The great composer of The Planets, Gustav Holst also taught himself Sanskrit, lived in a street of brothels in Algiers, cycled into the Sahara Desert, and allied himself during the First World War with a ‘red priest' who pinned on the door of his church "prayers at noon for the victims of Imperial Aggression". He hated the words used to his most famous tune "I Vow to Thee My Country" because it was the opposite of what he believed, and died before the age of 60 - broken and disillusioned.
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.
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.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
Anton Bruckner’s 6th Symphony was written between 1879 and 1881: a very happy time in his life. Unlike most of Bruckner’s symphonies, the 6th was not revised.
Following the success of the Art of Conducting-Great Conductors of the Past, this second edition focuses on a further six of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, complemented by commentary from music personalities who knew the artists firsthand.
Conductivity is a film about creative leadership told through the story of three young conductors at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland; I-Han Fu (Taiwan), Emilia Hoving (Finland) and James Kahane (France).
The audience is invited into Violetta’s privacy to have a close look at the fire to which she abandons herself among the guests of this musical and phantasmagorical celebration that blends theatre and opera, voices that speak and sing, and where the distinction between the instrumentalists and the singers becomes blurred, where Charles Baudelaire is seated next to Christophe Tarkos, and where the phantoms of this Paris in full industrial boom whose future we are living at present, sing and die.
A thoroughly researched biopic of Charles Ives, America's greatest and most innovative composer (and insurance executive), who combined strikingly futuristic experimentalism with gentle nostalgia.
In four corners of the globe, in each of the four seasons, four outstanding violinists guide us on an extraordinary journey through their four distinct homelands.
JJ Justice is a man in transition. A once successful right-wing radio broadcaster, who's lost his edge, his wife and any hope of airing in a real market.
A young Russian woman, smuggled into America by human traffickers, and a notorious Egyptian transporter hired to drive her from the Mexican border to New York City, form an unlikely bond that transforms them and threatens to derail the traffickers' plans.
This provocative and insightful film is the first in a series of documentaries that will reveal the secret knowledge embedded in the work of the greatest filmmaker of all time: Stanley Kubrick.
A boy cursed to turn gay when he grows up must sort out his feelings for the girl he loves and the boy – his best friend – he is suddenly lusting after, come to terms with his homophobia, and escape a pscho gay killer on the loose.
Henry is a grouchy, irritable and overall unhappy birthday clown. As he complains about everything, he realizes 8-year-old birthday girl Coral has a frown just as long as his.
It's official; class is back! Riots on the street, old-Etonians in government, a workforce on strike, "Downton Abbey", "The King's Speech", the royal wedding and vajazzling.
Comments
Have you watched Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter yet? What did you think about it?
