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.

Beethoven spent three years composing the Eroica, an intimate journal of his emotional crises and hi...

A compilation of live performances from across Europe by the German electronicore band, Electric Cal...

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of th...

In the 1960s Karl Böhm (1894–1981) had made his mark as interpreter of Mozart with the the Berlin Ph...

In celebration of its 100th anniversary in 1983, the Metropolitan Opera hosts a four-hour performanc...

The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raise...

Layar, a popular film star who feels bored with his career wants to make a musical theater set in a ...

Johann Strauss, Jr., a would-be composer of waltzes in mid-19th Century Vienna, attempts to thwart h...

Anton Bruckner’s 6th Symphony was written between 1879 and 1881: a very happy time in his life. Unli...

“Clarity was one thing that made this performance a marvel. Another was the flexibility of Barenboim...

Young Stanzi who is visiting Vienna helps a young corporal and musician to become famous for his mar...

Every year, the Berliner Philharmoniker hold a kind of classical-music fête with a bright, cheerful ...

Repertoire Modest Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain; Antonín Dvořák: Song to the Moon from “Rusalk...

The Waldbühne in Berlin, one of the most appealing outdoor amphitheatres on the European continent, ...

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frank...

The Süddeutsche Zeitung summed up this highly acclaimed performance of Bruckner's monumental Fifth S...

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

This large-scale live recording (Gardiner's second) was made in Venice's St Mark's Basilica. It capt...

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert, held each year on 1 May, is invariably an internatio...