Briefly recounts the life of a composer who wrote beautiful sonatas and symphonies despite tragic personal problems.

In 1880 Vienna, Countess Julie Guicciardi falls in love with her piano teacher, Ludwig van Beethoven, and as a unique romance develops between them, scandalous secrets are exposed, causing him to set his emotions to music, resulting in the Moonlight Sonata.

The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what...

No understanding of the modern movement in architecture is possible without knowledge of its master builder, Mies van der Rohe. Together with documentation of his life, this film shows all his major buildings, as well as rare film footage of Mies explaining his philosophy. Phyllis Lambert relates her choice of Mies as the architect for the Seagram building. Mies's achievements and continuing influence are debated by architects Robert A.M. Stern, Robert...

Sixty miles southwest of Chicago is one of the great houses of the world, the Farnsworth House, built by Mies van der Rohe for a Chicago physician, Edith Farnsworth. Lord Peter Palumbo, second owner of the house, tells of his passion for this masterpiece, built in 1951. The 21 minute documentary reveals the history of the commission, the achievement of the design, the problems of the site, including flooding, and the involvement of the client, Dr....

The community of Lafayette Park in downtown Detroit, built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, demonstrates a workable solution for urban sprawl. Lafayette Park is listed in the National Register of Historic Places because of the excellence of its urban design and the quality of its community planning. Mies van der Rohe created a neighborhood of townhouses, courthouses, and apartments that has been called "nothing less than a working model for future...

The letters that ten-year-old Christoph and his uncle exchange show how Christoph's feelings for Mr. Beethoven, the eccentric boarder that shares his house, change from anger and embarrassment to compassion and admiration.