

Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty
A documentary about the composer of the Adagio for Strings
Genres
Overview
Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and screened at nine film festivals internationally, with three best-of awards. It was named a Recording of the Year 2017 by MusicWeb International.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
130 min
Release Date
2017-03-23
Status
Released
Original Language
English
Vote Count
1
Vote Average
10
Thomas Hampson
Self
Leonard Slatkin
Self
Marin Alsop
Self
John Corigliano
Self
Jenny Oaks Baker
Self
5.7
Night and Day
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1946-07-02 | en
6.4
Rhapsody in Blue
Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.
1945-06-27 | en
7.6
The Cat Concerto
Tom enters from stage left in white tie and tails, sits at the piano, gets his focus as the orchestra in the pit beneath him warms up, and begins to play Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". Unbeknownst to Tom and the audience, Jerry is asleep across several of the high-note keys inside the instrument, so Tom's playing eventually wakes him. Jerry is pummeled by hammers, bounced by wires, and squeezed by Tom as the cat tries to play the concerto while dispensing with Jerry. Jerry's defensive antics add to the brio of the program and answer Tom with Jerry's own skillful musical attack. By the concerto's end, the duet leaves only one animal standing for the audience's applause.
1947-04-26 | en
8.0
Beethoven - Symphony No. 7
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1971-01-01 | de
0.0
Beethoven - Symphony No. 8
Recording of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan playing Beethoven's 8th Symphony.
1971-01-01 | en
9.0
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
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1977-12-31 | en
0.0
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Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.
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8.0
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2024-11-07 | fr
5.0
The Great Waltz
A musical based on the life and music of Johann Strauss, Jr.
1972-11-01 | en
4.0
Rock N' Roll
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2007-11-16 | ml
0.0
Luthière
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| nl
0.0
From the House of the Dead & Glagolitic Mass
Can the darkest moments of life also lift our souls? Drawing on his own experience in a Siberian prison in the company of misfits, murderers and theives, Dostoevsky was inspired to write his novel Notes from a Dead House, telling his brother at the time: ‘Believe me, there were among them deep, strong, beautiful natures, and it often gave me great joy to find gold under a rough exterior.’ In Janáček’s hands, Dostoevsky’s inspiration and the raw material drawn from an appalling world of incarceration find an even more powerful form of expression in his last opera, From the House of the Dead. Unfettered by conventional story-telling, Janáček wrote his own libretto, freely weaving together a series of stories of everyday prison life and of the fates of individual convicts.
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9.0
The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past
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0.0
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Keeping Score: Beethoven's Eroica
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2006-01-01 | en
6.3
Smetana
Life of Czech composer Smetana, his search for love and artistic inspiration despite hearing loss, and quest for his muse Eliska. Navigating personal and professional challenges and the founding of the National Theatre in Prague.
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7.1
Immortal Beloved
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.
1994-12-16 | en
0.0
What the World Needs Now: Words by Hal David
Hosted by Bette Midler, enjoy a musical tribute to the man who wrote some of the most enduring songs in American popular music. Lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach dominated the pop-music charts in the 1960s and early ’70s, crafting dozens of timeless Top 40 hits.
2019-03-01 | en
0.0
Bernstein Brahms Symphonies
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1984-01-01 | en
0.0
Beethovenova 9. symfonie – Koncert pro EU
A festive event marking the 10th anniversary of the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union, during which the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra will perform a live broadcast of L. van Beethoven's popular Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, with Ode to Joy.
2014-05-01 | cs