Article first published as DVD Review: In Search Of Beethoven and In Search Of Mozart on Blogcritics.
This Special Collector's Edition-Three Disk Box Set of the Microcinema Exclusive educational documentary series titled In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart is as much brilliant as the composers whose lives are touched upon. Directed by Phil Grabsky, these two documentaries 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 and is still as unique and powerful as when it was created.
Filmed in locations in and around the European cities, homes and haunts of the composers, In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart, the films take you into the very footsteps of the masters, it is obvious that there was extensive research into the lives of both Beethoven and Mozart. There are commentaries by noted Historians, Conductors and World Renown 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 find out the until now known reasons for why they lived as they did and why they were not only well known and famous in their lives, but also the tortured geniuses that would invoke, in their music, images of love, hope and the divine.
Beethoven and Mozart, both musical contemporaries, living at the same time in very similar places, went on to lead very different lives, you learn of Beethoven’s desire to live an aristocratic life, 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 composer’s great lives in the 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. Shortly after our kids came into the room and they were interested too, my daughter, who is eight years old, was completely still and afterwards watched the third disk, which had extras like deleted scenes, interviews and complete movements by the symphonies and concerto ensembles that performed pieces by the composers in the documentary. I feel my children learned about the lives of Beethoven and Mozart just as much as I did, and it was a great way to expose them to culture and music.
It is difficult to tell you more without exposing too many of the secrets of the documentaries In Search Of Beethoven & In Search Of Mozart, the series will be available for purchase on May 31st, 2011 at your local retailer, online or at the web site for the series http://www.microcinemadvd.com/, I would advise you to mark your calendar and get this series.
