Michael Beyer

If Daniel Barenboim is not the world's greatest living classical musician he is certainly the most versatile. In a career spanning more than 50 years, his name is attached to many of the celebrated recordings of opera, symphony, small ensemble and piano solo. With the later half of his career marked by distinction at the podium, one may forget that he is still an accomplished concert pianist. Here we are treated to both talents as Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin and plays all five of Beethoven's piano concerti. From the accompanying booklet we find that Barenboim first recorded these works in 1967 at the age of 24 under Otto Klemperer. Now he is revisiting them 40 years later on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

Joshua Bell lights up the stage with this dazzling performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, the centerpiece of the Nobel Prize Concert in honour of the 2010 Nobel Prize Laureates. Part of the official Nobel Week, this tribute concert opens with music by Beethoven that urgently evokes the spirit of freedom from tyranny. And closing the evening is a glowing account by Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic of Sibelius’s monument to orchestral majesty, the titanic Fifth Symphony.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's traditional New Year Concert in 2010.

This recording features the opening concert of the Salzburg Festival in 2010, in which the Festival celebrated its 90th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Great Festival Hall. Daniel Barenboim conducts the Vienna Philharmonic and Chorus State Opera Vienna with Dorothea Roeschmann, Franz Josef Selig, and Rene Pape in works by Beethoven, Boulez, and Bruckner.

As Christof Loy put it: Così fan tutte invites us to embrace the complexity of life and face the future with heads held high. In his staging of the version he abridged with Joana Mallwitz for the Salzburg Festival 2020 the focus is wholly on the figures and the subtle choreography of their emotional states — in a space that like a magnifying glass exposes the intricate mechanisms between the characters. In this way the production leads the protagonists and the audience to experience the ‘serene calm’ that can perhaps indeed cure our own ‘distempers’.

Recorded live at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 22 & 23 November 2010 The orchestra presents Mahler's unique and breathtaking First Symphony and Rachmaninov's late Symphonic Dances. The Philharmonic's beautiful rendering of Mahler's homage to nature and Rachmaninov's nostalgic ode to Russia is taken to a new level in this 3D recording using state-of-the-art video and audio technology. Join Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker on a musical journey that takes the concert experience to a breathtaking new level a feast for eyes and ears in 3D!

A performance of Alban Berg's opera recorded at the Schiller Theater in Berlin. The opera, dark and satirical in tone, charts the story of the rise and fall of a femme fatale, from life as a society hostess to prostitution and, eventually, a bloody death at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

Live performance, Bayerische Staatsoper, 2011. The Tales of Hoffmann (French: LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN) is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach that combines three short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann into a haunting whole: a melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer. One of the questions this opera poses for any director is how to link the 'tales' of Hoffmann's three lost loves together and knit them satisfactorily into the Prologue and Epilogue. In this production, Richard Jones solves the puzzle by turning it into an autobiographical journey which ends with a grand meet-up of all the characters Hoffmann has encountered: for once, Hoffmann is not presented as a rollicking kind of drunken story-spinner, but rather a sad-eyed, sobered-up depressive, who reaches for the bottle only because his disastrous love life has gone wrong yet again.

Dorothea Roeschmann, Katharina Kammerloher, Hanno Mueller-Brachmann, Werner Guera, Daniela Bruera, and Roman Trekel star in this 2002 Deutsche Staatsoper production of the Mozart opera conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Daniel Barenboim conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the 2014 News Year's Concert, an annual celebration that showcases classics by the venerable Strauss family and the light music of other composers. True to tradition, this concert offers selections by Johann Strauss I, his sons Johann Strauss II, Eduard Strauss, and Josef Strauss, as well as the unrelated Richard Strauss, Joseph Hellmesberger, Joseph Lanner, and for the first time on a New Year's concert, the French composer Léo Delibes.

Claudio Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in this performance of Mahler's seventh symphony recorded in 2005.

Franz Schubert's "Winterreise" is considered the pinnacle of German art song. Hans Zender (1936 - 2019) arranged the cycle in 1993, and his version for tenor and small orchestra brings to light emotions that pulsate beneath the surface in Schubert. Similar to Hans Zender, the choreographer Christian Spuck is also concerned with a journey into the interior of the human being.

