DAY 34 SUNDAY 25th OCTOBER, PERTH, AUSTRALIA

Nice review to read in the coffee bar at 7am at a local golf course


Sunday Times (Western Australia)
by Gavin Bond
October 25, 2009
Dedicated director and historian Phil Grabsky (In Search of Mozart) has now turned his attention to chronicling the life and times of arguably history’s most revered composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, with this meticulously crafted documentary.

Grabsky combines a series of interviews with numerous accomplished classical musicians (who gush eloquently about Beethoven’s intricate compositions) with informative narration by British thesp Juliet Stevenson.

This combination of fact and opinion is most successful in delivering a comprehensive historical portrait of the man and his considerable musical achievements.

Like his previous film, Grabsky chronologically documents his subject’s legacy by first recounting the musical prodigy’s first performance at the age of seven.

The precocious pianist then penned his first concerto while still in his teens before establishing himself as a pre-eminent and amazingly dexterous musician who performed for the Venetian aristocracy of the day.

The film then dissects his remarkable output as a composer of a series of progressively inventive, emotive and stirring concertos and symphonies, an opera and, his self-proclaimed proudest achievement, a religious mass.

Music lovers will also be pleased to note that a renowned bevy of cellists, violinists and string quartets perform more than 50 live performances of Beethoven’s best known works, culminating in a rousing rendition of Ode to Joy.

Through the use of excerpts from his personal diary, this doco also explores Beethoven’s rather tragic and troubled personal life, including his dysfunctional childhood and ongoing ill health.

Grabsky also delves into the cantankerous composer’s turbulent romantic life and his eventual mental breakdown and premature demise in 1827 at the age of 56.

But what this film does best is illuminate the many inexplicable paradoxes of the man himself.

The fact that Beethoven was a misanthrope who created such optimistic music, that he was an incurable romantic who remained unmarried and that his instinct for melody failed to be thwarted by his inability to hear prove to be most enlightening, even to authorities on the subject.

Despite its excessive length, this reverential doco will enthuse fans, historians and even those, like yours truly, whose familiarity with Beethoven is limited to the opening strains of his 5th Symphony.

The day was spent golfing, working, reading & listening to Haydn…