This vibrantly beautiful French film, about two seventeenth-century composers who played the viol (cello), toys cleverly with history in the manner of Amadeus. Gerard Depardieu stars as Marin Marais, a dissolute musician looking back on his youth. The teen Marais — the actor's son, Guillaume Depardieu, is sensational in his first screen role — studies with a stern and reclusive master, Sainte Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle). Seduced by the glamour of the king's court, the ambitious student ultimately rejects Sainte Colombe's discipline and his daughter (Anne Brochet). Though the film is strikingly directed by Alain Corneau, who draws superb performances, it's the music — hauntingly played by Jordi Savall — that gives wings to this rueful tale of art, love and loss.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."