Michelangelo

Michelangelo's artistic achievements, in their scope and execution, seem unimaginable. His brilliance is apparent in every medium he worked in and with every tool he used. Today, more than 500 years after his unique artistry burst forth on the Renaissance world, the breadth and depth of his accomplishments still confound our attempts to grasp their full importance.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Pietà. The David. The Last Judgment. The Moses. The Dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo's artistic achievements, in their scope and execution, seem unimaginable. His brilliance is apparent in every medium he worked in and with every tool he used. Today, more than 500 years after his unique artistry burst forth on the Renaissance world, the breadth and depth of his accomplishments still confound our attempts to grasp their full importance.

This new live recording pairs profound works by two of the 20th century s greatest composers: Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich. Writer Phillip Huscher describes Schoenberg s 'Kol Nidre' as a 'stark, strong modernist statement,' set to the prayer said on the eve of Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement. Schoenberg, who had fled Europe in 1934, premiered the work in Los Angeles in 1938, one month before the devastating anti-Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht took place throughout Nazi-Germany.

This new live recording pairs profound works by two of the twentieth century's greatest composers: Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich. Writer Phillip Huscher describes Schoenberg's Kol Nidre a "stark, strong modernist statement," set to the prayer said on the eve of Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement. Schoenberg, who had fled Europe in 1934, premiered the work in Los Angeles in 1938, one month before the devastating the anti Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht took place throughout Nazi-Germany. Shostakovich's suite explores similarly weighty concerns, including themes of love, morality, death, and the human spirit through the poetry of the Renaissance master Michelangelo. Although originally conceived to honor the fifth centenary of the artist's birth, Shostakovich's settings became a highly personal testament to concerns the two men shared across the centuries.

A joint BBC/British Museum production about the drawings of Michelangelo and the way that they illuminate his life, his artistic development, his religion and his inner torments. The film is presented Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and is filmed on location in Florence and in the Sistine Chapel

Matthias Goerne, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their series of recordings of Shostakovich's symphonic works with baritone with the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1974), and the symphonic poem October (1967).