Piazza San Marco in Venice, this remarkable live performance features music from 'Cinema Paradiso', 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly', 'Once Upon a Time in America', 'Love Circle', 'The Mission' and many other timeless classics.

Lisztomania

In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner.

John Adams conducts John Adams

Like many of John Adams’ operas, Doctor Atomic is based on recent world historical events—here, the effusive Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” anxiously awaits the bomb’s first test in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Adams adapted the work into a symphony, comprising its three main acts. In the second half of the program, Adams conducts his 2015 violin concerto, Scheherazade.2, which restages the tale of the One Thousand and One Nights heroine as a strong woman navigating a patriarchial society, incarnated by the solo violin part. The work was composed specifically for Canadian-American virtuoso Leila Josefowicz and co-commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who perform it to perfection. The evening then closes out with Tromba Lontana, an orchestral fanfare written to mark the 150th anniversary of Texas’s independence from Mexico in 1836.

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff - Simon Rattle

Gala concert from Berlin the world famous Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, in Carl Orff's famous Carmina Burana, an intensely dramatic cantata that remains one of the most performed works of the twentieth century. With an extraordinary vocal line-up soprano Sally Matthews, tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Christian Gerhaher. With Rundfunchor Berlin with Chorus Master Simon Halesey as well as the Knabenchor des Staats- und Domchores Berlin.

Brahms The Piano Concertos

Between 1981 and 1984 Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahmss orchestral works with the Wiener Philharmoniker to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth in 1983. For the concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms interpreters of the time: the violoninst Gidon Kremer, the cellist Mischa Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman. Leonard Bernstein, Krystian Zimerman, and the Wiener Philharmoniker, it's very hard to get a better group of musicians for these masterpieces. Mr. Zimerman and Mr. Wolfgang Herzer's piano cello duets in the third movement of Brahms' second is simply tearful.

Waldbühne 2015 | Lights, Camera, Action!

The Waldbühne in Berlin, one of the most appealing outdoor amphitheatres on the European continent, is the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s summer concerts. With over 20.000 in attendance, they are some of the most popular classical music concerts in the world. In 2015 the Berliner Philharmoniker surrounded themselves with plenty of celebrities, including not only conductor Sir Simon Rattle, but also many figures from film history: Indiana Jones, Robin Hood, Ben Hur and many more. They were all brought to life musically when the orchestra performed some of Hollywood’s most famous film music. With film music from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T. composed by John Williams. Live from the Waldbühne Berlin, 2015.

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff in Venedig

The Choir and Orchestra of the La Fenice Theatre, conducted by Fabio Luisi, take over Piazza San Marco in Venice for a grandiose concert. Facing the basilica, the musicians perform the famous cantata "Carmina burana", twenty-four medieval poems set to music by Carl Orff between 1935 and 1936.

Verdi: Messa da Requiem

Guiseppe Verdi’s Requiem is still heard mainly in theatre and concert halls. However, the author himself intended this composition to be performed in church, and on special occasions. Conducted by Teodor Currentzis and performed by soloists and musicAeterna choir and orchestra, Verdi’s famous funeral mass returns from the concert stage to Milan’s Church of San Marco, the same place where it was premiered in 1874. The seven parts of the Requiem become steps on the way to comprehending the sacrament of death, the operatic character of orchestral and vocal writing acquires the strictness of the Catholic tradition, and musical images of rage, despair, and rebellion against the inevitable end are crowned with appeasement.

Beethoven Piano Concertos 1-5

These recordings, filmed in March and April 1974 for the BBC, occurred at the tail end of the old performance era and the very start of the new. Vladimir Ashkenazy was a graduate of the same Soviet school of piano playing that produced Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Lazar Berman and a host of others of that era. There are simularities that unite them, including a broad romanticism, a degree of Lisztian showmanship coupled with periods of introspection, powerful technique that occasionally borders on pounding and an intellectual streak that produces some deeply insightful playing. Ashkenazy was younger than the others, more modern in his playing.

Barenboim The Warsaw Recital

Chopin Year 2010 coincides with the 60th anniversary of Daniel Barenboims stage début, and as a pianist he has decided to devote this year to the great Romantic master of the keyboard. Fryderyc Chopin was born on 1 March 1810 in a small village near Warsaw, and on the eve of the 200th anniversary of this date Barenboim gave this wildly acclaimed Warsaw recital as part of an extensive European tour. Recorded live at the National Philharmonic Hall, Warsaw, the programme presents some of the composers best-known works, including the great B flat minor Sonata with its famous Funeral March, which sounded to many as the composer may well have imagined it. Ive been playing Chopin ever since I was a little boy. On the advice of my father, who was also my teacher, I performed some of his pieces in my very first concert, when I was just seven. At that point I was playing the Etudes and the Nocturnes obviously I didnt try and tackle the larger scale Sonatas or the Fantasy until later.

