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Documentary: In Search of Mozart
“Too few can tell us why Mozart’s work was amazing. Baritone Gerald Finley can, though, and easily describes the characters in The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni.” Time Out
Number of discs: 1
DVD Release Date: 23 January 2006 (first broadcast 10 January 2006)
Run Time: 128 minutes
Label: Seventh Art Productions
ASIN: B000CFX5I2
For full details visit www.insearchofmozart.com
Narrated by:
Juliet Stevenson
Sam West
Interviewees:
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Thomas Allen
Leif Ove Andsnes
Giovanni Carli Ballola
Matthias Bamert
Günther Bauer
Ian Bostridge
Volkmar Braunbehrens
Ronald Brautigam
Frans Brüggen
Sine Bundgaard
Imogen Cooper
Cliff Eisen
Gerald Finley
Adam Fischer
Renée Fleming
Harry Halbreich
Ursula Heil
Stefan Herheim
Angela Hewitt
Eric Hoeprich
Konrad Hünteler
René Jacobs
Janine Jansen
Hebe Jeffrey
Simon Keenlyside
Angelika Kirchschlager
Magdalena Kožená
Lang Lang
Louis Langrée
Topi Lehtipuu
Josef Mancal
Jonathan Miller
Roger Norrington
Bayan Northcott
Julian Rachlin
Horst Reischenböck
Christophe Rousset
Stanley Sadie
Michel Swierczewski
Nicholas Till
Lada Valešova
Performances - in order of appearance
K622 • Concerto in A for clarinet
Clarinet • Andrew Marriner
The
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Leopold Mozart • Trumpet Concerto in D
Trumpet soloist • Falk Zimmermann
Conductor • Tobias Breitner
Jan Zach • Te Deum
Soprano • Iaroslavna Golovanova-Eschey
St Sebastian, St Josef, HI.Geist und Chor der Jesuitenkirche
K1a • Andante in C for keyboard
Piano • Lada Valešova
K1d • Minuet in F for keyboard
Piano • Lada Valešova
K9 • Violin Sonata
Violin • Rémy Baudet
Harpsichord • Pieter-Jan Belder
Musica Amphion
Courtesy of Joan Records BV/Brilliant Classics
K7 • Sonata in D for keyboard and violin
Violin • Rémy Baudet
Harpsichord • Pieter-Jan Belder
Musica Amphion
Courtesy of Joan Records BV/Brilliant Classics
K8 • Sonata in B flat major for violin
Violin • Rémy Baudet
Harpsichord • Pieter-Jan Belder
Musica Amphion
Courtesy of Joan Records BV/Brilliant Classics
K16 • Symphony in E flat, no.1
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
Haydn • Cello Concerto in C major
Cello • Roel Dieltiens
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
JC Bach • Sinfonia in D major
Camerata Budapest
Conductor • Hanspeter Gmür
Courtesy of Naxos
Benda • Sinfonia in D, no.8
Prague Chamber Orchestra
Conductor • Christian Benda
Courtesy of Naxos
Cannabich • Symphony in G, no. 47
Nicolauz Esterházy Sinfonia
Conductor • Uwe Grodd
Courtesy of Naxos
Handel • Ode for St Cecilia’s Day
Dorothee Mields • Soprano
Mark Wilde • Tenor
Alsfelder Vokalensemble
Concerto Polacco
Conductor • Wolfgang Helbich
Courtesy of Naxos
K15 • London Sketchbook
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
K25 • Number variations in D
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Courtesy of BIS
K51 • La finta simplice (The Pretend Simpleton)
Soprano • Charlotte Ellett
Piano• Martin Pacey
K74 • Symphony in G, no. 10
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K80 • Quartet in G for strings
Škampa Quartet
Allegri • Miserere
The Tallis Scholars
Courtesy of Gimell Records
Jommelli • Armida Abbandonata
Armida • Ewa Malas-Godlewska
Les Talens Lyriques
Conductor and Director • Christophe Rousset
Courtesy of Les Talens Lyriques
K111 • Ascanio in Alba
Soloist • Marie-Belle Sandis
National Theatre Orchestra
Conductor • Adam Fischer
Director • David Hermann
K135 • Lucio Silla
Mezzo-Soprano • Kristine Jepson
Directors • Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito.
