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G01:32:002020HD

Roberto Abbado conducts the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, and four vocal soloists in an outstanding performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, recorded at the Parco Ducale di Parma, Italy as part of Festival Verdi 2020. The soloists are soprano Eleonora Buratto, mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili, tenor Giorgio Berrugi, and bass Roberto Tagliavini. When his fellow composer Gioachino Rossini died in 1868, Verdi proposed to compose a ‘Messa per Rossini’ in his honor, to be written by himself and several other Italian composers. Verdi wrote the concluding movement, ‘Libera me’. When the premiere was cancelled, the project lay dormant. When Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni passed away a few years later, Verdi revisited his plan to compose a requiem – this time in honor of the poet he so greatly admired. As an opera composer, Verdi knew better than anyone how to infuse the work with drama, as is evident in the revised version of his ‘Libera me’. The famous, powerful ‘Dies Irae’ especially stands out, depicting the horrors of the Last Judgement.

G01:44:002007HD

Millions of television viewers in Germany, France, Portugal, Greece and Finland experienced live the moving open-air concert within the highly symbolic surrounding of the Alhambra in Granada. Music as a language of peace – this vision unifies the young musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra who come from Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Europe. They perform side by side in the orchestra formed in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. The orchestra has taken on the complex challenge of performing music to promote peace. Soloists are Kyril Zlotnikov and Nabil Shehata. On the program are Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, Bottesini's Fantasia on a theme by Rossini, Brahms' Symphony Nr. 1 and Vorspiel and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

G01:13:002021HD

On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich explored repertoire for piano and violin in this wonderful concert, recorded at Château de Chantilly, France. The ‘Grande Dame’ of the piano is joined by various renowned artists, including pianists Evgeny Kissin, Theodosia Ntokou, and Cristina Marton-Argerich, and violinist Maxim Vengerov. On the program are Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concertino for two pianos, Op. 94; Frédéric Chopin’s Impromptu No. 3, Op. 51, Polonaise No. 6, Op. 53 “Heroic”, and Waltz No. 6, Op. 64 No. 1; Camille Saint-Saëns’s Polonaise for two pianos, Op. 77; César Franck’s Sonata for violin and piano in A major; and Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesleid and Schön Rosmarin. This performance was recorded on June 12, 2021.

G00:28:002015HD

Les Dissonances is a collective of artists founded by violinist David Grimal in 2004. The conductorless ensemble consists of musicians from the most prestigious European orchestras, international soloists, and young talents. In this performance, Les Dissonances’ string quartet – consisting of David Grimal (violin), Hans Peter Hofmann (violin), David Gaillard (viola), and Xavier Phillips (cello) – performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465, ‘Dissonance’ (Op. 10 No. 6). The String Quartet is the last in the set of six quartets that were dedicated to Joseph Haydn. Written between 1782 and 1785, these are also known as the Haydn Quartets (Op. 10). String Quartet No. 19 is remarkable for its slow, dissonant introduction, giving the piece its nickname. This ominous passage suddenly gives way to the bright Allegro in C major. This performance was recorded at Opéra Comique in Paris, France, in 2015.

G01:01:002023HD

At the behest of Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich, several classical music stars took part in this concert in aid of the Erasmus Fund for medical research in intensive care, recorded at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium, on October 21, 2023. The concert pays tribute to the renowned cellist Aleksandr Khramouchin (1979) who suddenly passed away on May 13, 2023. As part of this concert, pianist Martha Argerich, violinists Tedi Papavrami and Yossif Ivanov, violist Lyda Chen-Argerich, and cellist Jing Zhao perform Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44.

