Evgeny Kissin

The Art of Piano - Great Pianists of 20th Century

This is a film that encapsulates the essence of a great pianistic age that married virtuosity and musicianship with the most thrilling aspect of individual showmanship.

Evgeny Kissin: The Gift of Music

Evgeny Igorevich Kissin was born in Moscow on the 10th of October 1971. He started to play the piano at the age of two, as soon as he was tall enough to reach the keyboard and he has not looked back from that day to this. His is a very rare story of continued success that has had the simultaneous blessing of critics, the public and musicians alike. This film by Christopher Nupen shows Kissin in preparation, interview, rehearsal and performance, with several dazzling performances shot live on stage, in true concert conditions. It also contains all the encores from Kissin's memorable Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in August, 1997—the first Prom concert by a soloist, it attracted the biggest audience in all the 103 year history, very nearly six thousand people. The music is by Liszt, Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Paganini, Kissin himself and Chopin, the composer for whom Kissin feels the closest affinity.

Great Performances

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Kissin in Tokyo

Pianist Yevgeny Kissin brings his inimitable touch to Tokyo's Suntory Hall in this 1987 concert, when the virtuoso was only 16. A stirring version of composer Sergey Prokofiev's Sonata no. 6 in A Major marks Kissin's longest contribution of the evening. Other selections include Sergey Rachmaninoff's Études Tableaux op. 39, no. 5 in E-flat Minor; Frédéric Chopin's Polonaise in F-sharp Minor; and Franz Liszt's Trois Études de Concert no. 2 in F Minor.

Chopin: The Piano Concertos

To mark the bicentenary of Chopins birth, two leading Russian pianists tackle the great Romantic composers two piano concertos: Evgeny Kissin plays the F minor Concerto op. 21, a key work in Chopins output, while Nikolai Demidenko performs the E minor Concerto op. 11, a virtuoso display vehicle of the first rank. They are accompanied by the Warsaw Philharmonic under the direction of Antoni Wit. Enthusiastically acclaimed by the audience at Warsaws Philharmonic Hall on 27 February 2010, this memorable concert has been captured in first-class sound and picture quality.

Karajan: 1988 New Year's Concert - Prokofiev & Tchaikovsky

This memorable concert marks Herbert von Karajan's final public appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra before his death in 1989 and includes an early performance by piano virtuoso Evgeny Kissin.

United We Stand - Musicians in Time of War

A documentary about the relation between music and war.

We Want the Light

The struggles of the world’s Jewish people over the course of several centuries are expressed and explored through the music they inspired in this documentary from the BBC and Opus Arte. We Want the Light brings together harrowing tales from Holocaust survivors with performances of music by such legendary composers as Mahler, Bach, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Interviews with: Alice Sommer Herz, Jacques Stroumsa, Evgeny Kissin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Toby Perlman, Michael Haas, Elyakim Ha’etzni, Norman Lebrecht, Margaret Brearley, Paul Lawrence Rose, Daniel Barenboim, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Uri Toeplitz & Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. Featuring: Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Cologne Cathedral Children’s Choir & Cologne Opera Chorus.

The Italian Character: The Story of a Great Italian Orchestra

The Italian Character: a film within music and about music. The Italian character is the story of one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, enriched by archive material of the last thirty years about the great conductors who have been performing on the most famous rostrum in Rome.

Evgeny Kissin - Kissin Plays Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Liszt, Gluck