Top 250 Movies Like Johann Sebastian Bach

Musician Adam Lemp and his four equally musical daughters, Emma, Ann, Kay, and Thea, live happily together. Each daughter has an upstanding young man for whom she cares. However, the arrival of a cynical, slovenly young composer named Mickey Borden turns the household upside-down, and romantic and tragic complications ensue.

A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan.

Begun in Austria in 1944/45, finished and released in 1949, this is a biography of the minor Austrian composer Carl Michael Ziehrer, who overcomes hypersensitivity in competitive situations which leads initially to failures in both career and romance.

The organising force of a family of musical prodigies, Robert Mansell is a frustrated composer in seach of one thing personal happiness. This search, however, has landed him in the divorce courts and the judge's summary does not paint him in a favourable light.

Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper is a 1995 short documentary film about Herbert Zipper. It was written, directed, and produced by Terry Sanders, with Freida Lee Mock co-producing. The extraordinary story of Vienna born musician and conductor Herbert Zipper who survived Dachau, Buchenwald, and a Japanese concentration camp to become one of the great music educators of the world, continuing at 92 to bring music to the inner city schools of America. In Dachau, Zipper organized secret concerts using makeshift instruments. He learned the lesson that music and the arts are essential to the very existence of life. For the last half of the 20th century, Zipper has pioneered in bringing professional orchestras into America's inner city schools. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short at the 68th Academy Awards in 1996.

Swellegant and elegant. Delux and delovely. Cole Porter was the most sophisticated name in 20th-century songwriting. And to play him on screen, Hollywood chose debonair icon Cary Grant. Grant stars for the first time in color in this fanciful biopic. Alexis Smith plays Linda, whose serendipitous meetings with Porter lead to a meeting at the alter. More than 20 of his songs grace this tail of triumph and tragedy, with Grant lending is amiable voice to "You're the Top", "Night and Day" and more. Monty Woolley, a Yale contemporary of Porter, portrays himself. And Jane Wyman, Mary Martin, Eve Arden and others provide vocals and verve. Lights down. Curtain up. Showtune standards embraced by generations are yours to enjoy in "Night and Day."

A socialite pretends to be poor and blind in her plan to help a blinded pianist.

Cissy, Reggie, and Wilf are in a home for retired musicians. Every year, there is a concert to celebrate Composer Giuseppe Verdi's birthday and they take part. Jean, who used to be married to Reggie, arrives at the home and disrupts their equilibrium. She still acts like a diva, but she refuses to sing. Still, the show must go on, and it does.

An intimate look into the life of icon Quincy Jones. A unique force in music and popular culture for 70 years, Jones has transcended racial and cultural boundaries; his story is inextricably woven into the fabric of America.

A Film Journey to the Soul of India documents the life of sitar master Ravi Shankar in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following him on his return to India to revisit his guru, Bengali multi-instrumentalist and composer, Baba Ustad Allauddin Khan. It further explores Shankar's life as a musician and teacher in the United States and Europe, initiating those in the West to the exceptional world that is Indian classical music and culture. Through rare and candid footage shot in both India and the United States, Raga sheds light on Shankar's influences and collaborations, from Allauddin Khan to his famed dancer brother Uday Shankar, to his associations with Western musicians Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison. Fully narrated by Shankar himself, the film reveals music as the soul of India and of Shankar's life.

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.

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.

In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.

Like the play from which it derived, the film tells of the early struggles of composer Edvard Grieg and his attempts to develop an authentic Norwegian national music. It stars Toralv Maurstad as Grieg and features an international cast including Florence Henderson, Christina Schollin, Robert Morley, Harry Secombe, Oskar Homolka, Edward G. Robinson and Frank Porretta (as Rikard Nordraak). Filmed in Super Panavision 70 by Davis Boulton and presented in single-camera Cinerama in some countries, it was an attempt to capitalise on the success of The Sound of Music.

British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.

When a matador leaves town to focus on his music, his twin sister takes on his identity in the bullfighting ring.

In this sequel to Four Daughters, Ann struggles to move on after the death of her husband as she falls in love with Felix, but on the day of her engagement discovers that she carries Mickey's child.

The Full Monteverdi follows the simultaneous break-up of six couples, from shocking revelation, vengeful anger and erotic longing for reconciliation, as an ensemble film. Vulnerable and disarming, it draws viewers into its emotional journey and intensely moving portrait of contemporary love.

A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.

