Looking for Ludwig

This is a long film for a Beethoven ignoramus. Two hours and twenty minutes, most of which is engaging but the last twenty did start me thinking about the quality of the upholstery.

Nevertheless, it is a fresh light on an old master. As someone who had to climb wooden stairs to an attic to have my piano lessons staring at an enraged Ludwig print...this kindly portrait came as a surprise. And he was quite a looker.

As a young man, the strength and intelligence is obvious in his eyes but also a warmth that is almost never represented in portraiture. The film takes us through his life musically using his work as a guide to his interior life. As always with the masters, the question of finances scurries after him relentlessly but here we are also introduced to his many romances and attempted engagements. Beethoven fell for titled women whose families did not fall for him - who knew that Von and not Van is the sign of aristocracy? -and the strain of his solitary life showed in his work.

As an ignoramus, I had no idea how revolutionary he was, not only in his thoughts as in 'Eroica' but in the techniques he used. Or how competitive in his mastery of the piano,vying with his contempories with extraordinary elaborate musicality. It is as shocking to hear of the performances that did not work as it is surprising to hear that the police were called to one recital at which the reception was so enthusiastic, the audience had to be forced to go home.

The documentary is filled with a delightful array of Ludwig experts, conductors, pianists and scholars, most of whom could have leaped fully formed from a Dickens novel. The entrancing nuttiness of their performances is one of the real highlights for me. Still, I would have liked more of his personal life but where to put it? Those seats were pretty hard at the end.
To see a trailer of 'In Search of Beethoven', click here: