Editing Maximilian Schell (section)

=== Interest in classical music ===
Schell was a semi-professional pianist for much of his life. He had a piano when he lived in [[Munich]] and said that he would play for hours at a time for his own pleasure and to help him relax: "I find I need to rest. An actor must have pauses in between work, to renew himself, to read, to walk, to chop wood."<ref name=Ross/> Conductor [[Leonard Bernstein]] claimed that Schell was a "remarkably good pianist." In 1982 on a program filmed for the U.S. television network [[PBS]], Schell read from Beethoven's letters to the audience before Bernstein conducted the Vienna Philharmonic playing Beethoven symphonies.

In 1983, he and Bernstein co-hosted an 11-part TV series, ''Bernstein/Beethoven'', featuring nine live symphonies, along with discussions between Bernstein and Schell about Beethoven's works.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuYY1gV8jhU |title=Leonard Bernstein Discussing Beethoven's 6th and 7th Symphony |date=14 January 2011 |publisher=Derek Stoughton |via=YouTube}}, video clip, 9 minutes</ref>

On other occasions, Schell worked with Italian conductor [[Claudio Abbado]] and the [[Berlin Philharmonic]], which included a performance in Chicago of [[Igor Stravinsky]]'s [[Oedipus rex (opera)|''Oedipus Rex'']] and another in [[Jerusalem]] of [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s ''[[A Survivor from Warsaw]]''.<ref name="Edlinger" /> Schell also produced and directed a number of live operas, including [[Richard Wagner]]'s ''[[Lohengrin (opera)|Lohengrin]]'' for the [[Los Angeles Opera]]. He worked on the film project ''Beethoven's Fidelio,'' with [[Plácido Domingo]] and [[Kent Nagano]].<ref name="Boheme"/>

Schell was a guest professor at the [[University of Southern California]] and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from [[Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership]] in Chicago.<ref name=Boheme/>