Microcinema DVDs - In Search of Mozart

2010-02-03 JWR
By S. James Wegg

Filmmaker Phil Grabsky has done the world an enormous favour by painstakingly and lovingly crafting a musical portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that is worthy of the subject matter. Unlike Milos Forman’s much more fanciful/theatrical Amadeus, this film’s star is the music. Curiously, perhaps unconsciously or subliminally, the opening and closing Viennese snow immediately rekindles a memory of the fictionally-poisoned composer’s burial in the 1984 Best Picture winner where his lifeless body was sprinkled with lime dust (cross-reference below).

The cinematic magic created during the seemingly impossible task of, in just over two hours, documenting and celebrating the all-too-brief life stems from Grabsky’s brilliant use of the camera even as the ear is awash in some of the most deeply moving (covering the entire emotional spectrum) scores ever written. Various portraits of the Salzburg native fill the screen as the music unfolds, while a nearly imperceptible slow zoom in towards the eyes draws the viewer/listener deep into Mozart’s spirit. As the painters must have realized, what lurked behind them was a one-of-a-kind mind that spent its time on the planet diligently sharing all manner of thoughts, ideas and feelings in a way that anyone, if so inclined, can appreciate. At other times be it piano (e.g. Ronald Brautigam’s soothing performance of Piano Sonata KV 310; Lang Lang’s somewhat edgy first measures of Piano Concerto KV 491), viola (Julian Rachlin’s impassioned rendering of the slow movement of the Sinfonia Concertante KV 364—his eye contact with the bassist speaks volumes) or string quartet (largely the beautifully balanced snippets from the Škampa Quartet), the fingers of the performers take prominence, creating a marvelous flurry of music making as craft, leaving the result to speak directly on its own. One gets the sense of truly being in the moment of art.

For the many interviews, Grabsky opts to utilize head shots—again giving a closeness that adds further impact to their comments and observations (“A perfectly normal psychological existence,” says director Jonathan Miller; pianist Leif Ove Andsnes confesses to “goosebumps” in the first movement of Piano Concerto KV 490 after he and his colleagues in The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra serve up a slightly light syncopation in the exposition)—very nearly creating a kind of conversation between Mozart and his present-day admirers. Filmmaking of this sort is as rare is the genius which inspired it.

With so much material (both visual and sound—excerpts from over 80 works make up the tracks) to work with, a special mention must be made of Phil Reynolds’ truly seamless editing and sound recordist Simon Farmer and Ben Ormerod’s first-class mix.

Perhaps the only thing missing from all concerned—be they the artists, historians or musicologists who collectively add much to anyone’s understanding of Mozart’s life and times—is a discussion at any level as to the harmonic implications of the composer’s works. His miracles of modulation (perhaps more at the root of Lada Valešova’s somewhat simplistic “asking questions” explanation regarding the pathos of Piano Sonata KV 333) and choice of tonality (delving into the use of D Minor for the likes of Don Giovanni, the Requiem, String Quartet KV 421 and the 20th Piano Concerto could make a film on its own) are left for another day.

That quibble aside, this exemplary production (featuring the considerable artistry of clarinetist Erich Hoeprich at beginning and end adds both musical continuity and provides extra, much-wanted measures even as the case for employing “original” instruments is given a considerable boost) is a must for music lovers and neophytes alike. Being available in seven languages can only expand its audience just as the bonus feature interview with Grabsky gives even more depth to the package.

2010-02-03 DVD Talk
By Paul Mavis

Simple. Straightforward. Beautiful. Commissioned for the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth, 2006's In Search of Mozart is a lucid, superbly produced look at the classical composer's life and music. Filmed all over Europe in the places where Mozart lived and worked, In Search of Mozart also features a host of today's most celebrated musicians and artists performing selections from of a multitude of the composer's works, giving the viewer a stunning, intimate crash course in Mozart's oeuvre.

If you're like me, I know Mozart from his various musical pieces I've heard throughout my life, and from Milos Forman's film, Amadeus, and that's about it (and it's been years since I've seen it last). I'm certainly no scholar of his work or life, nor am I fluent in musical terminology or history except on the most basic level. Apparently, according to the interview Phil Grabsky gives as a bonus to this disc, In Search of Mozart's the writer/director's limited background with the composer and his work wasn't all that dissimilar from mine and I would assume, most people's. Attending a concert and being moved by the experience, Grabsky wondered what he knew of Mozart the man, and realized his only information came from the Forman film. So he set out on a Herculean task: to film, on his own, every available work of Mozart's being performed in the world, supplemented by interviews with historians and artists giving their perspectives on the composer. And he produced a remarkable portrait of the man and his work that differs quite strongly from the Mozart I would imagine most viewers visualize - Forman's Amadeus (and to a much smaller percent, those who saw Peter Shaffer's Amadeus on the stage).