Nederlands Kamerorkest
Conductor • Adam Fischer
Director • Jossi Wieler
A new production by De Nederlandse Opera
Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam
K183 • Symphony in G minor, no. 25
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K175 • Concerto in D for keyboard, no. 5
Piano • Herbert Schuch
Symphony Orchestra of the Mozarteum University Salzburg.
Conductor • Jorge Rotter
K201 • Symphony in A, no. 29
Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks
K216 • Violin Concerto in G
Violin • Julian Rachlin
Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks
K219 • Concerto in A for violin
Violin • Janine Jansen
Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks
K271 • Concerto in E flat for keyboard, no. 9
Piano • Mihaela Ursuleasa
Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks
K309 • Sonata in C for keyboard
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Courtesy of BIS
K294 • Aria ‘Alcandro, lo confesso – non so d’onde viene’
Soprano • Cyndia Sieden
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
Courtesy of The Grand Tour/Glossa Music
K297 • Symphony in D, no. 31
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K310 • Sonata in A minor for keyboard
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
K299 • Concerto in C for flute and harp
Flute • Konrad Hünteler
Harp • Helga Storck
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
Courtesy of The Grand Tour/Glossa Music
K316 • Aria ‘Popoli di Tessaglia’ (People of Thessaly)
Soloist • Cyndia Sieden
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K364 • Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for violin and viola
Violin • Janine Jansen
Viola • Julian Rachlin
Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks
K317 • Mass in C
Les Talens Lyriques
Conductor • Christophe Rousset
Courtesy of Camera Lucida Productions
K321 • Vespers in C
Soprano • Greta De Reyghere
Mezzo-soprano • Marijke van Arnhem
Tenor • Renaat Deckers
Bass • Jan Van der Crabben
Capella Brugensis Chamber Choir Conductor • Patrick Peire Courtesy of Naxos
K366 • Idomeneo rè di Creta (Idomeneo, King of Crete)
Idomeneo • Stuart Burrows
Idamante • Robert Tear
Orchestre Symphonique de La Monnaie
Conductor • Sir John Pritchard
Director • Gilbert Deflo
Courtesy of RTBF, Belgium
K366 • Idomeneo rè di Creta (Idomeneo, King of Crete)
Soloist • Magdalena Kožená
Concerto Köln
Concert Master • Andrea Keller
K332 • Sonata in F for keyboard
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
K384 • Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Harem)
Concert Association of the
Vienna State Opera Chorus
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg
Conductor • Julia Jones
Director • Stefan Herheim
K384 • Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Harem)
Belmonte • Topi Lehtipuu
Constanze • Sine Budgaard
L’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
Conductor • Christophe Rousset
Directors • Jérôme Deschamps and Macha Makeïeff
K361 • Serenade in B flat for winds
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
Courtesy of NPS
K331 • Sonata in A major
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Courtesy of BIS
K415 • Concerto in C for keyboard, no. 13
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K382 • Rondo in D for keyboard
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K427 • Mass in C minor
Soloist • Sandrine Piau
Les Talens Lyriques
Conductor • Christophe Rousset
Courtesy of Camera Lucida Productions
K421 • Quartet in D minor for strings
Škampa Quartet
K333 • Sonata in B flat in keyboard
Piano • Lada Valešova
K425 • Symphony in C, no. 36
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K450 • Concerto in B flat for keyboard, no. 15
Piano • Pierre-Laurent Aimard (courtesy of Warner Classics)
Salzburg Camerata
K453 • Concerto in G for keyboard, no. 17
Piano • Angela Hewitt
K456 • Concerto in B flat for keyboard, no. 18
Piano • Leif Ove Andsnes
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
Courtesy of EMI
K465 • Quartet in C for strings
Škampa Quartet
K466 • Concerto in D minor for keyboard, no. 20
Piano • Leif Ove Andsnes
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
Courtesy of EMI
K491 • Concerto in C minor for keyboard, no. 24
Piano • Lang Lang
Salzburg Camerata
Conductor • Roger Norrington
K492 • Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
Figaro • Gerald Finley
Countess • Renée Fleming
Count Almaviva • Andreas Schmidt
Susanna • Alison Hagley
Director • Stephen Medcalf
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor • Bernard Haitink
Director • Stephen Medcalf
Courtesy of Digital Classics
K492 • Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
Cherubino • Angelika Kirchschlager
