The Microcinema documentaries In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart are as brilliant as the composers whose lives are touched upon. Released as a three-disc DVD set, the two documentaries are directed by Phil Grabsky. The films take you not only into the lives of both Beethoven and Mozart, but into their worlds, what inspired them, created them, and gave them reason and cause to create the music that has spanned time. Their creations are still as unique and powerful as when created.
Filmed in locations in and around the European cities, homes and haunts of the composers, In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart take you into the very footsteps of the masters. It is obvious that there was extensive research into the lives of both legendary composers. There are commentaries by noted historians, conductors, and world-famous performers, whom have made the works of Beethoven and Mozart the focus of their careers. The viewer gets a glimpse into the private journals of both Beethoven and Mozart, and learn some of why they lived as they did, and something about their tortured genius that would invoke, in their music, images of love, hope and the divine.
Beethoven and Mozart lived very different lives, as revealed in the documentaries. We learn of Beethoven’s desire to live an aristocratic life, and how Mozart, at the age of five, wrote his first piano piece, at an age when most children are unable to play piano! In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart show you the highs and the lows of the composers' great lives during an era of invention and revolution.
I sat down to watch In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart with my wife; both of us enjoy classical music and documentaries, we found ourselves riveted to our seats. The series is not “dry” or monotone, but vibrant and intriguing, the commentators/narrators spoke with enthusiasm and the information about the composers lives showed them as the “stars” of their times and as people whom fell prey to the same issues that we have today dealing with social matters, politics, war and personal issues, it was very dramatic.
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