The male circle of the Grail Knights is in crisis. Time and again, knights desert to the counter-realm of the sorcerer Klingsor, who had previously been rejected by the circle of knights. With the help of seductive women, above all Kundry, he succeeds in bringing down the knights. He is even able to tempt the Grail King Amfortas into a misstep. He steals his sacred spear and inflicts an incurable wound. As a result, Amfortas' ritual duty of unveiling the Grail has become an ordeal. Only a pure fool is destined to undo the Grail King's fall from grace and reverse its devastating consequences.

Live performance from 2018 of the unfinished work by composer Charles Ives. Inspired by the potential of the work, director Christoph Marthaler, stage designer Anna Viebrock and conductor Titus Engel joined forces to stage a performance of Ives' incomplete project, originally intended for more than 4,000 musicians, at the arts festival Ruhrtriennale in 2018.

Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic accentuate the colors, rhythms and passion of the music of Argentina's leading composers on this invigorating evening at the Hollywood Bowl: Astor Piazzolla, the master of the New Tango, whose four tangos the Tango Buenos Aires dance company performs on stage, known worldwide as the most authentic and uncompromising representative of the tango, Alberto Ginastera, one of the most important classical composers of the Americas in the 20th century and Piazzolla's first teacher, and Lalo Schifrin, who, in addition to his concert music, is the composer of the famous soundtracks for Mission: Impossible and Dirty Harry. His "Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra", a world premiere recording, is composed by Ángel Romero, an iconic master of the classical guitar.

John Williams has made cinematic history with his film scores and transported entire generations into his musical worlds. He has composed the soundtracks for cinema blockbusters such as "Star Wars", "Jurassic Park", "E.T." and "Harry Potter". In this concert, he conducts some of his most famous film classics. At the same time, this is his debut on the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker. May the Force be with him ...

German composer Richard Wagner wrote Parsifal, which is a three-act opera that tells the story of the title character's quest to save the Knights of the Holy Grail by returning the Holy Spear, healing King Amfortas, and carrying out the sacred ceremony of uncovering the Holy Grail.

At the Salzburg Festival 2021, the musicAeterna Orchestra conducted by Teodor Currentzis performed the last symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – No. 40 K. 550 and No. 41 K. 551 Jupiter. The two pinnacles of Mozart’s symphonic heritage are interconnected: the classic wrote symphonies No. 39–41 in one short period of just a few fruitful weeks in 1788. In the concert the two symphonies – the two sides of Mozart’s unfathomable genius – are joined by works that are close to them both in spirit and the time of creation: the orchestral Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, the recitative and aria of Donna Anna from the finale of the opera Don Giovanni and the chorus from the spiritual cantata Davide penitente created in 1785.

Since the 1990s, Christoph Marthaler and his congenial stage and costume designer Anna Viebrock have caused a sensation with highly musical and atmospheric productions of plays and operas. It was only a matter of time, then, before this directing team was also invited to the Bayreuth Festival. Marthaler's style of radical deceleration proved ideally suited to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in this production – with Viebrock's sober yet poetic sets – unveiled in 2005. In the 2009 revival documented here, Robert Dean Smith and Iréne Theorin were joined in the title roles by Robert Holl, one of the great basses of his generation, who sang the role of King Marke.

Claudio Abbado and his hand-picked players of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra take their acclaimed Mahler cycle to a new level with this audiovisual recording of the most complex and compelling of the symphonies, the intense, searching Ninth. Abbado brings all his renowned clarity of vision and the experience of a lifetime to this contradictory music half valedictory, half life-affirming and his orchestra of soloists, including some of the leading instrumentalists of our time, revels in the transparent textures and virtuosity of Mahlers last completed symphony.

Good triumphs over evil in this fairy tale that sets magic, romance, and tragedy to Tchaikovsky’s timeless score. One of the most iconic works in the ballet literature, this revival features Rudolf Nureyev’s career-defining choreography. Production celebrates 50th anniversary of the production choreography by Nureyev.

The charismatic and inspiring Claudio Abbado and the mesmerising young pianist Yuja Wang, with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, hold the audience spellbound in this opening concert of the 2009 Lucerne Festival. Prokofiev's popular and vibrant Third Piano Concerto demonstrates the composer's sharp musical wit, and Yuja Wang is a brilliant exponent of the work. Following this, and chiming beautifully with the festival's theme of the relationship between art and nature, Mahler's First Symphony is given an illuminating and rapturously received performance.