Verdi Requiem

The production itself is quite beautiful: recorded in the Basilica di San Marco in Venice in November 2007, it highlights the cathedral's splendor, the reverent audience, the soloists, orchestra and chorus with near-perfect cinematography. The soundtrack is also acceptable, which may have been quite a task to achieve, given the Basilica's over-reverberant acoustics. Alas, the performance itself does not rise to the occasion. Despite the occasional minor insecurity in ensemble and a visible lack of joy, the Symphonica Toscanini musicians play well, the Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino members sing equally well, and the soloists are more than adequate, almost tangibly trying to excel.

The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala

In celebration of its 100th anniversary in 1983, the Metropolitan Opera hosts a four-hour performance uniting some of the world's most spellbinding opera singers and conductors. The event includes a ballet from Samson et Dalila and boasts incredible classical performances from Kathleen Battle, Plácido Domingo, Jose Carerras, Leonard Bernstein, Marilyn Horne, Leona Mitchell, Luciano Pavarotti and many more.

Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7; Coriolan Overture

From the very first bars of the Coriolan Overture, it is apparent that this is Beethoven at his very best. Vladimir Jurowski and his absolutely brilliant Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment give us a new reading of old favorites that may well blow you out of your chair. There is plenty to discover: sounds and textures never heard before, an orchestral timbre as the composer himself may have envisaged and heard, incredible strength and cohesion and, on the other hand, sensitive nuances that often disappear under a blanket of massed strings in more traditional interpretations.

Beethoven: The Symphonies

Conductor: Claudio Abbado. Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. 1.Symphony no 1 in C major, Op. 21 2. Symphony no 2 in D major, Op. 36 3. Symphony no 3 in E flat major, Op. 55 "Eroica" 4. Symphony no 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 5. Symphony no 5 in C minor, Op. 67 6. Symphony no 6 in F major, Op. 68 "Pastoral" 7. Symphony no 7 in A major, Op. 92 8. Symphony no 8 in F major, Op. 93 9. Symphony no 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "Choral"

Lang Lang - Live in Versailles

Ever since his first visit to the magical Hall of Mirrors at Versailles Palace, superstar classical pianist Lang Lang had dreamed of performing there. His dream came to fruition in the form of a special concert there in June 2015. Lang Lang selected the same repertoire that the city of light inspired him to play on his latest album, Lang Lang in Paris - Chopin s four momentous Scherzi and Tchaikovsky s rarer, masterful cycle, The Seasons making Lang Lang Live in Versailles a companion piece to the album.

Currentzis conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 9

Ludwig van Beethoven headed for Symphony No. 9 literally his entire life. As early as the 1790s, he had an eye on Ode to Joy, perhaps the most well-known poem by Friedrich Schiller, written on the threshold of the French Revolution (1786). In his mature and, in particular, later years, the deaf composer with an acute ‘hearing vision’ increasingly distanced himself from conventional forms and genres and wrote parts beyond the possibilities of instruments of his day. He nurtured the idea of a symphony with a choir for at least several years. The history of the Ninth’s interpretations includes 200 years of staggering revelations and lingering stagnation. Performed by the musicAeterna orchestra, choir, and guest soloists under the baton of Teodor Currentzis, Beethoven’s opus magnum acquires the original poignancy and energy of a recent discovery.

Mozart - Berliner Philharmoniker - Radek Baborák - Daniel Barenboim

Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 & 3

Beginning with the First Symphony, Bernstein reveals Mahler's position at the hinge of modernism, while emphasizing his emotional extremism. The uplifting Second "Resurrection" Symphony, with which Bernstein had an especially long and close association, is recorded here in a historic performance from 1973, set in the Romanesque splendor of Ely Cathedral. In the Third, Bernstein encompasses the symphony's spiritual panorama like no other conductor, with the Vienna Philharmonic players alive to every nuance.

Igor Stravinsky's 'The Firebird' by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

On Air presents Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, performed by the world-renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Peter Breiner, and recorded at BBC Television Centre. Expertly brought to life by some of the world's most sought-after classical musicians, The Firebird comprises 74 musicians: 51 string, 11 brass, 8 woodwind and 4 percussion. Available now to watch on demand in cinematic quality.