Beginning with Mozart's birth in Salzburg, Grabsky, through interviews with various historians, first mentions the extraordinary circumstances of Mozart's physiognomy. A child prodigy as a performer of the piano and string, Mozart's hands at five years old should not have been developed enough to skillfully manage a keyboard, yet by that age, he was besting his father, Leopold, who was considered one of the best musicians in Europe at that time. His preternaturally advanced skills didn't stop at performing; by five years old, Mozart was already composing musical pieces which, although obviously not as accomplished or as deep as his later, more mature work would be, still showed an amazing knack for acquired conventions and clichés of other composers of that day, transformed into proficient, delicate works of his own. Contrary to the impression I always had that young Mozart and his child prodigy sister Nannerl were "dragged" around Europe by their father like performing seals for European royalty, Grabsky paints a portrait of a willing and rambunctious little boy who loved the travel and attention he received on this grand tour of Europe...even if his father didn't always appreciate the sometimes low pay from royals who might give a trinket in appreciation for the young genius' work, instead of needed cash or a court appointment. This extended trip abroad is also portrayed as critical in expanding Mozart's musical background, exposing him to the world's greatest composers and musicians - events which immeasurable shaped Mozart, who was said to be able to memorize a work just by hearing it once.

As he grew into his teenage years, his father Leopold tried countless times to secure a court position for young Wolfgang as his son continued to perform and compose pieces on commission. Eventually procuring a position as a composer for The Archbishop of Salzburg, Mozart proves to be an at-best indifferent employee, creating just as many if not more pieces outside his official duties, composing at this time his first true "mature" works...at the age of 18 and onward, incorporating musical conventions of the time and rearranging them with surprising effects, but in a manner not too surprising to alienate his increasingly affectionate audiences. At this juncture in the doc, Grabsky makes a point of articulating his view, through Jonathan Miller, that Mozart was far from the "mad genius" stereotype that is often applied to the composer (and which Forman played up to some extent with Tom Hulce's enthusiastic performance). Instead, Mozart here is portrayed as an otherwise normal, fun-loving youth (who indulged in scatological humor as was the norm of that - and any, for that matter - day) who worked quite seriously and prodigiously to compose, showing no signs whatsoever of madness in his personal life. However, a trip to Paris when he is 22 years-old leads into a failed romance, and with the death of beloved mother and developing rift with his father, Mozart's work deepens with this tumultuous time in his life.

However, by 1782, Mozart has finally resigned from his court appointment; he's working in Vienna, and he marries Constanze, the younger sister of the woman who had before rejected him. Becoming fashionable and successful in Vienna as a performer and composer, Mozart's happiness is matched by his prodigious output, marred only by the lost of his first son in 1982, an event that some see as influencing his famed Sonata in B Flat for Keyboard. Another key point that Grabsky makes here is that Mozart wrote for money, not out of some obsession to compose. His facility with composing was unprecedented, but it was employed for a less exalted purpose than "art for art's sake" - it was a job to Mozart (I love how they detail how Mozart could compose anything, anywhere, whether it was sitting at his desk, or inbetween shots at the billiards table. Another low point comes in 1786, when his father and his third son die, with his next opera Don Giovanni, perhaps reflecting Mozart's solemn mood. A court appointment as Imperial Composer sounds better than it is, since the salary is considerably less than what he was making as an independent composer, and his debts begin to mount (were his financial and spiritual troubles reflected in his dark, brooding Symphony in G Minor #40?). Again, going against the grain of the usual popular interpretation of Mozart's final year, Grabsky points out that 1791 was actually quite a productive, happy time for Mozart. He was beginning to make money again, his son Franz is born, Mozart composes The Magic Flute and the Concerto in A for Clarinet (a piece that Grabsky interprets as Mozart asserting the life force, not hinting at a premonition of his own end, as has been the accepted view). Mozart's final piece, Requiem in D Minor occupies him right up to his death bed, which Grabsky firmly states came from rheumatic fever and kidney failure - not from poisoning.

Just from a visual standpoint, In Search of Mozart is gorgeous, with director Grabsky operating his own cameras to beautiful effect, capturing a stillness to the locations that meshes perfectly with the steady, rhythmic editing structure by Phil Reynolds. As for the narration that Grabsky wrote, it too avoids verbal fireworks in favor of simply-conveyed information (read nicely by Juliet Stevenson, along with Samuel West voicing Mozart and other actors enacting real-life participants from letters written at the time) which neither comes off as too academic nor too dry (you don't have to know a thing about Mozart or classical music to understand the historical timeline). Historians featured in interviews here include Nicholas Till, Harry Halbreich, Stanley Sadie, Josef Mancal, Bayan Northcott, Volkmar Braunbehrens, Giovanni Carli Ballola, Cliff Eisen, Jonathan Miller, and Gunther Bauer. More importantly, Grabsky has captured numerous Mozart works here, with performances and discussions of the works by artists such as Frans Bruggen, Ronald Brautigam (who, when working out Mozart's Symphony in E Flat #1, a composition Mozart wrote when he was 8-years-old, perfectly illustrates what was amazingly advanced about this child), Roger Norrington, Thomas Allen, Adam Fischer, Janine Jansen (who performs an achingly beautiful rendition of the Concerto in A for Violin), Imogen Cooper and Louis Langree (who are equally adept teaching us on the piano about Mozart's advanced "call and answer" technique in his compositions), Renee Jacobs, Gerald Finlay, Stefan Herheim, Lada Valesova (another good explanation of Mozart's technique at the piano), Lang Lang, Renee Fleming, Charles Mackerras, and Thomas Allen. While the historians have the facts, I found the artists' interpretations of the works utterly fascinating, with all of them conveying quite strikingly the passionate relationship they have with the pieces (and to a person they're articulate and well-spoken about their love of Mozart's music). Of course, in the end, it's the music that can't help but dominate (and it's too bad that this two hour doc couldn't accommodate longer passages from his works), but to writer/director Phil Grabsky's credit, his evocation of historical Mozart, of Mozart the man, more than holds our attention, as well.