Reflected in an artificial and bombastically staged illusory world with Wagnerian compositions, glossy and satirical time references, 19th century German figures and traditions are stripped of their mythology and interpreted by the Germany of 1972.

The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.

Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other. As Evelyn tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.

The incredible tale of Mozart's Prague years.

Loosely traces the life of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). He loves Musetta, in his home town of Naples, and then Dorothy, the daughter of one of the Metropolitan Opera's patrons. Caruso is unacceptable to both women's fathers: to one, because he sings; to Dorothy's, because he is a peasant. To New York patricians, Caruso is short, barrel chested, loud, emotional, unrefined. Their appreciation comes slowly. The film depicts Caruso's lament that "the man does not have the voice, the voice has the man": he cannot be places he wants to be, because he must be elsewhere singing, including the day his mother dies. Throughout, Mario Lanza and stars from the Met sing.

Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.

When composer George Harvey Bone wakes with no memory of the previous night and a bloody knife in his pocket, he worries that he has committed a crime. On the advice of Dr. Middleton, Bone agrees to relax, going to a music performance by singer Netta Longdon. Riveted by Netta, Bone agrees to write songs for her rather than his own concerto. However, Bone soon grows jealous of Netta and worries about controlling himself during his spells.

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.

Roger Daltrey of The Who stars as 19th century genius pianist Franz Liszt in this brash, loud and free-wheeling rock 'n' roll fantasia centered around an imagined rivalry between Liszt and composer Richard Wagner-- painted here as a vampiric harbinger of doom and destruction.

A portrait of Leonard Bernstein's singular charisma and passion for music as he rose to fame as America's first native born, world-renowned conductor, all along following his ambition to compose both symphonic and popular Broadway works.

Director William Dieterle's 1956 film biography of classical composer Richard Wagner stars Carlos Thompson, Yvonne De Carlo, Rita Gam, Alan Badel and Valentina Cortese.

Famed composer Gustav Mahler reflects on the tragedies of his life and failing marriage while traveling by train.

Alma Mahler's affair with the young architect Walter Gropius sets in motion a marital drama that forces her husband Gustav Mahler to seek advice from Sigmund Freud.

While vacationing at a boys' camp, the rambunctious Chip Winters befriends a famed composer Johnny Selden. Stuck for an inspiration for his latest operetta, Selden at last finds it when he meets Chip's gorgeous mother Irene Winters, a popular singer. Alas, her stiff-necked fiancé Walter Mays refuses to allow her to return to the stage, whereupon Rathbone spirals into a depression -- and even worse, a profound case of writers' block.

Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky, nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy.

Ethan Hawke directs this intimate documentary portrait of classical pianist, composer, author, teacher and sage Seymour Bernstein.

The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.

Song-and-dance man Bert Kalmar can't continue his stage career after an injury for while, so he has to earn his money as a lyricst. Per chance he meets composer Harry Ruby and their first song is a hit. Ruby gets Kalmar to marry is former partner Jessie Brown, and Kalmar and Jessie prevent Ruby from getting married to the wrong girls. But due to the fact, that Ruby has caused a backer's withdrawal for a Kalmar play, they end their relation.

Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.

Renowned musician Lydia Tár is days away from recording the symphony that will elevate her career. However, Lydia's elaborate facade begins to unravel, revealing dirty secrets and the corrosive nature of power.

Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. She’s a foremost Wagnerian, equal to the vocal and physical demands of the composer’s oeuvre. And she’s a beacon of triumph to anyone who fights back when personal tragedy strikes.

Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.

In 1898, composer Sid Barnett manages to get his sweetheart, Adeline the beer-garden singer, to sing the lead in his new Broadway operetta; this infuriates Elysia, the erstwhile star. But Sid frets as Adeline spends increasing amounts of time with the dashing Major Day.

A pregnant 22-year-old with a dreary job, a difficult home life and an absent boyfriend learns to love her life and share this love with the child in her womb.

The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Bologne rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette and her court. Inspired by the incredible true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

A musical based on the life and music of Johann Strauss, Jr.

On the keyboard, the young hands fly rapidly and the melody rises. For the child, nothing is easier; he hears the sounds in his head. These hands belong to 6 years old André Mathieu. He won his audiences and fired up concerts halls in London, New York, Paris and around the world. Adulated, hailed, praised, the child prodigy seemed to have everything to succeed. From the top of his vertiginous successes, to depths of torment, the life of the "Little Canadian Mozart" blends into his music. A romantic and passionate composer wishing for happiness, his story is nevertheless played on tragic notes.

