Paul Smaczny

Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.

The Unanswered Ives is the first film about Charles Ives (1874-1954), an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. The 60-minute documentary sheds light on Ives' life and work in all its facets and inconsistencies. American singer and composer Frank Zappa included Charles Ives in a list of influences that he presented in the liner notes of his debut album Freak Out! (1966). Ives continues to influence contemporary composers, arrangers and musicians. Planet Arts Records released Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra. Ives befriended and encouraged a young Elliott Carter. In addition, Phil Lesh, bassist of the Grateful Dead, has described Ives as one of his two musical heroes.

'Metanoia', which spans time and borders with composers such as Giacomo Puccini, Arvo Pärt, Alexander Borodin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Ennio Morricone, is steeped in this concept: Whether it was Puccini, who wrote only one sacred work because he was instructed by the Almighty God to write for the stage, Bach, whose remarkable ability to create transcendence through the use of the simplest of elements, or Pärt, whose ten-year creative crisis gave rise to a highly original musical language.

This unique production of Carl Maria von Weber’s ‘Der Freischütz’ was created to celebrate both the piece’s 200th premiere anniversary at Konzerthaus Berlin and the 200th anniversary of the famed concert hall itself. For this production, Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus – internationally acclaimed for its avant-garde opera – created a virtual forest in the Konzerthaus’ Great Hall.

Claudio Abbado conducts the Orchestra Mozart with Giuliano Carmignola, principal violinist, live at the Teatro Municipale Valli, Reggio Emilia, April 21, 2007

Music is not "just" music. It can have immense power in good or evil. This documentary by Maria Stodtmeier and Isa Willinger highlights interesting and very current themes about the links between music and politics.

Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” has inspired generations of artists to adaptations like scarcely any other work. In his colorful, passionate music, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev brilliantly captured the clash of love and hatred, and the proximity of tenderness and violence. Inspired by Prokofiev’s vivid music and the timeless quality of Shakespeare’s tragedy, choreographer Christian Spuck and the Ballett Zürich narrate the most famous love story in world literature using strong images that are full of enthralling theatricality and touching emotion. Michail Jurowski, a true Prokofiev expert, is at the rostrum of the Philharmonia Zürich. Recorded live at Opernhaus Zürich June 2019.

"Die Thomaner" is one of the most prestigious youth choirs in the world. This documentary follows these promising talented choristers for over a year during their demanding artistic life full of pressure and success.

Midori, in her search for authenticity,visits the places where Bach's compositions originated. Exploring the castle of Köthen, where Bach wrote the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin,she fills the historical rooms with the sound of these masterpieces. Music and space merge exclusively in the acoustic offered by the location, which supports the breathtaking polyphonyand the detailed richness of the works as well as the technical brilliance and perfectionof Midori's subtly shaped performance. recorded at the Castle Köthen, August 2016

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Mariss Jansons conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in the 2001 edition of the Europakonzert, filmed live at the Hagia Eirene in Istanbul on 1 May 2001. The program features Haydn’s Symphony No. 24 in G Major “Surprise” Mozart’s Concerto No. 2 in D Major for Flute and Orchestra, Emmanuel Pahud soloist Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14.

Knowledge is the Beginning is the story of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, where young Arabs and Jews perform and live side by side. It is a film about what music can do; the way it can transcend cultural barriers, bring people together, defeat prejudice and overcome religious and political differences. It also demonstrates the problems that crop up occasionally and how music can help people from different points of view find common ground. For Daniel Barenboim, founder of the ensemble, the orchestra is a symbol for what could be achieved in the Middle East.

The 250th anniversary of George Frideric Handel’s death takes place on April 14th, 2009. This outstanding British-German performance in Handel’s baptistery, the Market Church in Halle, represents the media highlight of the Handel Year.

El Sistema is a network of childrens and youth orchestras, music centres and workshops in Venezuela, in which more than 250,000 children and young people are currently learning to play an instrument. It was set up over thirty years ago by José Antonio Abreu, who was driven by the utopian vision of a better future. In the dangerous and poverty-stricken shanty towns of Caracas, Abreu lifts children out of poverty through music, changing both people and structures. The film El Sistema shows how Abreus astonishing ideas have led the way out of the vicious circle of poverty - and how the power of music has been able to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people.

Gustav Mahler's fourth symphony and Pelleas et Melisande by Arnold Schoenberg performed by the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, conducted by Claudio Abbado. Soprano Juliane Banse is featured on the Mahler symphony

In summer 2007 the New York Philharmonic received an invitation that was unprecedented in the orchestra's history. North Korea, the world's most isolated and secluded country and technically at war with the United States, invited the orchestra to play in the capital of Pyongyang. Just a few months later, two hundred orchestra members and more than one hundred journalists disembarked from a chartered plane at Pyongyang's deserted airport. They were about to experience a historic moment, the first-ever performance by an American orchestra in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

World-renowned maestro Claudio Abbado opens up about his life and work in this profile that effectively combines images of the conductor in rehearsal and in concert and interviews with friends, colleagues and Abbado himself. The video includes footage of Bruno Ganz, Daniel Harding, Marcel Prawy, Albrecht Mayer, Wolfram Christ, Kolja Blacher, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and more.

The Triple Concerto is one of Beethoven's less frequently performed works - probably also because it requires three soloists and makes considerable demands on them. ARTE presents the Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra in C major at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, performed by an excellent trio of soloists. It is accompanied by the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt.

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Shot over a two-year period observing Abbado: a) Rossini, Overture to 'll Barbiere di Siviglia' b) Schubert, Symphony no. 2 B-Major, D. 125 c) Arnold Schonberg, Kammersinfonie no. 1 E-Major op. 9 (Filmed in Venice, Gran Teatro La Fenice, in February 1995, Chamber Orchestra of Europe). a) Richard Strauss, Elektra (Deborah Polaski, Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovsek, Ferrucio Furlanetto) b) Beethoven, Symphony no 6 F-Major, op. 68, 'Pastorale' (Filmed in the Festspielhaus Salzburg on the occasion of the Easter Festival, April 1995, Berlin Philharmonic). a) Beethoven, Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 3 C-MINOR, OP. 37 (Maria Joao Pires) b) Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 D-Minor (Filmed in Paris, Cite de la Musique, in August 1995, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra).