Examines the life of eighteenth-century composer Ludwig van Beethoven, discussing his difficult childhood, early gift for music, volatile personality, hearing loss, and the influence of other composers on his work. Includes twenty-one related activities.

This documentary presents biographical aspects of Mozart's life and uses his String quartet in D minor, K. 421.

We think we know the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life. Austrian-born to a tyrannical father who worked him fiercely; unhappily married to a spendthrift woman; a child-like character ill at ease amid the aristocratic splendor of the Viennese court; a musical genius who died young thus depriving the world of future glories. Yet only that last point is actually true. In this comprehensive biography, John Suchet examines the many myths and misunderstandings...

The stories of the lives of the great composers are told, including interviews with musical scholars, readings of their letters, and studio performances of their works.

Why Mahler? Why does his music affect us in the way it does? Norman Lebrecht, one of the world's most widely read cultural commentators, has been wrestling obsessively with Mahler for half his life. Pacing out his every footstep from birthplace to grave, scrutinizing his manuscripts, talking to those who knew him, Lebrecht constructs a complelling new portrait of Mahler as a man who lived determinedly outside his own times. Mahler was -- along...

Explores the life and work of the prolific eighteenth-century Austrian composer who began life as a child prodigy, composing music at the age of five, and died a pauper at age thirty-five.