The end credits alone (from 1:15:30ff.), listing all the almost numberless edited original film clips, lasts 2 minutes. All this and much more is documented and analysed here in film. It served as the final consecration for kamikaze airmen of the Japanese Air Force in World War II, for Mussolini’s mass stagings (Mascagni had up to 7,000 musicians compete for the public performance of the “Ode to Joy”), and of course it also rings out on the occasion of historically memorable events (e.g., at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to commemorate the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp). It was and has been appropriated by – for example: Marxists as well as by National Socialists, by Freemasons as well as by Wagnerians, by freedom fighters in Rhodesia (it’s the national anthem today) as well as by French Republicans. Because Beethoven’s “Ninth” is, as we all know, more than just any other symphony since its premiere, as the spokesman notes, it has been used politically around the globe, by the “good guys” as well as by the “all the bad ones”. Owing to their incredibly extensive compiling of historical film documents, these are a good 75 minutes of instruction.
#BEETHOVEN 7TH SYMPHONY ANTONIE BRENTANO PLUS#
If it weren't for this speaker’s penetrating tone of pathos in conjunction with his quasi-religious, ultimately kitschy Beethoven veneration, then this documentary would be the ne plus ultra for everyone interested in cultural history. This documentary is not about the music of the 9 th itself, but is based on Esteban Buch’s brilliant analysis “Beethoven’s Ninth” (1999), about primarily its contradictory reception: “it traces the complex and contradictory uses – and abuses – of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony since its premiere in 1824” ( Amazon) Script Pierre-Henry Salfati, Esteban Buch and Maynard SolomonĪctor (Beethoven) Storyteller John Tarzwell and Christian Brendel Roaringly funny, diverting (30 minutes) – and therefore one of the best Beethoven docus ever. Just one example of dozens of his short great episodes: Beethoven as piano teacher (7:05ff.), amongst others, with “Elton John”. Again and again, quoted letters, contemporaries’ reports, musicological jargon (Barry Cooper gets his “fat away”), living conditions, etc., are superbly satirised. Occasionally Steel also appears disguised as Beethoven, acting in today’s London and Vienna. Even the film entry about “classical music” is a masterpiece (John Cage’s 4’33. “Beethoven was a rapper and punk.” Mark Steel (as part of his legendary “Mark Steel Lectures” on BBC 4), introducing us in his inimitable British, funny-bone humour, and anything but dead serious, to some aspects of Beethoven’s life and to some specific works. Besides the too long music recordings, we see the camera wandering over some documents and portraits, along with a narrative voice from offstage. Here are also some musicians and historians with some rather random statements: William Littler, Lynn Harrel, Richard Westerfield, Trevor Pinnock, Stephen Isserlis, Leon Botstein and, above all, Pinchas Zukerman, who is also to be seen as conductor (barely committed) of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada with excerpts from the 5th Symphony. In essence, it’s about the deaf Beethoven’s hard fate and how he ultimately overcame it thanks to his music.
#BEETHOVEN 7TH SYMPHONY ANTONIE BRENTANO TV#
Quite uncharitable and uninvolved broadcast from a Canadian TV series: “Whole Notes.
Suchet, and others.Ĭountry Canada (Sound Venture Productions)ĭirector Neil Bregman and Katherine A. Most of all, important Beethoven researchers and musicians have their say, which is why what is intrinsic, his music, is done satisfactorily and intelligently – by William Meredith, William Kinderman, Charles Rosen, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, The Lindsays, Michael Tilson Thomas, J. The Great Composers Part 4 - The Russians (Glinka, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky)īeethoven’s life stages excellently related by Kenneth Branagh, partly cinematic, partly illustrated as docufiction. The Great Composers Part 3 (Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms) The Great Composers Part 2 (Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert) The Great Composers Part 1 (Josquin, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn)
0 kommentar(er)