G00:50:001992HD

Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic perform the Violin Concerto, Op. 61 by Ludwig van Beethoven under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Beethoven dedicated his Violin Concerto to his colleague Franz Clement, a prominent violinist of the time. The first of the piece was presented in Vienna in 1806. The piece was only interpreted a handful of times during the following decades. However, the work took a new lease of life in 1844, when the young violinist Joseph Joachim, barely 12 years old, performed with the London Philharmonic Society, under the direction of Mendelssohn. Since then, Beethoven's Violin Concerto has been one of the most important concertos in the classical repertoire. This work, renowned for its wide range of cadenzas, poses a great technical and intellectual challenge, brilliantly picked up by Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

G00:23:001993HD

Every year, the Europakonzert is hosted by the Berliner Philharmoniker in a notorious concert hall or on a special location. This years concert is performed at the magnificent Royal Albert Hall in London. The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink starts with Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture from "Roméo et Juliette". The second piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is his famous Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major K. 216 played by the German violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann. During his career he played with a lot of famous orchestras and conductors such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons. He has a great passion for chamber music and plays a lot of recitals with the Italian pianist Enrico Pace. The concert closes with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring which he wrote in 1913 for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The première caused a lot of sensation and near-riot in the audience because of the avant-garde nature, music and choreography of the piece. The Rite of Spring is now considered as one of the masterpieces of classical music history and has influenced many 20th-century music composers. The encore is Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz from the Nutcracker.

07:14
Beethoven - String Quartets No. 2, 14 & 16
G01:34:002020HD
Renowned French string quartet Quatuor Ébène marked the 250th birth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with a remarkable project: recording all of the great composer’s sixteen string quartets. For five years, violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Marie Chilemme, and cellist Raphaël Merlin immersed themselves in Beethoven’s 650 pages of sheet music. Their efforts culminated in the performance of the composer’s complete repertoire for string quartet, which covers three decades of Beethoven's musical creativity, during six impressive concerts at Philharmonie de Paris in the autumn of 2020. Quatuor Ébène explored every facet of Beethoven's string quartet repertoire: from the youthful Opus 18 string quartets to the Razumovsky, Harp, and Serioso quartets (Opus 59, 74, and 95) from his middle period, and finally, the depth of his late quartets (Opus 127 to 135). This program features Quatuor Ébène performing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18, No. 2; String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135; and String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. This concert was recorded at Philharmonie de Paris on December 16, 2020.

G00:15:002021HD

J. S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concerto’s belong to his best-known works. The composer wrote these concertos between 1711 and 1720 and dedicated them in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. In celebration of the pieces’ 300th anniversary, Czech harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks and the renowned Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 recorded all six Brandenburg Concertos on historical instruments in 2021. The concertos are based on the Italian concerto grosso form, in which a group of solo instruments is set against a large ensemble. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos feature remarkable combinations of solo instruments and virtuoso solos. In this performance at the Hall of Mirrors in the Köthen Castle, Germany, Luks and his Collegium 1704 present Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, BWV 1051. Contrary to the other five concertos, this piece does not include violins, instead offering the floor to the lower strings and the harpsichord.

G00:27:002001HD

Watch the series ‘Discovering Masterpieces’, your audio-visual concert guide to the great masterpieces of classical music. The series brings you 20 half-hour documentaries on 20 classical masterpieces: acclaimed experts, famous soloists and outstanding conductors take you on a journey back to the time and place of composition. In today’s documentary, Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 5’ is discussed. The piece has the character of an appeal from the very start, when the four-note “fate” motif casts a spell on listeners. The German musicologist Armin Koch analyses the work, while the German Beethoven expert Wulf Konold illustrates the ingenious variations of the “fate” motif on piano, and also explains other features of this magnificent work.

