Educational Media Reviews Online

On a 33-minute extra on this DVD, Phil Grabsky explains his enthusiastic amateur interest in Mozart, describes his filming techniques and decisions regarding pieces to highlight in the film (he filmed more than 70 himself and inserted a few more on the audio track), and confesses his surprise at finding the world of classical music filled not with elitist snobs, but with people just like him: dedicated artists and scholars who desire mainly simply to share their talent and knowledge, and, in this case, also their passionate love of Mozart’s music.

Grabsky’s position is that we can learn much about Mozart’s inner life and gain a deeper appreciation of his music by examining his biography and compositions together. He recognizes this as a controversial point, but makes a convincing case for it. Of course Mozart wrote many things because he was hired to do so, but some of his style developments are probably attributable to his wide exposure to Europe’s music on his travels, both as a child and later, and the pathos heard in some of his music written, for example, around the time of his mother’s or his son’s deaths as well as the exuberance of his love duets written just when he was most smitten, were surely informed by his own experience.

Though he opens his film with a short slow-movement phrase from one of Mozart's last pieces (the clarinet concerto played by Andrew Marriner on a modern instrument), Grabsky soon moves to the beginning, proceeding chronologically through Mozart's life and work until coming around again, a swiftly-moving two hours later to the fabulous concerto, now played by Eric Hoeprich on a period-consistent basset clarinet (teachers will need to point this out), and then to the final Requiem.

By inserting images of portraits, monumental buildings then and now (Grabsky filmed in all the cities Mozart visited), and scenes of 21st-century daily life in spots where the narrative biography (given a stately reading by Juliet Stevenson) describes people and places Mozart knew and ordinary human feelings he wrote about (hunger, love, the fun and frustration of travel), the filmmaker comes as close as he can to allowing his audience to glimpse the visual reality of Mozart’s life. Many of the instruments used in the film are reproductions of 18th-century models, and some orchestra violinists stand while playing, which would have been common in Mozart’s day, so we are also given a good approximation of how his musical world sounded and looked.

Forty-two interviewees are listed on the film’s website where all 70+ performances are also credited. Some performers (e.g., Renée Fleming, Roger Norrington, Lang Lang, many others) speak of the music, often demonstrating details as they express their appreciation of its unique beauty. Many historians and musicologists (Stanley Sadie, the late editor of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, will be the one most familiar to U.S. viewers) shed light on facts of Mozart’s life and time that dispel popular myths regarding his personality. These commentaries, along with well-read excerpts from Mozart family letters (especially Sam West as Wolfgang Amadeus) and other contemporary documents, keep the story moving; their variety keeps the audience engaged.

Grabsky likes close camera work: fingers pounding on a few inches of keyboards, bows sliding over one or two strings, singing mouths, practically at tonsil latitude, dramatically expressing operatic emotions. Perhaps he feels this enhances a sense of intimacy so we can sense having ‘found’ the Mozart he is ‘in search of’ here. Those uncomfortable with such intrusive-seeming nearness of view may simply be feeling the heat of creative greatness that Grabsky’s technique wishes to convey.

Performing arts high schools, public libraries, and colleges teaching music history and appreciation should offer this well-researched, carefully edited, highly musical biography of the composer many people may know simply as ‘Amadeus.’ It qualifies both artistically and factually as a satisfying antidote to the Mozart portrayed in the famous Peter Shaffer/Milos Forman film of a generation earlier. Collections with that film need this one, too.

Awards

• Best Documentary, Dubrovnik International Film Festival