In Search of Beethoven (Phil Grabsky's blog)
Phil Grabsky who is the head man working on the film, "In Search of Beethoven", recently and finally made an update on his blog talking about Beethoven. Here is most of it:
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July 7th 2008
Apologies to those of you who read the blog - and, from emails, I know there are one or two of you out there! - it's been ages since I updated and I can only offer the moderately acceptable excuse that I have been madly busy... The film project IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN has been filming since January and has been a roller-coaster of preparation, travelling and filming. But, as of last weekend, I can now safely say we've pretty much covered 90% -and it's been a great treat. I have been able to film fabulous musicians such as Ronald Brautigam, Paul Lewis, Manny Ax, Janine Jansen, Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Fabio Luisi at the Musikverien in Vienna, the Endellion String Quartet, Roger Norrington, Jonathan Biss and the Salzburg Camerata, Gianandrea Noseda, Claudio Abbado conducting Fidelio - and many more (all listed soon on the insearchofbeethoven.com website). It's always a struggle gaining access and then getting to the locations with HD cameras, etc- but once the music starts....I was asked last night if I have any favourites but the problem with Beethoven - even more than Mozart perhaps - is that there are simply too many extraordinary pieces to select favourites. The symphonies, the piano sonatas, the string quartets, Missa Solemnis, Fidelio, the piano concertos - how can you leave any out? I feel genuinely privileged to have filmed them all and to have a record of them - and to at least be able to put some extracts in a film. Maybe if we can raise some funds, I can put longer extracts (of some) of the website - or at least the interviews (which have been so interesting). And Beethoven - what kind of man is emerging? Well, certainly someone far different from the caricature of a miserable, unhygienic, loveless, wild man in an attic banging furiously at the piano...he's far more 'rounded' than that - the letters alone reveal also his loves, his humours, his friendships, his optimisms. It's a wonderful story that produces some of history's greatest examples of what we, as humans, are capable of, so I hope the film adequately can pay some little tribute to him.
I know there are quite a few of you who read this blog who want to know when the film is coming to your local cinemas - especially in Australia, New Zealand and North America. Well, honestly I haven't had time to pinpoint that but I would expect next Summer or Autumn - and I'll certainly be hoping to attend as many opening nights as possible.
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I just hope that the person who plays Beethoven doesn't look like the Stieler portrait, as they did in the BBC production Beethoven! Yes, the Stieler isn't my favorite,
.
Besides that it seems that he realizes that Beethoven was a touching soul and not some brute, beast like, jerk. Which is great, because that will make the movie much much more accurate, which I hope it is, accurate. Although, I know that Beethoven would get obsessive at times about hygiene, Thayer states several times, in the chapters that I have read, that Beethoven's living quarters could be quite messy, such as in Copying Beethoven. So my point is that when Phil Grabsky talks about Beethoven being well rounded, I hope he doesn't try to make him to well rounded because he was most certainly not, to my understanding! I hope that he realizes that Beethoven was a man who was pretty eccentric.
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July 7th 2008
Apologies to those of you who read the blog - and, from emails, I know there are one or two of you out there! - it's been ages since I updated and I can only offer the moderately acceptable excuse that I have been madly busy... The film project IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN has been filming since January and has been a roller-coaster of preparation, travelling and filming. But, as of last weekend, I can now safely say we've pretty much covered 90% -and it's been a great treat. I have been able to film fabulous musicians such as Ronald Brautigam, Paul Lewis, Manny Ax, Janine Jansen, Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Fabio Luisi at the Musikverien in Vienna, the Endellion String Quartet, Roger Norrington, Jonathan Biss and the Salzburg Camerata, Gianandrea Noseda, Claudio Abbado conducting Fidelio - and many more (all listed soon on the insearchofbeethoven.com website). It's always a struggle gaining access and then getting to the locations with HD cameras, etc- but once the music starts....I was asked last night if I have any favourites but the problem with Beethoven - even more than Mozart perhaps - is that there are simply too many extraordinary pieces to select favourites. The symphonies, the piano sonatas, the string quartets, Missa Solemnis, Fidelio, the piano concertos - how can you leave any out? I feel genuinely privileged to have filmed them all and to have a record of them - and to at least be able to put some extracts in a film. Maybe if we can raise some funds, I can put longer extracts (of some) of the website - or at least the interviews (which have been so interesting). And Beethoven - what kind of man is emerging? Well, certainly someone far different from the caricature of a miserable, unhygienic, loveless, wild man in an attic banging furiously at the piano...he's far more 'rounded' than that - the letters alone reveal also his loves, his humours, his friendships, his optimisms. It's a wonderful story that produces some of history's greatest examples of what we, as humans, are capable of, so I hope the film adequately can pay some little tribute to him.
I know there are quite a few of you who read this blog who want to know when the film is coming to your local cinemas - especially in Australia, New Zealand and North America. Well, honestly I haven't had time to pinpoint that but I would expect next Summer or Autumn - and I'll certainly be hoping to attend as many opening nights as possible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I just hope that the person who plays Beethoven doesn't look like the Stieler portrait, as they did in the BBC production Beethoven! Yes, the Stieler isn't my favorite,
. Besides that it seems that he realizes that Beethoven was a touching soul and not some brute, beast like, jerk. Which is great, because that will make the movie much much more accurate, which I hope it is, accurate. Although, I know that Beethoven would get obsessive at times about hygiene, Thayer states several times, in the chapters that I have read, that Beethoven's living quarters could be quite messy, such as in Copying Beethoven. So my point is that when Phil Grabsky talks about Beethoven being well rounded, I hope he doesn't try to make him to well rounded because he was most certainly not, to my understanding! I hope that he realizes that Beethoven was a man who was pretty eccentric.
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