The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

Tanglewood: A Place for Music

A look at the activities of the Tanglewood Music Center, America's renowned summer Academy for talented musicians, singers, composers and conductors.

The Strauss Fantasy

Johnny Green leads the MGM Symphony Orchestra in a medley of waltzes and other familiar pieces by three members of the Strauss family. Filmed in CinemaScope.

House of Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Simon Rattle: The Making of a Maestro

This documentary portrait, the first television biography of Rattle for 15 years, follows him through an extraordinary year of concerts, oratorios and opera with five different orchestras. We see his rigorous preparation and experience his irresistible dynamism in rehearsal and performance. We will watch him at work with the Berliner Philharmoniker, often described as the world’s leading orchestra. We will also see him with the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. We see him preparing a score for performance, share his experiences with the players and gain privileged insights into the day-to-day life of a conductor

At the Haunted End of the Day

A documentary by Tony Palmer on English composer Sir William Walton (1902–1983), made shortly before his death. The film includes the only full-length interview ever recorded with Walton. Filmed at his home on Ischia and in Oxford, London & Oldham, it includes contributions from Laurence Olivier, Sacheverell Sitwell and Lady Susana Walton. Specially performed extracts of his music are conducted by Simon Rattle in his first substantial contribution to television when he was in his early 20s, with Simon Preston, Julian Bream, Yvonne Kenny, Yehudi Menuhin, Iona Brown, John Shirley-Quirk, Elgar Howarth & Ralph Kirshbaum, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford & Los Paraguayos.

The Other Song

Journeying across Varanasi, Lucknow, and Muzzafarpur in India, this documentary film traces the lost traditions and the culture of tawaifs (courtesans of North India), particularly through a song sung by Rasoolan Bai, "Lagat karejwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar" and its lesser known, earlier version "Lagat jobanwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar" (recorded in a 1935 Gramophone recording). Weaving the past with the present, the film spans between personal stories as it interacts with historical events, ultimately leading to the decline of a great art form.

Herbert von Karajan conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Piano Dreams

Three young prodigies and their families exploring the popular and competitive world of piano playing in China.

Disruptor Conductor

Hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the first time changed Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser’s life forever, and in this inspiring documentary, we see him—the first openly gay Black conductor in Canada and a regular conductor with the San Francisco and Vancouver symphonies—using his passion to bring live classical music to people identifying as “different,” like he does. Having struggled with his own sexuality, Bartholomew-Poyser believes music can help unite and uplift everyone beyond race, class, and gender. This unorthodox film chronicles his concerts in a women’s prison and teaming up with Thorgy Thor (from RuPaul’s Drag Race and also a classically trained violinist) to create the first orchestral drag show in Canada.

Inside Karajan

Very few people really knew Herbert von Karajan. The conductor gave access to his private life only a little circle of strictly loyal people who kept their secrets even long after the maestro’s death. This documentary for the first time shows in the whole dimension the real man Karajan: not only the image of a dandy that he himself had shown to the public, but the unfiltered image of his personality. Newly discovered original film footage from the inner circle shows Karajan’s private life like it really was.

Not Mozart: Letters, Riddles and Writs

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

Beethoven's Nine: Ode to Humanity

Can a work of art remain relevant 200 years after its creation? Ludwig van Beethoven’s last completed symphony proves it’s possible.

Appalachian Journey Live In Concert

April 5th, 2000... On the heels of their unanimously acclaimed albums "Appalachia Waltz" and "Appalachian Journey", "Appalachian Journey Live In Concert" captures three of the world's most extraordinary musicians live in concert, along with very special guests James Taylor and Alison Krauss, from their sold-out performance at New York City's Avery Fischer Hall.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: The First 50 Years

Go behind the scenes with one of London's most important musical institutions.

Dissonance

A young boy must relearn piano in order to rekindle the broken relationship between him and his mother.