EDIT: watch it for the professor in a powdered wig, handing out hard-earned history lessons with a straight face, fully fangirling over his haloed Beethoven, passionately gasping out different ways to phrase "changed music forever." He's so serious!
Ah, but then they read his letters out. "1801, dear friend, I can no longer hear the high notes of voices or instruments.." Oof. So he goes on from here drinking mercury from his doctor dutifully, he finds love, loses love, throws over his life, moves to a new land, goes half insane and goes COMPLETELY DEAF. THEN, he dropped the Ninth Symphony like a bomb on a big crowd expecting a Brahms lullaby- totally shattered the scene, blowing off wigs, the room cheered out loud together! - by the time the audience leapt to their feet & she walked over to turn him around so he could understand the resounding joy he had given them, music would never be the same again.
We bask in long, up-close shots of genius fingers flying over keys in some of the most technically difficult music ever dared, written by Beethoven specifically as VENGEANCE ON HIS ENEMIES! Only Liszt was also this ballsy. You can HEAR the jolty, tilting deviations of the train from the rails of his life - & now you can SEE it, too. An outrageously intimate, deeply enjoyable documentary.
Ah, but then they read his letters out. "1801, dear friend, I can no longer hear the high notes of voices or instruments.." Oof. So he goes on from here drinking mercury from his doctor dutifully, he finds love, loses love, throws over his life, moves to a new land, goes half insane and goes COMPLETELY DEAF. THEN, he dropped the Ninth Symphony like a bomb on a big crowd expecting a Brahms lullaby- totally shattered the scene, blowing off wigs, the room cheered out loud together! - by the time the audience leapt to their feet & she walked over to turn him around so he could understand the resounding joy he had given them, music would never be the same again.
We bask in long, up-close shots of genius fingers flying over keys in some of the most technically difficult music ever dared, written by Beethoven specifically as VENGEANCE ON HIS ENEMIES! Only Liszt was also this ballsy. You can HEAR the jolty, tilting deviations of the train from the rails of his life - & now you can SEE it, too. An outrageously intimate, deeply enjoyable documentary.