Eroica - The Movie
Just came across this news item:
BBC to broadcast Beethoven on TV
By Matt Born
(Filed: 19/05/2003)
The BBC is to screen a dramatised performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, in a move that will help it placate critics who accuse the corporation of ignoring classical music on television.
The actor Ian Hart is to play the composer Ludwig van Beethoven - who is suffering a gradual loss of hearing - in the BBC2 period drama-cum-concert, Eroica.
The 90-minute drama focuses on the day in June 1804 when the symphony was played in full for the first time at a private rehearsal at the palace of Beethoven's patron in Vienna.
The work is regarded as one of the most important in classical music history, heralding the birth of the romantic period.
The symphony will be performed in full during the drama - about half of it in the form of a televised concert and the rest as part of the soundtrack.
Excluding the Proms, it will be the first time in years that the BBC has broadcast an entire symphony in a peak time slot on one of its mainstream television channels. Eroica, filming for which begins this week, is the latest in a spate of more high-brow programmes announced by the corporation in recent months.
It is likely to fuel the debate over claims that, in the words of a rival broadcaster, the BBC "has a tendency to rediscover old-time religion", once every 10 years as it enters the run-up to its charter renewal in 2006.
But a BBC spokesman said the collaboration between the drama and music departments, which had never been tried before, was an attempt simply to "get under the skin of this subject - the symphony and Beethoven".
The script for Eroica, written by Nick Dear, who is also behind the BBC2's drama Byron, starring Jonny Lee Miller, examines the story behind the symphony, in particular, Beethoven's unrequited love for an aristocratic woman.
The drama also features Tim Piggott-Smith, Jack Davenport and Claire Skinner.
The music is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, regarded as one of the leading period orchestras in the world, and conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
BBC to broadcast Beethoven on TV
By Matt Born
(Filed: 19/05/2003)
The BBC is to screen a dramatised performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, in a move that will help it placate critics who accuse the corporation of ignoring classical music on television.
The actor Ian Hart is to play the composer Ludwig van Beethoven - who is suffering a gradual loss of hearing - in the BBC2 period drama-cum-concert, Eroica.
The 90-minute drama focuses on the day in June 1804 when the symphony was played in full for the first time at a private rehearsal at the palace of Beethoven's patron in Vienna.
The work is regarded as one of the most important in classical music history, heralding the birth of the romantic period.
The symphony will be performed in full during the drama - about half of it in the form of a televised concert and the rest as part of the soundtrack.
Excluding the Proms, it will be the first time in years that the BBC has broadcast an entire symphony in a peak time slot on one of its mainstream television channels. Eroica, filming for which begins this week, is the latest in a spate of more high-brow programmes announced by the corporation in recent months.
It is likely to fuel the debate over claims that, in the words of a rival broadcaster, the BBC "has a tendency to rediscover old-time religion", once every 10 years as it enters the run-up to its charter renewal in 2006.
But a BBC spokesman said the collaboration between the drama and music departments, which had never been tried before, was an attempt simply to "get under the skin of this subject - the symphony and Beethoven".
The script for Eroica, written by Nick Dear, who is also behind the BBC2's drama Byron, starring Jonny Lee Miller, examines the story behind the symphony, in particular, Beethoven's unrequited love for an aristocratic woman.
The drama also features Tim Piggott-Smith, Jack Davenport and Claire Skinner.
The music is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, regarded as one of the leading period orchestras in the world, and conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
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