The DVD:
The Video:
Presented in an anamorphically enhanced, 1.77:1 widescreen transfer, In Search of Mozart looks pristine, with no compression issues, rich color, and a sharp, sharp image. The cinematography, by Grabsky, is impressive for this kind of film.

The Audio:
I was a little surprised this wasn't released in 5.1, but the 2.0 stereo mix is adequate. No hiss, and the recording level is fine. There are subtitles available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish.

The Extras:
There's an informative interview with Grabsky included here where he gives some good detail on how In Search of Mozart was conceived and executed (it's unfortunate that whoever shot the interview insisted on that strange close-up of the director).

Final Thoughts:
A terrific documentary. You don't need to know a thing about Mozart to get a crash-course in his life and music in In Search of Mozart. Beautiful to look at and listen to, In Search of Mozart imparts a lot of information in an accessible, entertaining fashion - this isn't a dry lecture by any means. I highly recommend In Search of Mozart. Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

2009-12-30 Blog Critics
By Jennifer Bogart

Many in North America hold views of Mozart’s life that are strongly influenced by the smashing film Amadeus. Embarking upon his 128 minute, feature length documentary - In Search of Mozart, director Phil Grabsky soon discovered a man who was a far cry from the one many of us carry about in our minds. Grabsky’s work is quite simply a tour de force journey through Mozart’s life. Compiling around 70 of Mozart’s compositions, traveling to the prominent locations in his life, and interviewing musicians, singers, and conductors about their experiences with Mozart the man as felt through his music, Grabsky has single-handedly assembled what is quickly becoming a classic.

With little experience in classical music, opera, or even knowledge of Mozart and his work, Grabsky set out to track down the man through his personal correspondence, and the works that most closely correlate with pivotal events in his life. As a result, many ‘minor’ works are included, with many of Mozart’s best-known sound bites excluded – there is no “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” to be found here. What there is includes beautifully filmed, passionate musical performances, glimpses into the roads Mozart traveled, and a sharing of the man’s own words through his correspondence.

I found myself perpetually amazed by the beauty and quality of the work, which was filmed mainly by two cameras manned by Grabsky himself. At times an additional two cameras were rented, but Grabsky’s work is a wonderful showcase for simple, affordable filmmaking. The exception is the low-key half-hour director’s interview, which though fascinating – could have benefited greatly from an additional camera to avoid holding on Grabsky for such a long time through a single angle.

Like Mozart himself, the film has an international flavor. In his travels across Europe, Grabsky made no attempt to encourage his interviewees to converse in English, providing subtitles as needed. The DVD is also region free; in addition to English, it has subtitles available in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, befitting of a Dubrovnik International Film Festival Winner.
Casting aside all dramatic pretense, Grabsky’s Mozart is hard working, devoted to his family, and above all, feels deeply. No efforts are made to hide Mozart’s sporadic crude jests, but set into context it appears that such private correspondences between family members were common in his extended family, and do not denote a lack of culture on his part. These brief references, some saucy letters to his wife, and veiled references in letters to his father place the unrated documentary into the PG category. His penchant for cards and billiards is also touched upon, but without letting his fondness for the activities mar his character.

Grabsky set out to direct the documentary he would have wanted to watch before he embarked upon this project. I believe he’s met his goal of making an accessible, yet comprehensive documentary that touches upon the major character traits and defining events and relationships in Mozart’s life with a good amount of historical accuracy. I certainly won’t hesitate to recommend In Search of Mozart to those seeking a general overview of Mozart the man, as well as Mozart the music.

2009-09-02 Opera Now Magazine

"Beautifully shot…It will fascinate those who know nothing about the composer and intrigue those who know something already."

2009-09-02 Chicago Tribune

"No more important, or beautifully filmed documentary about Mozart’s life and music has emerged than Phil Grabsky’s ‘In Search of Mozart’ … What emerges is a far more accurate, complete and endearingly human portrait of Mozart than any documentary has ever painted. If all you know of him are the glossy lies disseminated by ‘Amadeus’, don’t miss ‘In Search of Mozart’. It’s a must see for tyros and cognoscenti alike."

2009-09-02 Classic FM Magazine

"…as informative as it is accessible…brings us up close to the composer's brilliance."

2009-09-02
By Sir Roger Norrington, conductor

"The most comprehensive film about Mozart I have ever seen!"

2009-09-02 Chicago Sun Times

"Outstanding...a must see film"

2009-09-02 The Guardian

"Essential viewing"

2009-09-02 The New Zealand Herald

"Breathtaking"