Overview

The hills around Salzburg were alive long before Julie Andrews started running up them! Simon Callow, Niki Vasilakis and Matt Wills introduce you to the birthplace of classical music's ultimate superstar, and tell of the infant Amadeus' most prodigious exploits. This is the city of the Salzburg Festival, the famous puppet shows, and the belated arrival there of the musical with which Hollywood took Salzburg to the world.

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Overview

Simon, Niki and Matt follow Mozart through mag11ificent Austrian countryside from Salzburg to imperial Vienna, the irresistible magnet for composers such as Brahms, Mahler, Schubert and Haydn. Their stories and their relationship with the magnificent Habsburg capital are described amid the city's great landmarks.

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Returning Series NO GB EN

Overview

The elemental sights and sounds of Finland, from Helsinki to the snowy vistas of Lapland and a visit to Santa and his workshop, the country's icy beauty captured in the music of Sibelius. We hear the story of the Finnish musical legend and visit the composer's home of Ainola.

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Overview

Former capital of Russia, with its canals earning it the description"Venice of the North", St. Petersburg was also home to the con1posers Borodin, Gli11ka, Mussorgsky and the naval officer turned musical painter of the Arabian Nights, Rimsky-Korsakov.

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Antonio Vivaldi spent his most productive years in Venice in tl1e early 18th century. Simon, Niki and Matt tour the canals, bridges and piazzas for which Vivaldi created the perfect soundtrack in his Four Seasons.

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Overview

Smetana serenaded its river; Dvorak started out as a dance band fiddler; Mozart enjoyed his greatest successes here. We visit the Old Tovn, where Simon Callow reminisces about filming Amadeus in its beat1tifully preserved streets.

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Tracing the young J.S. Bach's career path though eastern Germany from his birthplace in Eisenach to Arnstadt and Weimar. In the Wartburg castle we learn about Martin· Luther and the birth of the Reformation.

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The careers of Bach and Mendelssohn reached their height in Leipzig. We visit the publishers Schott in the city of Mainz to learn the craft of music engraving and look at the original manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

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Overview

The last difficult years of Mozart's short life; Beethoven's tragic deafness; the glamorous but turbulent life of the great "Waltz King", Johann Strauss II -all these took place in Vienna.

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More than just one of Italy's most beautiful regions, Tuscany also produced two of the greatest operatic composers -Verdi and Puccini. We visit the cities and towns that shaped their lives: Lucca, Pisa and Milan.

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We follow Beethoven's troubled early life in his birthplace of Bonn, near which descendants of his family still live and work as winemakers. Then to an indisputably modern city: Berlin, home to one of the world's greatest orchestras.

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In the series finale we return to St. Petersburg to meet and review some significant figures in its history: Pushkin, Catherine the Great and Rasputin. Our last tour to a Classical Destination features the music of the composers Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.

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