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

The portrait of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky focuses on his failed love affair.

Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer.

The life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach as presented by his wife, Anna.

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

A television documentary produced for British Television directed by Peter Greenaway about Phillip Glass that is a recording of a performance of the Phillip Glass Ensemble in 1983 with interviews that go in depth of his style and music theory of his signature minimal sound.

Gabriella finds an unfinished symphony that was written by her late uncle Octave Barron who found inspiration through murder. Thrilled by it's possibilities she hires Marius (Ben Cross) to complete the symphony. As he begins work on the piece he finds himself stuck in a bizarre murdering cycle handed down from the original composer.

It's Lara's 60th birthday, and she has every reason to celebrate: this evening, her son Viktor will be giving the most important piano concert of his career. Lara was, after all, the one who'd mapped out and driven his musical career. Yet Viktor has been unreachable for weeks and nothing indicates that Lara will be welcome at his debut performance. Without further ado, she buys up all the remaining tickets and hands them out to everyone she meets. The more Lara strives to make the evening successful, however, the more events get out of control.

A beautiful cabaret dancer inspires composer Rimsky-Korsakov.

A look at the lives of 19th-century composers Clara and Robert Schumann.

The romantic story of Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt, whose scandalous love affair forced him to abandon his adoring audiences.

A composer—who suspects his wife of cheating—plots to kill her and frame it on her lover, but things don't turn out as planned.

A documentary on the life and work of Gene Clark, co-founder of The Byrds, whose subsequent career was a rollercoaster of pioneering music and personal disaster.

The life story of Italian violinist and composer, Niccolò Paganini, who rose to fame as a virtuoso in the early 19th Century.

The story of the country and western singer Hank Williams.

1779. Eight-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, called "Louis", is already known as a musical prodigy. He learns to go his own way - much to the dismay of the people around him. Some years later, he meets Mozart during times of political upheaval. The unconventional genius and French Revolution are sparking a fire in Louis' heart; he doesn't want to serve a master - only the arts. Facing times of family tragedies and unrequited love, he almost gives up. However, Louis makes it to Vienna to study under Haydn in 1792, and the rest is history. Who was this man, whose music has since touched countless hearts and minds? At the end of his life, the master is isolated by loss of loved ones and hearing. Surely though, he was way ahead of his times.

Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.

This is a romantic biographical film about Franz Liszt. In a distinguished saloon of Paris, the unknown composer, Liszt, defeats the renown Thalberg at a piano competition. Through his playing, he wins the favours and later the hand of the countess D'Agoult. A daughter is born in their marriage, Cosima. Liszt is better and better known, Marie introduces him to the circle of artists.

"Spring Symphony" is the story of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck. Both were music entities. Robert Schumann turns out to have been a second tier composer, if that, never rising to the heights of a Beethoven or Mozart. In contrast, Clara Wieck was a master technician in the playing of the piano, a composer (probably not at Schumann's level), and was a child prodigy.

After the Second World War, budding film composer Jerry Herst moves to Hollywood to study with infamous master teacher Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

The life and career of famed American composer Stephen Foster.

In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits.

Biography of the famous Italian violinist Nicola Paganini which focuses as much on the musician's romances as it does on his craft. Phyllis Calvert plays Jeanne de Vermond, the aristocratic French woman who captures Paganini's heart, and real-life violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin supplies the breathtaking Paganini solos.

A section from the life of composer Franz Schubert as a material for a love story. Also known in English as Gently My Songs Entreat. An English version called Unfinished Symphony would follow in 1934.

Period musical about a song plugger who vows to turn an opera composer's music into popular hits.

Romantic biography of Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind and her famous affairs.

A feature film about Benjamin Britten, released as part of the 100 year celebrations of his birth. Britten is the most performed British composer worldwide. This film premiered at Gresham's School, which he attended, and focuses on how his life-long pacifism influenced his life and music. Written and directed by Tony Britten (In Love With Alama Cogan), narrated by John Hurt and with a superb cast of young people, including many supporting roles taken by students of Gresham's School, the film weaves dramatisation with a documentary narrative.

From Moscow to Mexico City, Eisenstein was privileged enough to met the cultural heroes of the era and embrace them as compatriots, with a handshake. Such was his reputation as the wunderkind of the new art of cinema, everybody wanted to meet him; there were writers, painters, critics, theorists and philosophers, as well as composers, architects, and artists from all branches of the cultural life that was shaping minds and civilizations. Our project would follow Eisenstein's journey and note the significant characters he encountered on his travels, with a focus on Switzerland.

