Humphrey Burton

A documentary on the mysterious and influential pianist.

BBC documentary exploring the dynamic relationship that developed between British composer Benjamin Britten and the BBC as they worked together to broadcast modern classical music further and wider. Through this collaboration, Britten's music reached television audiences, from elaborately staged studio operas to intimate duets featuring his partner Peter Pears to the massive Proms performance of his War Requiem. The programme features interviews with Britten's collaborators and singers as well as those working behind the scenes including Michael Crawford, David Attenborough, Humphrey Burton and soprano April Cantelo. James Naughtie narrates.

This 1976 BBC documentary sees Ken Campbell (and his Roadshow) investigate the origins and the development of the traditional British Christmas pantomime.

Short documentary originally featured on Aquarius containing interviews, concert footage, and general information about Elton John and his career up to 1971. Featuring Elton John working on an early version of Tiny Dancer before it had been recorded for his then upcoming album.

BBC documentary about the rise of the New German Cinema and several of its most important figures.

In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied home of the last five decades. Drawing on rarely seen archival footage, stills, and recent interviews, The Opera House looks at an important period of the Met’s history and delves into some of the untold stories of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped the cultural life of New York City in the ’50s and ’60s. Among the notable figures in the film are famed soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met’s imperious General Manager who engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was never fully realized.

Humphrey Burton introduces two Omnibus USA reports on the arts in New York... that is the arts in the streets, away from the museums and the concert halls. One film is 'Saturday in Soho', an impression of artists, dancers and musicians' work and of the Soho area in general. The second is 'Watching My Name Go By', a showcase a kind of graffiti cult game played by 11 to 17-year-olds. It's illegal and dangerous - and while some New Yorkers think it's a kind of art, others think it's kind of disgusting.

Watching the Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, and a stellar cast record Wagner's immense Götterdämmerung for Decca in the fall of 1964 provides a thousand lessons in the art of working under pressure. For this classic documentary, The Golden Ring, a BBC camera crew eavesdropped as producer John Culshaw guided his engineering team through tricky technical maneuvers far removed from the relative ease of modern digital editing. What utter concentration and focus Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Gottlob Frick, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau bring to their collective and individual singing! Solti, for his part, oozes energy and exactitude as he pleads for greater precision and frets over details in the car en route to the sessions.

A retrospective of the life and work of Glenn Gould, Hereafter synthesizes an incredible wealth of archival material from various sources.

Dubbed ‘La Stupenda’ thirty years ago by an Italian critic, Dame Joan Sutherland and her husband Richard Bonynge talk at length about her distinguished singing career and their life together in opera. The film combines documentary, archival material and performance to present a unique retrospective of those years. Affectionate contributions from some of their close friends and colleagues, including Luciano Pavarotti, Marilyn Horne, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and fellow Australian Sir Sidney Nolan, add to a celebration of Dame Joan’s singular talent.

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.

A portrait of the English composer Gordon Jacob.