John Eliot Gardiner goes in search of Bach the man and the musician. The famous portrait of Bach portrays a grumpy 62-year-old man in a wig and formal coat, yet his greatest works were composed 20 years earlier in an almost unrivalled blaze of creativity. We reveal a complex and passionate artist; a warm and convivial family man at the same time a rebellious spirit struggling with the hierarchies of state and church who wrote timeless music that is today known world-wide. Gardiner undertakes a 'Bach Tour' of Germany, and sifts the relatively few clues we have - some newly-found. Most of all, he uses the music to reveal the real Bach.

After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer...

Live performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243 from Herbert von Karajan's New Year'...

There is hardly a better way to approach Ludwig van Beethoven than through his piano concertos. Beet...
Pierre Boulez conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a special concert from the Barbican,...

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This 56-minute documentary on America's most controversial and unique composer manages to cover a gr...

The King of the Waltz stages a spectacular anniversary concert in the Netherlands' most romantic cit...

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

These biographical drama documentaries explore the lives and careers of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Scr...

The film is a parody of Disney's Fantasia, though possibly more of a challenge to Fantasia than paro...

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pag...

After the great success of his Beethoven cycle, Christian Thielemann now turns with his new orchestr...

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of th...
A brilliant performance of Schönberg's monumental work at the Prague State Opera. Arnold Schönberg c...
A concert performance of the most famous parts of Dvořák's opera Rusalka in the park of Liteň Castle...
Study of the work of the conductor Václav Neumann and his creative process with the orchestra.