The life and loves of composer Stephen Foster, from his early success through his decline, degradation, and death from alcoholism.

The film is dedicated to the Armenian monk and genius composer Komitas, and the 2 million victims on his people in Turkey in 1915. The final 20 years of Komitas life were spent in various mental hospitals. The destiny of Komitas? This is the magic beauty of Armenian culture and the abhorrent brutality of Armenian history. A cultural and artistic world that was slaughtered with a curved knife. A humanity that doggedly advances towards an apocalyptic catastrophe, that does not recognize its own original purpose, eradicates its own memory, its final roots.

The exiled Austro-German musician and composer Artur Schnabel was a giant of his time, but in Germany today he is nearly forgotten. Pianist and Schnabel devotee Markus Pawlik (in collaboration with baritone Dietrich Henschel and the Szymanowski String Quartet) brings Artur Schnabel's greatest compositions back to Berlin with a filmed commemorative concert. Along the way, Pawlik visits the places, landscapes, and history that shaped Schnabel's life and music. "Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile" rediscovers an essential artist displaced by the catastrophe of the two World Wars and the Holocaust and inspired by the possibilities of modernism.

The film tells the exciting life of the great Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854-1928), also known by the thick silver hair that crowned his head and his strong character, which could overcome the adversities of fate.

One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.

Biography of popular English composer Leslie Stuart (Robert Morley), who rose to fame through performances of his songs by the tenor Ellaline Terriss (Dorothy Hyson). The peak of Stuart's success in the early 1900s is followed by poverty and obscurity with the arriving Jazz Age. In debtor's prison, Stuart is rescued by friends from happier times, and achieves a comeback in British music halls shortly before his death.

He is the most performed contemporary composer in the world. And yet he rarely ventures out in public, prefers to keep quiet about his music, feels at home in the forests of Estonia and generates therewith - perhaps involuntarily - the impression of a recluse, which is attributed to him again and again: Arvo Part. In The Lost Paradise, we follow him over a period of one year in his native Estonia, to Japan and the Vatican. The documentary is framed by the stage production of Adam's Passion, a music theater piece based on the Biblical story of the fall of Adam featuring three key works by Arvo Part. The world-renowned director Robert Wilson has brought this work to the stage in a former submarine factory in Tallinn. Tracing their creative process, the film offers rare and personal insights into the worlds of two of the most fascinating personalities in the international arts and music scene.

A romance between a struggling composer and an American singer.

WORDS AND MUSIC is the story of one of Broadway's iconic figures: the composer/lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman and an all-star cast, chart his rise from 1950s off-Broadway through all of his smash hits. Featuring never-before-seen footage of original stage performances, and a score full of classic show tunes.

Fifty years after his death, this musical and psychological portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams explores the passions that drove a giant of 20th-century English music.

Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.

Vladimir Horowitz's piano recital in 1982 at Royal Festival Hall in London.

An odyssey through Beethoven’s lasting presence and influence in our modern world – viewed through the eyes of the composer himself.

Documentary on conductor Herbert van Karajan, focusing on his early adoption of audio and video recording technology and his impetus to make use of it to preserve his musical legacy for future generations.

Children and childhood fascinated Benjamin Britten throughout his life and inspired some of his greatest music. John Bridcut's compelling film sheds light on the composer's own inner child throiugh interviews with several of Britten's former companions and muses.

"Meat Loaf" Aday is an overgrown Texas youngster, the son of a gentle woman dying of cancer and an alcoholic, abusive father. Tormented by his father and schoolmates over his size, he strikes out on his own after his mother's death, in an impossible task to prove himself to the world and to himself. A chance audition for a musical leads him to join forces with composer Jim Steinman, and together the two make music history with the operatic rock album "Bat Out of Hell." But the demons that drive Meat Loaf aren't assuaged by success, and eventually he must come to terms with them.

This is a lonely New Year's Eve for Hank Williams as he spends it en route to a huge New Years Day concert in Ohio. Hank Williams died that night on the road. A fictional biography is shown in flashback.

A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.

Henry Kesdi is a silenced classical composer and a survivor of the Holocaust. He is coaxed out from retirement by an inspired musicologist, Stefan, who convinces him to compose a complex symphony on his neglected piano. As a help Kesdi gets his new musical secretary. His loyal wife reluctantly accepts her as his young lover.

Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.

A mill worker with show biz dreams catches a big break when she's discovered by an ailing composer who's seeking the right singer for his songs.