Concerto Köln
Conductor • René Jacobs
Director • Jean Louis Martinoly
Courtesy of Digital Classics
K527 • Don Giovanni
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K527 • Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni • Martin Bárta
Leporello • Peter Mikuláš
Zerlina • Alžbeta Polácková,
Orchestra of the National Theatre Opera, Prague
Conductor • Zbynek Müller
Director • Ladislav Štros
K545 • Sonata in C for keyboard
Fortepiano • Ronald Brautigam
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K550 • Symphony in G minor, no. 40
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K581 • Quintet in A for clarinet and strings
Clarinet • Eric Hoeprich
London Haydn Quartet
K588 • Così fan tutte (Women are all the same)
Fiordiligi • Tamar Iveri
Dorabella • Elina Garanca
Ferrando • Saimir Pirgu
Guglielmo • Nicola Ulivieri
Don Alfonso • Thomas Allen
Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Vienna Philharmonic
Conductor • Phillipe Jordan
Directors • Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann
K589 • Quartet in B flat for strings
Škampa Quartet
K595 • Concerto in B flat for keyboard, no. 27
Piano • Pierre-Laurent Aimard (courtesy of Warner Classics)
Salzburg Camerata
K609 • 5 Contredanses
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K620 • Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)
Sarastro • Alfred Reiter
The Queen of the Night • Anna Kristiina Kaappola
Tamino • Stephan Rügamer
Pamina • Katherina Müller
Papageno • Klaus Häger
Papagena • Nadine Lehner
Monostatos • Peter Menzel
Staatsopernchor Staatskapelle Berlin Conductor • Julien Salemkour
Directors • Bernward Konermann and Walter Rösler
K622 • Concerto in A for clarinet
Clarinet • Eric Hoeprich
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
K626 • Requiem in D minor
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
Conductor • Frans Brüggen
Courtesy of The Grand Tour/Glossa Music
IN SEARCH OF MOZART is the first ever major feature-length documentary on Mozart’s life. Produced in association with the world’s leading orchestras, opera houses and musicians… told through a 25,000 mile journey along every route Mozart followed…IN SEARCH OF MOZART is a detective story that travels to the heart of old Europe… and the heart of genius itself. Narrated by Juliet Stevenson and featuring: Ronald Brautigam, Renée Fleming, Magdalena Kožená, Lang Lang, Louis Langrée, Julian Rachlin, Roger Norrington, Imogen Cooper, Škampa Quartet, Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Salzburg Camerata… and many other leading musicians, performers, and Mozart experts.
|
Gerry In Search of Mozart “Directors have a duty, almost, to enliven the theatrical element, the dramatic element, to make it relevant to the issues of audiences of today. And the wonderful thing about Mozart is that the issues that he was dealing with still live now.” “The story of Figaro is one of a certain Figaro who finds himself in the service of the Count. The opera begins with Figaro celebrating the fact that he’s about to get married, he is completely happy that er… that Susanna will be his wife within a day. Figaro suddenly realises that the plans that the Count has are not the plans of a man who has good intentions towards Susanna. And that moment we’re entered upon not only sexual confrontation, but also a political and power and social confrontation.” “There’s no question that he felt that the height of his creative powers to create beauty was focused firmly on how beautiful the sound of a soprano voice could be.” “Mozart is always trying to push the boundaries a bit further – that we are loving human beings, we do have the power to hurt and we do have the power to betray. He acknowledges the human weakness in all of us.” “Don Giovanni is not simply a manipulator, but he represents a great deal of what human beings are capable of when put in positions of power.” “His [Mozart’s] awareness of what the consequences are, perhaps were the things that guided him to take the more moral standpoint of saying no, it’s worth pursuing the nobler, more honourable position.” |
What the critics say
Anna Picard, the Independent, 8 January 2006
Look, no periwigs! Mozart goes back to basics
Billed variously as a music event, a film premiere, and, from Tuesday, a television series, Phil Grabsky's feature-length documentary In Search of Mozart launched the Barbican's extended Mostly Mozart season this week. In the very best way, Grabsky's film is defiantly old-fashioned: no dramatised reconstructions, no psychobabble voiced by people in periwigs and corsets, no slops thrown out on cobbled streets for period effect, no scandal or sensationalism, just two hours of talking, singing, and playing heads.
