DER TRAUM VOM KLANG

Somewhere hidden in the Bavarian Alps, in the town of Mittenwald, a unique German government-run school for violin-makers was founded in 1858. Since then, young people from all over the world have come here due to its international reputation. Whether from South Korea, the Ukraine, Den Haag or Berlin, they all share a love for music and a dream to make violins. They live in improvised student accommodation, in hunting or forester's lodges. They heat their rooms with wood stoves. The shower is in the kitchen, the violin on the kitchen table. At weekends, they go sledging. This is an improvised life, for most of them in a strange environment. Sergei, the oldest of the apprentices comes from the Ukraine. He is an educated classical musician but sees no opportunities for him to survive as such in Kiev. To earn the money for his apprenticeship, he has to play the violin for two hours a day on the streets of Mittenwald. Like many of the students, he sometimes feels trapped between the rock faces where hardly any sun breaks through. But after three and a half years, the fresh violin-makers will leave the town in the mountains to go make their violins somewhere in the world. They will have fulfilled their dream, the dream of sound.

Two programmes from the popular Saturday night series on BR "Menschen in Bayern" (People in Bavaria) that skilfully combine the form of the TV-feature and that of the artistic documentary.