Une chorale d'amateurs dans le 13e arrondissement à Paris. Une fois par semaine, 30 enfants, 20 adolescents, 50 adultes se réunissent pour répéter et chanter ensemble sous la direction de Claire Marchand, chef de chœur.
Le film narre la rencontre le 7 mai 1747 à Potsdam entre le compositeur Jean-Sébastien Bach à 62 ans avec le roi de Prusse âgé de 33 ans au cours de laquelle celui-ci aurait imaginé le thème de l’Offrande musicale.
Jean Debart, violoncelliste d'orchestre veuf, a deux enfants : Alexandre, pianiste prodige et sa sœur aînée, Adèle. Celle-ci a hérité du tempérament de sa mère, violoncelliste soliste, et comme ses deux parents, joue du violoncelle. Élevée dans une famille de musiciens, son grand-père maternel est aussi chef d'orchestre et elle-même n'a pour seul professeur que son propre père. Quant à son oncle Gérald (frère de sa défunte mère), il est compositeur et son épouse chanteuse lyrique.
The film is set in Vienna on June 9, 1804, the date of the private, first performance of Beethoven’s third symphony, later to be known as the ‘Eroica’. The performance, and most of the action in the film, takes place at the palace of one of Beethoven’s patrons, Prince Franz Lobkowitz. Midway during the performance, Beethoven tries to get his lover, a widow named Josephine von Deym, to marry him, but she refuses because of the unfair laws regarding child custody — she is a member of the nobility, and cannot marry a commoner without losing custody of her children. Later, composer Joseph Haydn, now old and feeble, arrives just in time to hear the last movement of the symphony.
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland which caused the outbreak of World War II. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman celebrates with his posh family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. German troops soon enter Warsaw and the Nazi authorities implement measures to identify, isolate, financially ruin and reduce the Jewish population in Warsaw. Jews are ordered to provide their own identifying armbands with the Star of David.
In Berlin at the end of World War II, Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgård) is conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony when yet another Allied bomb raid stops the performance. A minister in Hitler's government comes to Furtwängler's dressing room to advise him that he should go abroad, and escape the war. The film then jumps to some time after the Allied victory, and we see U.S. Army General Wallace (R. Lee Ermey) task Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel) with "getting" Furtwängler at his denazification hearing: "Find Wilhelm Furtwängler guilty. He represents everything that was rotten in Germany".
The partially fictionalized film is set in 1977, the year in which Callas died, and centers on the making of a movie of Georges Bizet's Carmen. The diva, whose now-ragged voice is well past its prime, is persuaded to star in it by longtime friend and former manager Larry Kelly, who abandoned classical music to become a rock impresario. He insists by lip-synching to her old recording she will recapture her lost youth and leave behind a priceless legacy for her admirers, and his theory is supported by Callas confidante and journalist Sarah Keller.
The film starts when Fryderyk Chopin is still a young man living with his parents and his two sisters in Warsaw where he frequently plays the piano and composes music for the decidedly unmusical Grand Duke Constantine. Shortly before the November Uprising, Chopin's father urges him to leave for Paris, which Fryderyk does. Once in Paris he meets novelist George Sand, who has just split from her violent lover Mallefille. Although he is immediately drawn to Sand, he initially refuses her advances. However, after several months, their mutual friend Albert urges Chopin to get to know George better and a passionate romance starts to build. During their affair, Chopin is diagnosed with tuberculosis and has to cope with a declining health. The relationship is further complicated by George's two children: Maurice and Solange. While Maurice's near-hysterical hatred of Chopin leads from one escalation to the other, Solange develops an obsessive love for Chopin which leads to a rivalry between Solange and her mother. After several years of constant fighting between Chopin, George, Maurice and Solange, the relationship ends and Chopin calls for one of his sisters to help him get through the last days of his life.
Liu Cheng (Liu Peiqi) is a widowed cook making his living in a small southern town in China. His thirteen-year-old son, Liu Xiaochun (Tang Yun), is a violin prodigy. In the hope that Xiaochun might find success as a violinist, Liu Cheng and Xiaochun travel to Beijing to participate in a competition organized by the Children's Palace, an arts institution for school children. Even though Xiaochun emerges fifth, he is denied admission into the conservatory as he does not have Beijing residency. Determined to realize his hopes for Xiaochun, Liu Cheng persuades Professor Jiang (Wang Zhiwen), a stubborn and eccentric teacher from the Children's Palace, to take Xiaochun as a private student.
Erika Kohut is a piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although already in her forties, she still lives in an apartment with her domineering mother; her father is a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum.
Alma, la fiancée du vent est un film austro-germano-britannique réalisé par Bruce Beresford, sorti en 2001. Le titre du film fait directement référence à La Fiancée du vent, toile du peintre et écrivain autrichien Oskar Kokoschka, peinte au cours de sa liaison avec la jeune femme.
Lully (Boris Terral) starts to gain the favour of the 14-year-old King Louis in 1653 by giving him specially designed shoes for Ballet de la Nuit. His subsequent rise draws hostility from the old cadres of the court, particularly the royal composer Cambert (Johan Leysen). However, following Cardinal Mazarin's death, Louis (Benoît Magimel) installs himself in full power as the king in 1661 and he is now at stake with the religious establishment created and controlled by his mother Anne of Austria (Colette Emmanuelle) at the Palais-Royal. On the other hand, Lully's animosity with Cambert comes to a novel dimension after Cambert's mistress Madeleine Lambert (Cécile Bois), the daughter of Michel Lambert, marries Lully in 1662. Lully and another Versailles favourite Molière (Tchéky Karyo) are keen to further disarm the old court but they get to understand their limits when conflict becomes more manifest at events such as staging (and consequent ban) of Tartuffe in 1664. Meanwhile, the passing years bring an end to Lully's position as the king's dance teacher and choreographer and he also has to face the emotional tensions growing with his wife's niece Julie (Claire Keim), which will culminate at the gala of Cambert's Pomone in 1671.
Cinquante-huit ans après Fantasia, ce film est composé de huit séquences illustrant huit morceaux de musique classique, interprétés pour la plupart par l'Orchestre symphonique de Chicago sous la direction de James Levine. Chaque séquence est précédée d'une courte présentation par des artistes ayant travaillé pour les studios Disney.