For those who have been dreading an anniversary year of facile beauty enlivened by the few demonstrably great - which is to say effortful - works that even skeptics admire, the seriousness of Grabsky's documentary gives pause for thought. Though Grabsky's interviewees are keen to refute Milos Forman's portrayal of Mozart as a giggling, coprophiliac loon in terror of his authoritarian father, and repeatedly stress that he was a working musician who never wrote a single note just because he felt like it, the harmonic twists and melodic ambiguities highlighted by fortepianist Ronald Brautigam and pianists Imogen Cooper and Lada Valesova indicate that even the simplest of his compositions had a questioning quality. The tension that drives Idomeneo, the Jupiter Symphony, the C minor Mass, and the Dissonance Quartet can be found in the slow movement of his Sonata in B flat. To put it succinctly, their testimonies make it harder to take Mozart for granted.
Tracing a life lived, as musicologist Cliff Eisen puts it, at fast-forward necessitates rapid edits. But such is the quality of the commentary from Eisen, Nicholas Till, Sir Roger Norrington and others that one doesn't feel cheated. Of the musical performances captured by Grabsky, most are very good. Some - particularly those by Brautigam, Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century - are astonishing. The clips of the ham-and-cardboard Prague production of Don Giovanni, on the other hand, made me grateful to be living in a country where a more interrogative, experimental approach to Mozart's operas is the norm.
Marc Geelhoed, Time Out Chicago / Issue 111 : 12–18 April 2007
http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/film/19457/in-search-of-mozart
Rating Five out of six stars
Mozart’s music still speaks to us, but the ingenuity and effortless grace that stood out to his contemporaries don’t strike us as forcefully. The best thing about this doc is hearing musicians explain in straightforward English exactly why a teasing minuet is so revelatory. That, and the chance to see and hear many of the greatest musicians of our time playing both Mozart’s greatest hits and lesser-known works.
With historians providing the background and musicians giving voice and sound to the music, the film lightly traces Mozart’s biography. His boyhood tour of Europe, when he delighted the nobility with his piano and violin playing, is fully covered, as is his death at age 35, overburdened with debt and scratching out an existence. Grabsky lets the music tell the story, with performances of the works presented in chronological order. The myths of his poisoning by Salieri and the Requiem’s commission, both perpetuated by Amadeus, are thoroughly debunked.
A small problem is that the word amazing crops up disconcertingly often from the lips of musicians. Too few can tell us why Mozart’s work was amazing. Baritone Gerald Finley can, though, and easily describes the characters in The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Mozart’s piano works and symphonies gain much from the awed yet knowledgeable dissections of Ronald Brautigam and Louis Langrée.
Despite interviewing a small army of English, German and Italian historians and many, many musicians, the doc moves swiftly and surely to its tragic, too-soon conclusion.
Joe Leydon, Variety
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117934058.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
The music is sublime, but the words keep getting in the way. Documaker Phil Grabsky takes a respectfully genteel if not downright worshipful approach to his subject throughout "In Search of Mozart," a beautifully lensed but ploddingly paced tribute that provides talking-head interviews and dramatic readings of old letters as the prosaic counterpart to a virtually nonstop soundtrack of the composer's greatest hits. Even the most devoted classical music aficionados likely will enjoy this doc most when they're able to provide their own intermissions by hitting the pause button.