Based on Alexander Pushkin’s dramatic verse novel "Eugen Onegin", the ballet tells the tragic love story of the world-weary aristocrat Onegin and the naïve country girl Tatiana. John Cranko’s Onegin holds a special place in the choreographic repertoire of the second half of the 20th century as one of the few original full-length ballets.

Sleeping Beauty was premiered in St. Petersburg with Tchaikovsky’s immortal music in 1890. In his version for the Ballett Zurich, Christian Spuck revives the classic in his own artistic style. With a great deal of humor, he addresses the complex process of growing up, relating themes such as generational conflicts with one’s parents, the difficulties of becoming a mature adult, and, last but not least, love and sexuality. Whenever possible, he frees the characters from their traditional role cliches. Petipa’s original version becomes a model that Christian Spuck occasionally cites yet repeatedly questions and counteracts with irony and occasionally irritating moments.

Recorded live at the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig in May 2017, this release features a delightful concert by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and conductor Andris Nelsons. For the program, the conductor has chosen works by Antonin Dvorak, including the Othello Concert Overture, and his famous Symphony No. 9 in E minor- “From the New World.

Offenbach’s mockery of bourgeois ideals, the sublimity of music and the institution of marriage ensures that the moralistic sermonizing of ‘Public Opinion’ falls on deaf ears. The mysterious figure of John Styx tells the story of behind-the-times Orpheus and his hacked-off Eurydice, of gods and goddesses seeking diversion, jaded with humdrum life in Olympus. He tells of the rebellion in the pantheon, which Jupiter adeptly averts by promising an amusement for his entourage. Burning with curiosity to see the beauteous captive and the contest between Jupiter and Pluto for Eurydice’s favour, the illustrious company embarks on an infernal ride to the underworld that culminates in what is surely the most wellknown can-can in the history of music. And what of Eurydice? She ends up putting a spoke in everyone’s wheel…

In 2005, the Staatsoper Berlin and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin under musical director Daniel Barenboim, celebrated a series of events to celebrate the 80th birthday of French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez. Artistically associated for decades with Barenboim and Berlin, Pierre Boulez is one of today's most distinguished composers and conductors. As part of the celebration, Boulez conducted a performance of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonie. With his uncompromising approach to the score, Pierre Boulez's Mahler readings have long fascinated critics and audiences alike. Boulez eschews the romanticized readings common in performance tradition and, instead, reveals the real joy and terror in Mahler's large-scale symphonies.

After Tristan und Isolde (2016), Parsifal (2017) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (2018) this is the fourth installment of the exclusive, multiyear partnership between Deutsche Grammophon and the Bayreuth Festival, in which the Yellow Label is the exclusive audiovisual partner of the mythical Wagner festival, releasing each edition's new production on Blu-ray. This year, we are proud to release on Blu-ray the celebrated production of Lohengrin which was premiered on 25 July 2018, featuring an illustrious cast including Piotr Beczala and Anja Harteros in their house debuts, as well as the acclaimed return of Waltraud Meier to the Bayreuth Festival. The New York Times praised Piotr Beczala’s Lohengrin as “outstanding”, Anja Harteros [making] her impressive Bayreuth debut” as Elsa, and Ortrud “played with dominant presence by the incomparable Waltraud Meier”.

The soldier Wozzeck (Christian Gerhaher) flits through a world that he is unable to decipher. The doctor torments him with absurd medical experiments; the captain humiliates and ridicules him. And Wozzeck’s lover, Marie (Gun-Brit Barkmin), with whom he has a child, cuckolds him with the drum major. Wozzeck becomes a murderer, stabbing Marie to death. Georg Büchner’s drama fragment, on which Alban Berg based his first opera, is an unflinching case study of social injustice and human suffering. But it is also a grotesque piece that thrives on exaggeration – and in which only a fine line separates the unfathomable from the ridiculous. Accordingly, director Andreas Homoki forgoes all realism.

