Biography beethoven film

Louis van Beethoven , a new biographical film about composer Ludwig van Beethoven , whose th birthday was celebrated in December and throughout , has aired on German television and is available for streaming in Germany and in the US, with English subtitles. At its strongest, the movie gives the viewers a valuable sense of the world into which Beethoven was born.

The son of an unsuccessful and not very talented musician who works for the local court in Bonn, a small city close to the French border, the future composer is drilled day-and-night by his abusive father who hopes to turn him into a second Mozart. The young boy comes under the influence of the actor Tobias Pfeiffer Sabin Tambrea , who lives with his family.

Pfeiffer is shown as a fervent adherent of Enlightenment philosophy and forcefully reads out the US Declaration of Independence to a crowd, which includes the young Beethoven, in , risking his own arrest. Pfeiffer is also shown encouraging the young Beethoven to break away from existing musical norms, insisting that only truthful expression matters in art, whether it sounds beautiful or not.

The other major and perhaps better known figure who would come to significantly influence the musicianship and world view of the young Beethoven is composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe Ulrich Noethen. In the movie, he is depicted as less of a radical than Pfeiffer but a strong supporter of the German Enlightenment. In this climate, Beethoven early on develops a commitment to democratic rights and social progress, a hatred of feudalism and the dependence of artists upon the good will of the courts.

Unfortunately, many of these themes are not developed further. The movie shifts unexpectedly from to Perhaps the weakest scenes in Louis van Beethoven are those centering on the year old Beethoven. We see him foregoing his one genuine love for the sake of pursuing his musical education in Vienna with Mozart.

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Mozart Manuel Rubey appears in the movie as little more than a witty, somewhat cynical and moody dandy who composes Don Giovanni in between a few games of billiards. This does not make for a credible depiction of a musical genius who, much like Beethoven, composed some of his greatest works, such as T he Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro based on a play by Beaumarchais, a supporter of the American Revolution and the early phases of the French Revolution , in the spirit of the Enlightenment and in an intense intellectual and cultural engagement with the ideas of the great French upheaval of Again, the historical and social background of the time is touched upon, but not really worked through.

In one of the stronger scenes, Neefe urges a discouraged Beethoven after his return from Vienna to start composing again.