When he's not traipsing across Europe to dutifully film locations where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worked, played and lived, Grabsky offers testimonials from a diverse array of musicians (many of whom also perform), historians and musicologists.
Occasionally, the interviewees are amusing and/or insightful. Violinist Julian Rachlin matter-of-factly notes that Mozart "must have been crazy to some extent." But conductor Jonathan Miller begs to differ, asserting that, as was the case with Shakespeare, Mozart's prodigiousness "seems to be associated with a perfectly normal psychological existence." Music historian Imogen Cooper marvels at the "cheeky response" of piano to orchestra during the opening strains of Piano Concerto No. 9 in E Flat.
Long before the midway point, however, the sheer volume of verbiage becomes oppressive and repetitive. As experts debate whether Mozart intended this sonata as a tribute to his late mother or that opera as an attack on his demanding father, doc resembles nothing so much as a routine Biography Channel profile with a really terrific score. Even so, some auds may be more than willing to accept the didacticism in exchange for so many sterling performances of that music.
It's worth noting that much of "In Search of Mozart" seems designed to debunk "Amadeus," Peter Shaffer's award-winning play (later an Oscar-winning film). Miller argues that Mozart was no more excessive in his scatological humor than many of his contemporaries. And the closing credits emphasize: "He was not poisoned. Nor was he a pauper when he died." So there.
Alan Lockwood, The New York Sun, 20 July 2007
http://www.nysun.com/article/58791?page_no=1
With imagery easing from lavish Viennese interiors to portraits of Mozart's penetrating, ever-youthful gaze, and commentary progressing seamlessly from his letters to impassioned expert analysis, the documentary "In Search of Mozart" is too canny to call itself "In Praise of …" The film's splendid musical materials, which are examined by the opera soloists Ian Bostridge and Gerald Finley, the pianists Imogen Cooper and Leif Ove Andsnes, and numerous others, help make "In Search of Mozart" a meditation on brilliance and verve, presenting a fresh take on the man who may have best embodied both those traits.
Incisive and raring to please, Phil Grabsky's film, which opens today at Cinema Village, melds an emotional travelog with artistic chronology, its musical selections illustrating both the composer's progress and the abiding passions that waft through the film's two-hour length. Mozart experts speak with striking limberness, and in a film genre in which music often functions as billboard or mile-marker, the closely filmed chamber recitals, touching keyboard demonstrations by Lada Valesova and Ronald Brautigam, and opera scenes featuring Renée Fleming sate the ears and incite curiosity.
Mozart's early life as a prodigy is narrated by stage the stage veteran Juliet Stevenson, who gives way to a cast of engaging commentators (director Jonathan Miller and Mostly Mozart conductor Louis Langrée weigh in admirably). Mr. Grabsky ("The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan") has done his own filming, filling frames with interview subjects as personable as they are authoritative.
He also creates witty visual bridges: As Leopold Mozart carts his family around Europe for three years, exposing his gifted boy to Handel, Hayden, and J.S. Bach, the director segues passing landscapes into familiar freeway traffic. (One flurried montage is less effective once Mozart, in his early 20s, forays to Paris with his mother.)
Bayan Northcott speculates that "the true Mozart breaks through rather late, because he had this huge expertise — he'd composed full-length operas, he'd composed 28 symphonies by the age of 18." Then music aglow with charm takes a deeply visceral plunge, with opinions varying as to the first signatory Mozart composition (Mr. Northcott tags Symphony No. 29; another interviewee elects Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat).
Performance clips illuminate settings that include a resonant Amsterdam church, and passages flow from choral, symphonic, and operatic masterworks completed within Mozart's grueling work and family schedule. The end comes at age 35 while wrestling with the immense "Requiem" — too soon, as is ever the case with Mozart.
"I did 100 interviews, and filmed 80 live performances," Mr. Grabsky said, "and once things got past the logistics and agents and I was talking to the performers, they were fantastically enthusiastic. Renée Fleming gave me an interview at the opera house in Paris, where she was performing that evening; she paused while talking about ‘Don Giovanni,' and a huge burst of thunder cracked outside. It was also a thrill being in the pit with the Vienna Philharmonic, and attending rehearsals with the Orchestra of the 18th Century. In Dubrovnik, I filmed two of today's finest young violinists, Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin."