G00:28:002024HD

Pianist Elias Ackerley (United Kingdom/South Korea, 2001) joins the CMIM ensemble, consisting of three principal strings players of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, in a performance of the first movement, Allegro molto moderato, of Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15. This performance took place during the chamber music round of the two-part semi-final of the Piano Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2024 (CMIM). It was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

G01:21:002021HD

Maestro Myung-Whun Chung leads the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in this touching performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in D major. Written in 1908-1909, it was the last symphony Mahler completed. Initially, the superstitious composer, believing in the so-called ‘curse of the ninth,’ did not want to write a Symphony No. 9. After all, fellow composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Anton Bruckner died before writing their tenth symphonies. Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 premiered on June 26, 1912, in Vienna, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic led by Bruno Walter. Unfortunately, the composer himself did not live to see this: he died in 1911. This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

G01:41:002017HD

Critics praise her, and the audience loves her. Kristine Opolais, the prima donna and the star of the New York Metropolitan Opera, performs in her home country Latvia. She gives a splendid concert with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, at the Latvian National Opera, in 2017. The program includes arias from operas that made Kristine an international star. It includes mostly Italian music that will encourage you to dream about love and think about what is truly important. Enjoy the most beautiful arias and instrumental pieces of opera by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Camille Saint-Saëns, Arrigo Boito, and Alfredo Catalani.

G00:25:00HD

This documentary by Mark Perna shows the training and professional growth actions for opera singers, the promotion and enhancement of the cultural offer of the city and province of Modena and the maintenance and development of the Modenese musical tradition in the field of opera.

G00:19:00HD

Italian conductor Andrea Vitello leads Ensemble BIOS in a performance of ‘Someone Out There is Praying for Peace (Let Us Not Be the Reason), III’, by contemporary Canadian composer Rita Ueda. This piece is written for strings and shō, a Japanese free-reed mouth organ, played here by Naomi Sato. Ensemble BIOS specializes in 20th and 21st century music. This performance was recorded at Chiesa di San Cristo in Brescia, Italy.

G00:14:002017HD

Andris Nelsons, together with his then-wife, the great soprano Kristine Opolais and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig present a program dedicated to Antonin Dvořák, singing the melodies that the composer hid in all layers of his music with tender, warm, soft colors. Nelsons’ tempos remain calm and relaxed, allowing the omnipresent beauty of Dvořák’s music to unfold and flood the Gewandhaus. The program opens with Othello, a Concert Overture for Orchestra, Op. 93. Opolais performs “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka, “Songs my Mother Taught Me” from Gypsy Songs, Op. 55/4. This is followed by the Polonaise and 'O, marno, marno to je' from Rusalka and 'Dobrá! Já mu je dám!... Jak je mi?' from Smetana's opera Dalibor. The concert closes with a performance of Dvořák's Symphony no. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (“From the New World”). Recorded at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig in May 2017.

G01:22:002022HD

Swiss conductor Ludwig Wicki leads the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the DR Junior Choir in a sparkling concert program of film music. The program features a selection of music from great and Oscar-winning Hollywood films, including Titanic, The Bodyguard, Pirates of the Caribbean, Braveheart, and Moulin Rouge, written by major composers such as John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, and Klaus Badelt. Highlights include ‘He’s a pirate/Davy Jones’ from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; ‘Now We Are Free’ from Gladiator; ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic; and ‘Shallow’ from A Star Is Born. Featured soloists in this concert are the young talented singers Andrea Lykke Oehlenschlæger and Diluckshan Jeyaratnam. This performance was recorded at the DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, Denmark, in May 2022.

G01:37:002021HD

J. S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concerto’s belong to his best-known works. The composer wrote these concertos between 1711 and 1720 and dedicated them in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. In celebration of the pieces’ 300th anniversary, Czech harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks and the renowned Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 recorded all six Brandenburg Concertos on historical instruments in 2021. The concertos are based on the Italian concerto grosso form, in which a group of solo instruments is set against a large ensemble. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos feature remarkable combinations of solo instruments and virtuoso solos. This performance was recorded at the Hall of Mirrors in the Köthen Castle, Germany.