Chopin Year 2010 coincides with the 60th anniversary of Daniel Barenboims stage début, and as a pianist he has decided to devote this year to the great Romantic master of the keyboard. Fryderyc Chopin was born on 1 March 1810 in a small village near Warsaw, and on the eve of the 200th anniversary of this date Barenboim gave this wildly acclaimed Warsaw recital as part of an extensive European tour. Recorded live at the National Philharmonic Hall, Warsaw, the programme presents some of the composers best-known works, including the great B flat minor Sonata with its famous Funeral March, which sounded to many as the composer may well have imagined it. Ive been playing Chopin ever since I was a little boy. On the advice of my father, who was also my teacher, I performed some of his pieces in my very first concert, when I was just seven. At that point I was playing the Etudes and the Nocturnes obviously I didnt try and tackle the larger scale Sonatas or the Fantasy until later.

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s European Concert, held each year on 1 May, is invariably an international highlight. Performing in 2008 in Moscow's renowned Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle presented outstanding performances of works by Beethoven, Stravinsky and Bruch, whose Violin Concerto featured one of today’s most fascinating artists, the Russian violinist Vadim Repin. Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements Bruch: Concerto for Violin No.1, op.26 Beethoven: Symphony No.7 in A major, op. 92

Enjoy Ravinia Festival’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s theater piece starring Tony Award-winning baritone Paulo Szot and featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra artistic director Marin Alsop conducts.

For the 2014/15 Opening Night Concert and Gala, the Los Angeles Philharmonic paid loving tribute to composer John Williams, long a champion and close friend of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, an awestruck fan of the musical icon, led the orchestra in a crosssection of Maestro Williams' matchless canon. Featuring Itzhak Perlman with a very special musical performance of pieces from Schindler's List as well as the Cadenza and variations from Fiddler on the Roof. Jazz elements will fill the air during Escapades from Catch Me if You Can, and may the force be with you during the iconic tunes from Star Wars.

DG presents John Williams in Vienna, the live recordings of the Hollywood legend's Vienna Philharmonic 2020 debut. Saying it's "one of the greatest honors of my life," he received a standing ovation before a single note was played. Sharing the stage with the famous orchestra and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, he performs iconic themes from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and other cinematic landmarks that have earned countless awards: 5 Oscars, 5 Emmys, 25 Grammys & more.

Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” has inspired generations of artists to adaptations like scarcely any other work. In his colorful, passionate music, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev brilliantly captured the clash of love and hatred, and the proximity of tenderness and violence. Inspired by Prokofiev’s vivid music and the timeless quality of Shakespeare’s tragedy, choreographer Christian Spuck and the Ballett Zürich narrate the most famous love story in world literature using strong images that are full of enthralling theatricality and touching emotion. Michail Jurowski, a true Prokofiev expert, is at the rostrum of the Philharmonia Zürich. Recorded live at Opernhaus Zürich June 2019.

Passionate and unconditionally dedicated, Anna Netrebko makes her Salzburg Festival debut as Aida, alongside Francesco Meli as Radamès and Ekaterina Semenchuk as her rival Amneris. Conducted by none other than Verdi expert Riccardo Muti. This performance of Aida is the first operatic staging by award-winning Iranian filmmaker, photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat, known for her critical explorations of gender roles and religious fundamentalism.

At the 2021 Salzburg Festival, Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin gives a colourful recital of works by Gershwin, Berg and Chopin.

United in their support for Ukraine, violinist Daniel Hope and Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov perform a concert for peace from Dresden's frauenkirche. Composers featured include Johann Sebastian Bach , the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov and Russians Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninov.

Sleeping Beauty was premiered in St. Petersburg with Tchaikovsky’s immortal music in 1890. In his version for the Ballett Zurich, Christian Spuck revives the classic in his own artistic style. With a great deal of humor, he addresses the complex process of growing up, relating themes such as generational conflicts with one’s parents, the difficulties of becoming a mature adult, and, last but not least, love and sexuality. Whenever possible, he frees the characters from their traditional role cliches. Petipa’s original version becomes a model that Christian Spuck occasionally cites yet repeatedly questions and counteracts with irony and occasionally irritating moments.