But it wasn't all as easy as it sounds for the director to engage these masters of Mozart.
"I did have to chase Lang Lang a bit along the corridors of the Salzburg Concert Hall."
Mozart rehearsed every single day from a very early age, along with his father, who was a great violinist and composer. It would be reasonable to make a film chronicling only his first 18 years, both because he had laid the foundation for his genius, and because his relationship with his father molded so much of what he would become. "In Search of Mozart" quotes extensively from their many letters before detailing their painful and ultimately unresolved break.
And though Mr. Grabsky loved "Amadeus," Milos Forman's 1984 Oscar-winning drama, "it's in fact a film about [rival court composer] Salieri, and the burden of mediocrity. Mozart was not poisoned by Salieri, and his wife, Constanze, was not the character portrayed." As Mr. Grabsky says of the woman who championed her husband's music for decades after his death, "we wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't for her."
Mr. Grabsky also disputes the view that the Clarinet Concerto, made late in the composer's career, is an acknowledgement of the composer's mortality. "Especially in its slow second movement, it's a love letter to his wife, who was away at that time," he said. The concerto opens and closes the documentary, and was an early motivation for its being made.
As a boy, Mr. Grabsky would visit his older sister in Berlin, where his brother in law played the concerto as an amateur soloist. "Even at 7 or 8 years old," he recalled, "I could recognize something of the beauty in that music."
Jeannette Catsoulis, 20 July 2007
http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/movies/20moza.html?ref=movies
A Tribute to a Master Composer
Setting the record straight literally and figuratively, “In Search of Mozart” is an adamantly linear, myth-busting stride through a prodigiously talented life.
Guided by Juliet Stevenson’s soothing narration and a masterpiece-crammed soundtrack, Phil Grabsky’s documentary follows the young Wolfgang Amadeus as he struggles to make a living among the aristocracy of 18th-century Europe. As fingers fly over strings and keyboards — and accolades simply fly — the film loses itself in reverence, presenting one musical titan after another to rave and revise. While some are delightful, such as the opera and theater director Jonathan Miller elaborating on Mozart’s mental health and “toilet humor,” others simply tread on one another’s adulation.
Made to celebrate last year’s 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, “In Search of Mozart” is both a tribute to the master and a spirited response to the award-winning fictions of “Amadeus.” Mr Grabsky — whose previous filmmaking interests have ranged from Muhammad Ali to a refugee family in Afghanistan — best serves his prolific subject when attending to the music itself, and the film’s most universally appealing moments are devoted to the enthusiasms of performers. Hearing the conductor Louis Langrée breathlessly explain how the Symphony in G Minor is “full of screams,” who could resist the urge to listen for themselves?
Eric Monder, Film Journal International
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003615910
Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth (actually last year), director Phil Grabsky blends extended musical excerpts with a detailed life history (narrated by British actress Juliet Stevenson) and testimonials from musicians and scholars in In Search of Mozart. The adoring portrait of Mozart, man and musical genius, lacks anything new to say but provides a primer of sorts for those unfamiliar with classical music.
In general, Grabsky carefully outlines Mozart's story while interweaving a chronological lineup of symphonies, operas, sonatas, string quartets, et al. The results are a bit like those old Hollywood biopics of popular and classical composers minus the artless acting and dialogue. Still, those films were more colorful, even moving for all their silliness, partly because Grabsky intrudes on the Mozart biography with so many comments by authorities like conductor Jonathan Miller and historian Imogen Cooper that the story part loses its sense of drama and sadness.
Those who wish to learn about Mozart will at least get to hear about his impoverished youth in Salzberg, Austria, his uncanny ability to play piano at five, his travels with his father across Europe, performing from court to court, his eventual appointment as court composer for Emperor Joseph II, and his death at age 35. Grabsky avoids, even challenges, the portrait made so indelible by the Peter Shaffer play and Milos Forman film Amadeus, which turned Mozart into a nut case and his death into a murder scheme, but one may wonder about Grabsky's own conclusions, given how some of the facts are stated without much substantiation. ("He was faithful to his wife" is just one of the offhand declarations.)
