Best Philharmonic Movies & TV Shows

This television essay from 1985 was written by Leonard Bernstein to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's birth. Recorded in Israel, Vienna and later in London, it is punctuated by biographical interludes and illustrated by musical examples drawn from the cycle of Mahler's works recorded by Bernstein. Bernstein talks, plays and conducts various orchestras (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker) and soloists (Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Edith Mathis, Lucia Popp, Walton Groenroos) in performances spanning 17 years. Leonard Bernstein also examines the roots of Gustav Mahler's inspiration. The programme also features music from the nine symphonies, 'The Song of the Earth' and the 'Wunderhorn Cycle'.

Fresh off the heels of her brand-new album, "Happier Than Ever," this cinematic concert experience features an intimate performance of every song in the album's sequential order – for the first and only time – from the stage of the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

When an accident puts her music dreams on hold, a gifted violinist reconnects with an old family friend, who helps her heal and find love during the holidays.

In the city of Santiago, four characters struggle to reach their goals: a psychologist who wants to help other women and save their lives, a hairdresser who wants to buy a car, a musician who wants to play in a philharmonic orchestra, and a young woman who simply survives in the city, but each of them obtains something unexpected and different from what they wanted.

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

Overture is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The film depicts the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations, set against the music of Beethoven's Egmont Overture, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

David McVicar's exhilarating new production, with Anne Sofie von Otter in the title role, restores the Opera Comique to Bizet's masterpiece. Philippe Jordan, in his Glyndebourne debut, conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Chorus, and a cast which includes Marcus Haddock, Laurent Naouri, and Lisa Milne.

Glyndebourne's celebrated production of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Tristan und Isolde is a supremely intelligent achievement; gravely beautiful, haunting and meditative, it is deeply reflective rather than visceral, fortified by Roland Aeschlimann's stunningly effective set, a womb-like space through which the protagonists move like gods. Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek mirrors Lehnhoff's approach in his sophisticated plumbing of the score's depths, with every shift in texture carefully laid bare by an inspired London Philharmonic Orchestra. Nina Stemme's Isolde and Robert Gambill's Tristan, both gloriously lyrical, are matched by superb performances from René Pape as the betrayed and vulnerable King Marke and Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal, deeply touching in his helpless devotion to Tristan. This High Definition recording of a production of uncommon intimacy reveals the opera's music and drama in a new light.

In this 1957 biography film of the jazz-great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, he and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bring jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this "biography/docudrama" shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy's immortal "St. Louis Blues."