Mozart did not write the Requiem as despairing funeral music for his impending death. Rather, the piece proclaims eternal light and redemption. Together with a first-class quartet of soloists, the choirs of the Bavarian and Swedish radios and the distinguished musicians of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado uncovers this more hopeful and forgiving essence of the Requiem

With a large list of operatic masterpieces already behind him, Wagner concluded his extraordinary career with Parsifal, a spectacular medieval fantasy based on Arthurian legend. This “sacred stage festival” recounts the journey of Parsifal, a pure-hearted young man who sets out to find the Holy Spear and, after a series of initiatory trials, becomes a Christ-like figure who himself brings salvation to the castle of Montsalvat.

A tribute to the great Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel, who died at the age of 94 on 17 June 2025. An acclaimed performer of Beethoven, he leaves behind him a musical legacy spanning more than sixty years. His performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 at Lucerne in 2005 was a highlight of the festival, conducted by Claudio Abbado, another icon of classical music.

The 2015 edition of the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert saw Zubin Mehta back on the podium after an eight year absence. Mehta has mellowed a bit in that time, and the program seems to reflect that. The orchestra plays with its usual style and finesse, though the fireworks are kept to a minimum. There's a lot of beautiful legato playing to be had here, which is enjoyable to hear when so many ensembles feel the need to punch and pull at music these days. In a word, "tradition" is on display, and that's a good thing.

The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra has been commemorating the Velvet Revolution to celebrate democracy, freedom and non-violence since 2020. This is now a tradition on 17 November, the bank holidays. This year, Prague's Rudolfinum welcomes two talented young artists: Czech violinist Josef Špaček and French violist Antoine Tamestit, conducted by Petr Popelka, for an all-Czech programme.

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra and its music director Riccardo Chailly dedicate an evening to Sergei Rachmaninoff, with Italian pianist Beatrice Rana shining in the highly virtuosic variations of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Also on the programme is the mysterious Symphony No. 1 and The Rock, an early work that already gives a glimpse of the Russian composer's musical sensibility.

When Strauss and Hofmannsthal wrote «Der Rosenkavalier» – setting it in an imaginary Rococo Vienna and yet closely linked to the decadent fin de siècle – they created a profound social comedy. It is not without melancholy that the Marschallin lets her young lover Octavian go when he falls head over heels with Sophie, who hails from Faninal’s bourgeois household. As voluptuous as Strauss' score is, it contains tender moments of dream and melancholy. Director Lydia Steier stages Strauss’ opera according to an aesthetic concept by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Diana Damrau sings the Marschallin. Joana Mallwitz, chief conductor at the Konzerthaus Berlin, conducts the Orchester der Oper Zürich.

Competently as usual and with a lot of visinary energy, Claudio Abbado conducted his LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA at the opening of LUCERNE FESTIVAL, SOMMER 2005. The programm included Beethoven's impressive Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, with Alfred Brendel as soloist and, as the very heart of the opening programme of SOMMER 2005, Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7.

Petroc Trelawny hosts the traditional start to the year with a concert live from the golden hall of the Musikverein in Vienna.

That year, political tensions between the two enemy states had eased, and the aim was to deepen their cultural relationship. This event became a musical highlight, significant for the bond it forged between these two cultures.

On February 26, 2008, the world watched as the New York Philharmonic gave the first performance by an American orchestra in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Those lucky enough to be present will never forget that historic evening, when people from two long-divided nations were united through the beauty and power of music. By the end of the final encore, both the audience and the musicians onstage stood waving to each other in a new-found spirit of understanding. We are honored and pleased that through this DVD we can share this transformative experience with new audiences for years to come -- New York Philharmonic President, Zarin Mehta. Hundreds of millions watched the historic concert on television, now exclusively on DVD: the New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang.

Choreographer Christian Spuck takes on Schubert's last cycle of lieder, reorchestrated by Hans Zender, from which he draws a powerful choreography in chiaroscuro, between symbolism and mysticism.

Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra present the epilogue to their “Mozart Momentum” project in the Austrian composer's hometown.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's death, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform his Symphony No. 7, known as the ‘Leningrad’, a symbol of resistance against fascism.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra welcomes in the New Year as the world watches: 50 million classical music fans tune in to the New Year's Concert from the flower-decorated Golden Hall of the Musikverein.

The famed Vienna Philharmonic rings in the New Year with its annual concert from Vienna's Musikverein conducted for the first time by Yannick Nézet-Séguin with performances by the Vienna State Ballet and location segments hosted by Hugh Bonneville.