Whatever one feels about all the talk (and there is a lot of it), In Search of Mozart is graced with significant portions of music, from the Clarinet Concerto in A to full-dress performances of Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro. Many of the performances are stirring--it is a treat to hear and see violinist Janine Jensen, pianist Lang Lang and, of course, opera divas Magdalena Kozená and Renée Fleming.
But one wishes Grabsky had done something more creative in the other parts of the film--drawings, letter readings and talking heads smack of a lifeless Ken Burns-styled PBS outing. Herr Mozart deserves better.
Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe, 4 May 2007
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/05/04/searching_for_a_mozart_you_never_knew_was_lost/
Searching for a Mozart you never knew was lost
"In Search of Mozart" features many fine performances -- few longer than 30 seconds -- including Gerald Finley as Figaro.
The grand festivities marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth have come and gone, but the party favors are still arriving. "In Search of Mozart," Phil Grabsky's informative feature-length documentary, has been making the rounds at various museums and festivals since last year. It opens today at the Museum of Fine Arts for eight screenings.
Narrated by Juliet Stevenson, the film is a thorough treatment of his life and work that covers all the bases you would expect and mostly with the reverent tone you would imagine: the emergence of his miraculous talent, the massive tour of European capitals he embarked on as a boy with his father and sister, the return to gloomy old Salzburg, the allure of Vienna, his great successes in the 1780s, the mysterious commission of the Requiem, and so on. Most of the stories have been told in countless program notes and biographies -- how exactly we are still "in search of" Mozart is never made clear -- but they are assembled here in one smoothly flowing and easily digestible narrative that serves as a fine overview and introduction.
Grabsky also seems highly aware of the way Mozart's life was sensationalized by Milos Forman's successful film "Amadeus," so he calls on a phalanx of historians and musicologists to debunk myths and set the record straight. It is particularly moving to see the scholar Stanley Sadie , the editor of the sprawling "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" who died since the time of the filming, speaking with humane seriousness about Mozart, one of his enduring passions.
But most of the color and zest among the movie's many talking heads comes from the refreshingly irreverent opera director Jonathan Miller. After one hears excerpts read from Mozart's famously scatological letters -- far too explicit to quote in this family newspaper -- the camera cuts to Miller, who wryly reassures us that we don't have to think of Mozart as having a dirty mind. Rather, Mozart and his family "are coming to terms with the fact that we are these vessels of food and feces, and what's odd about that?"
What's less effective is the strange crosscutting to shots of contemporary life in various European cities to illustrate the historic narrative. At one point, the camera randomly follows attractive women walking down the street while a voice - over reads family letters cautioning Mozart about his budding love for Aloysia Weber.
Better managed are the film's thumbnail sketches of the three operas Mozart wrote to librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte , which Grabsky and his experts richly embed in a cultural context. Perhaps best of all, there are many fine performances of Mozart's music captured in the film, though they seldom run for longer than 30 seconds. Among the performers featured are the singers Renee Fleming, Magdalena Kozena, Gerald Finley, and Ian Bostridge; the pianists Leif Ove Andsnes, Lang Lang, and Ronald Brautigam; and the conductors Rene Jacobs and Louis Langrée. It's a pleasure to hear these musicians perform and then rhapsodize about Mozart, often sharing their first hand insights into his scores. In keeping with this theme, another musician -- the Boston-based violinist Daniel Stepner -- will introduce "In Search of Mozart" at this evening's screening.
The film ends with Mozart's death, but in a way, that's where the fresher subjects for exploration begin: the posthumous creation of his legend, the birth of the cult of Mozart worship, the invention of today's "timeless" musical canon, the appropriation of Mozart by the Third Reich, the breathtaking modern-day commercialization of his image . As one example of this, in the case of the famous Austrian sweet that bears his likeness, how and why, precisely, did this musical genius become a dessert filled with marzipan?