"In Search of Beethoven," now at the Hollywood Theater (Nov. 20)

In Search of Beethoven (Documentary)
Director: Phil Grabsky
With: Emanuel Ax, Ronald Brautigam, Sir Roger Norrington, etc.

In 2006, Grabsky gave us In Search of Mozart.  I was not particularly impressed, finding the documentary dry, academic and dull, exactly nothing like Mozart’s life.
Although this follows the same format as that film, In Search of Beethoven is far more involving and emotionally satisfying than the Mozart study.  Musicians, historians and conductors discuss the composer’s sad and brilliant career, and are able to illuminate the relationship between his life and his music.
Beethoven is problematic as a man.  From a musical family, he was noticed when he was very young, and then managed to secure a prized status as Joseph Haydn’s pupil.  During that time, he scammed Haydn with a money scheme.  His whole life, there was a disconnect between his creative genius and his dark side.
Philosophically an Enlightenment democrat, he treated people dismally on a daily basis, plagued as he was by poverty, drink and frustration in love.  He also went deaf by the time he was 30.
And not just the loss of hearing, but a kind of tinnitus, an increasing ringing and/or whistling in the ear.  This might make anyone cranky, a musician and composer that much more so.
As he got older, he continued to dote on his young female piano students.  Many of his sonatas were composed as “gifts” for these women.  He also became slovenly in his appearance and rude to people, although it depended on when you approached him.
Throughout, he turned out music of genius, highlighted by the interviews with people who know and play his music.  I felt I knew Beethoven much better having seen this.
One more thing.  The Heiligenstadt Testament, written when Beethoven was 32, and deaf.  It is a letter to his brothers, Carl and Johann, explaining that his rudeness and bad behavior is far from what is in his heart.  He asks forgiveness and hopes that, if he dies, his brothers can profit from his death.  By the time he was in his 50s, Beethoven had endured so much that he no longer had many good days.  In fact, he adopted Carl’s son, Karl, after the brother’s death, and after a long legal battle with Karl’s mother, whom Beethoven deemed unfit.
But, Beethoven was so difficult to live with, that Karl ran back to his mother and even attempted suicide.  At this same time, Beethoven was composing his Missa Solemnis and his Ninth Symphony.  Complicated guy.
Good movie.
A-