In Search of Beethoven

Musicians, historians and musicologists lay bare the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven in this documentary about the life and work of the great composer
He was a composer of unparalleled brilliance whose work redefined the meaning of classical music, yet Ludwig Van Beethoven remains more cloaked in myth and mystery than the most cultish rock 'n' roll star. Phil Grabsky's documentary tells Beethoven's fascinating story in an accessible and efficient manner, skilfully putting the extraordinary music in the context of a troubled life. Born in Bonn in 1770 to musician parents, details of Beethoven's youth are sketchy, but by his late teens it was clear that he possessed a prodigious talent as a pianist. By his early twenties he'd moved to Vienna where he was rapidly recognised as the city's greatest young musician, and where he demonstrated all the tendencies you'd expect from a young artist fully convinced of his own genius: hustling his reputation, partying at night and purposefully composing pieces so fiendishly difficult that no one but him could play them. Documentary filmmaker Phil Grabsky, who told the story of Beethoven's great rival in his 2006 documentary In Search Of Mozart, recruits musicians, historians and musicologists, as well as the composer's own enjoyably pithy correspondence, to analyse the music and place it within the context of Beethoven's personal life, and also the tumultuous events of the early nineteenth century which so fascinated a composer thoroughly engaged with current affairs. The Third Symphony, completed in 1804 ('Eroica', the second movement of which contains the maximum heaviosity of the Funeral March) was inspired by the egalitarian dreams of the French Revolution and was to be dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte. But when Napoleon made himself Emperor, Beethoven - a natural-born anti-authoritarian and chippy victim of Austria's rigid class system - scratched out the original title in disgust. Musicologist and composer Jonathan Del Mar describes the composer's subsequent response to all mentions of the little emperor. "He may be the ruler of the world," Beethoven liked to say. "But mine is the empire of the mind." The Beethoven of popular imagination is a stern and tortured misanthrope, wildly Romantic beneath that explosion of hair. He was certainly an obsessive iconoclast forever haunted by the dark stuff - wild emotional extremes and fury against his circumstances in life. But Grabsky's film emphasises that he was also an endless optimist and a tireless experimentalist who guided instrumental music into hitherto uncharted realms, introducing new sounds and techniques which he may have heard clearly enough in his head, but which encroaching deafness denied him from hearing performed. By the time we get to the Fifth Symphony, performed for the first time during a four hour concert in Vienna in 1808, Beethoven wasn't just composing music, he was writing history. Those four opening notes - behold, the world's first and most potent riff - demonstrate his monumental ambition, technical audacity and immense sense of sonic drama. And yet, it transpires, the gig wasn't akin to catching The Sex Pistols at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in the summer of 1976. Badly performed in a freezing auditorium to an audience who'd already been perched there for several hours, little attention was paid at the time to the single most significant piece of orchestral music ever written. With his love life careening from one doomed relationship to the next and his personal circumstances floundering, by 1811 Beethoven's loss of hearing prevented him from performing in public. Gossipy speculation is beyond the remit of Grabsky's film and he puts forward none of the possible explanations for Beethoven's deafness, though one theory, outlined in Russell Martin's 1999 book 'Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey And A Scientific Mystery Solved' suggests it may have been a consequence of lead poisoning, common enough in nineteenth century Europe, and which would also have accounted for the composer's increasingly erratic behaviour. A prolonged and bitter battle for the custody of his nephew Karl sapped his creative spirit and by 49 he was completely deaf, frequently shambolic and so careless in matters of personal hygiene that at one point he was arrested for being a tramp. And yet still he went on to achieve fantastic creative heights - notably the extraordinary Ninth Symphony, so beloved of Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Yet the darkness was never far away. A healthy appetite for food and wine couldn't keep a variety of physical ailments at bay. Beethoven's health deteriorated and in 1826 his nephew attempted suicide. And yet, stresses historian Nicholas Marston, despite Beethoven's image as a crazed Romantic gusted about by his own chaotic emotions, his work was profoundly cerebral, carefully methodical and subject to incredibly complex systems of composition. "In music," says Marston, "he's able to exert a control over detail that clearly escaped him in daily life altogether." No amount of analysis can ever explain what makes a great artist great - to understand that, you have to experience the art. Yet Gladsky's documentary does a fine job of describing the life and work of this singular, contradictory genius. In Search Of Beethoven deserves to be sought out by anyone with an interest in classical music, and provides plenty of worthwhile insight into this best known, and yet perhaps least understood, musical icon.
Verdict A thoroughly researched and engagingly presented portrait of the composer.