G00:55:002014HD

One of today’s most distinguished conductors, Franz Welser-Möst conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance featuring works from the oeuvre of Johannes Brahms. The concert begins with the Academic Festival Overture, written in honor of the University of Breslau, which awarded the composer an honorary doctorate in philosophy. This is followed by Brahms only Violin Concerto (in D major), described by violinist Joseph Joachim, whom it was originally written for, as one of the four great German violin concerti. This performance features violin soloist Julia Fischer. It was recorded at Severance Hall in Cleveland, USA, in 2014.

G00:28:002006HD

Roberto Prosseda (1975) performs Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 5 (KV. 283) and four Impromptus Op. 90 by Franz Schubert. The performance ends with Chopin's technically demanding Ballade No. 4, Op. 52. Prosseda is particularly noted for his performances of newly discovered works by Mendelssohn and has recorded a nine-CD series for Decca of the piano works of Mendelssohn. Since 2012, Prosseda also gives lecture-concerts with the robot pianist TeoTronico, as educational or family concerts, to demonstrate differences between a literal production of music and human interpretation.

G00:42:002015HD

Bernard Haitink conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, 2015. On the program is Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Op. 61. The award-winning Isabelle Faust is the soloist, and since her recordings with Claudio Abbado, she’s the first choice when it comes to this masterpiece.

G01:36:002006HD

Recorded live in Tel Aviv in 2006, this concert honours the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on its 70th anniversary. With conductor Zubin Mehta and soloists Pinchas Zukerman and Daniel Barenboim, the celebratory concert encompassed artistry far beyond the usual scope of music performance as it presented the brilliant work of many of the musicians most responsible for, and most appreciative of, the orchestra’s rich history. The pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim maintains a close relationship with the IPO and appears with the orchestra almost every year. Pinchas Zukerman made his debut with the IPO in 1968 and has since continued to appear with the orchestra on a regular basis as a violinist and conductor. On the program are Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Bruch Violin Concerto No.1 as well as Ravel’s Valse, popular and at the same time demanding repertoire – just perfect for a celebration of one of the world’s foremost orchestras!

G00:14:002021HD

J. S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concerto’s belong to his best-known works. The composer wrote these concertos between 1711 and 1720 and dedicated them in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. In celebration of the pieces’ 300th anniversary, Czech harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks and the renowned Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 recorded all six Brandenburg Concertos on historical instruments in 2021. The concertos are based on the Italian concerto grosso form, in which a group of solo instruments is set against a large ensemble. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos feature remarkable combinations of solo instruments and virtuoso solos. In this performance at the Hall of Mirrors in the Köthen Castle, Germany, Luks and his Collegium 1704 present Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047. This piece features trumpet, violin, recorder, and oboe solos. Especially outstanding are the high, virtuoso trumpet parts.

G02:15:002021HD

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, delivering a thrilling new interpretation of Von Weber’s Romantic opera. Stage director Carlus Padrissa calls this 2021 production a “journey to the roots of opera, where myth, history and the current reality of the forest meet”. Christoph Eschenbach conducts Konzerthausorchester Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin. Among the soloists are Jeanine De Bique (Agathe), Anna Prohaska (Ännchen), Benjamin Bruns (Max), Falk Struckmann (Kaspar), Franz Hawlata (Kuno), and Viktor Rud (Kilian). This performance was recorded on June 18, 2021.

G00:24:002021HD

Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto leads the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in a performance of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite. Originally commissioned as a ballet for the legendary dancer Martha Graham, Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring (1944) has since become an American classic. While first scored for a thirteen-piece ensemble, Copland later arranged the work for a full orchestra. This performance was recorded at Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City, in 2021.

G00:19:002024HD

Italian pianist Alessandro Marangoni and Italian organist Paolo Oreni perform Marcel Dupré’s Variations on Two Themes for piano and organ, Op. 35. Designed by the organist himself, Oreni plays his ‘Wanderer’ organ in this performance, which is currently the largest existing transportable pipe organ. With its 1200 pipes and 42 stops, it has all the essential timbres needed for the organ repertoire. This performance was recorded at FabbricaPoggi in Pavia, Italy, on April 5, 2024.