Odes to joy… Beethoven (1927)/ The Martyr of his Heart (1918), Austrian Film Archive Blu-ray

Do you prostrate yourselves, you millions,
Do you sense the Creator, World?
Seek him beyond the canopy of stars,
Beyond the stars he must surely dwell.

Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy

Very few biopics stand the test of time and subject. Persons living and within memory are, by and large, hard to replicate on screen and for me at least it’s not easy watching Elvis, Elton or Freddie on screen; it’s frustrating seeing everything that they’re not based on what you have already experienced. It works better for lesser-known characters such as Noelle Gordon and especially those whose reputation needs to be re-established with great care. Talking of which, there are others who reputational slurs are simply reinforced with a lazy wink as in Babylon (2022) something of a hate-letter to silent film not to mention its audience.

In the case of national and global treasures long deceased, there’s a joy in just paying broad tribute and it’s here that we find these two pictures covering the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. Here we see Ludwig the man, the lover, the grump, the lonely driven soul who still liked a drink with friends even as he battled enemies… I doubt it’s a portrayal Haydn or his nephew Karl would have recognised but both are pop sketches that use the music, locations and Fritz Kortner’s physicality to remind us of this enigmatic powerhouse of classical music, a man who wrote over 700 pieces in a lifetime of the highest impact. Even as his health failed him, the composer produced his mighty 9^th Symphony, a work almost 70 minutes long that introduced a choral section for one of the first times in symphony-history and which has confounded scholars and conductors ever since.

This release from the Austrian Film Archive celebrates the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and features two films, Beethoven (1927), celebrating the centenary of his death, and The Martyr of his Heart (1918) produced at a time when lauding national heroes was an end into itself. Both star Herr Kortner who clearly wasn’t at risk of typecasting in a career that eventually stretched over half a century well into the 1960s, acting and directing on screen and stage. He’s quite the screen presence with a face full of awkward features which he manages to contort into a vulnerable ferocity perfectly suiting the spirit of his subject. He’s believable as a romantic lead in the earlier film and as a man isolated by deafness and unyielding passions in the second. He’s a one-man Austrian Mount Rushmore of emotion, scaling alpine excesses with ease.

Young Fritz Kortner in 1918...

1918 and Ludwig van Beethoven is as close to living memory as Thomas Edison is to now only more fondly recalled… he did all his own work after all. Coincidentally, the third film on this set is The Origin of Beethoven's Moon Light Sonata (1909) a production of the Edison Manufacturing Company, and is entirely made-up rationale for the music, suggesting that Beethoven created it so that a blind woman could “see” the moonlight through his musical expression, nice thought though it may be and, indeed, indicative of its powerful effect on the imagination.

 

The Martyr of his Heart was directed by Emil Justitz, from a script he co-wrote with Emil Kolberg it’s a whizz through key touchpoints in the composer’s life with a focus on romantic turbulence. Beethoven is talented spotted conducting in his native Bonn by Joseph Hayden who invite him to Vienna to study with him. Once there he attracts the patronage of Prince Esterházy and others in the city’s cultural circle, he also makes a life-long enemy in the form of the entirely fictitious Baron Trautenfels (Anton Pointner) who acts as a representative of all those unknown obstacles to such a single-minded yet vulnerable creative genius. Beethoven did have a number of run-ins with theatrical impresario Baron von Braun but purely on musical business issues.

 

Beethoven's sworn enemy, Trautenfels at it again!

Their first clash comes, improbably, in a rivalry for the affections of Annerl, a serving girl at a bierhaus, the Baron does not want her consorting with minstrels although I’m not sure if those awarded princely patronage were ever seen as so lowly. Trautenfels is also faithless, even after marrying the barmaid, he still seeks out wealthy women to conquer and defraud.

 

All this is a little sordid next to Beethoven’s growing success and position, as his reputation grows and his love life is conducted, unsuccessfully among the upper classes. His deafness and fading health led him to become more isolated and more than ever, dedicated to his work with only his ward Karl, to care for. There’s extensive use of actual locations which adds some authenticity to the film along with the musical quotes from the composer’s most deeply autobiographical worldly statements.

 

The new score for this is from Birdmusicvienna and is a mix of old and new instrumentation and sound effects, which are sometimes funny and occasionally distracting. Overall, it’s a fun job and they include the inevitable quotations from the man who wrote his own life’s soundtrack which are deftly mixed with the mood and action on screen.

Ludwig conducts his latest groove with Annerl admiringly on the right

A decade later Kortner picks up the ear trumpet once more in Hans Otto Löwenstein’s tribute which, surprisingly doesn’t feel that different in technique although it has a more restrained and dramatic tone; no lusty barmaids or villainous Barons here, just a more straightforward attempt to capture the composer’s genius and isolation. We see Beethoven’s birthplace and more of his early life with his father pushing him hard to achieve what his own “powers” were too weak to attain.

 

In 1892 he is discovered by Hayden and travels there to be his student and to attract the patronage of Prince Lichnowsky as in the first film. Some scenes are similar to the earlier film and perhaps that’s to be expected but this is a more measured and evenly paced film. Beethoven gets so lost in his work he forgets to eat and then requests that the Prince moves his dogs so their barking doesn’t disturb him, both established tropes about the composer… as is the apocryphal story of his only recognising his hearing loss when he was walking with students and couldn’t hear a shepherd play his flute: it’s in both films but not provably truth, but it makes dramatic sense for a period of which there is some uncertainty – Beethoven being quieter than usual and possibly being ill prior to the beginnings of his debilitating tinnitus.

 

Lilian Gray and Fritz Kortner

Before all this Beethoven is romantically connected to the young Giulietta Guiccardi (Lilian Gray) who he teaches piano and dedicates the Moonlight Sonata too (see Edison, wrong again!). It doesn’t work out because of his recognition of the gap between their worlds, but he does get engaged to the more mature and understanding Therese von Brunswick (Dely Drexler) to whom he dedicates his opera Fidelio. But his continued dedication to work and issues with deafness lead to their breakup which, in the film, leads her to become a nun although in life she set up nurseries. Therese is very possibly Beethoven’s “immortal beloved” although he was also in love with her sister Josephine and they were both cousins of Giulietta… these aristos!

 

Beethoven approaches his last decade alone and surrounded by human silence and yet still producing the most transcendent work… his death is handled in a very inventive way in this film and we’re not left down as his eternal Ode to Joy plays us out in celebration of music still recognised by millions.

 

I really enjoyed Malte Giesen’s new score for the film, as performed by the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach, there are so many skilful quotes from Beethoven’s work, all interwoven, sometimes diegetically, in tribute to the great milestones of his career, the turbulence of the Eroica, the calm of the Pastoral and love’s tribute in the Moonlight Sonata all cumulating in the ecstatic Ode to Joy which is the ultimate statement of Beethoven’s lasting achievement and humanity. There’s also a startling moment when Beethoven first experiences his deafness, the music stops completely and there’s silence until he sits down at the pianoforte and realises he can still “hear” what he plays and writes… it might be a bit too on the nail for some but it worked for me: it’s one of the markers of his genius that Beethoven could still thrive and develop his craft without being fully capable of hearing it.

Dely Drexler and Fritz Kortner

So, a highly commendable Blu-ray and one that has me listening to Herbert von Karajan’s versions of all nine symphonies as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s set, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and featuring my Uncle Duncan Atherton in the first violins. He and my mother, a pianist, loved Beethoven and his influence continues to inspire.

 

You can order the set direct from Austrian Film Archive and European suppliers. Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news…

 

Reading list - all from my mother's library:

Beethoven: The Music and Life by Lewis Lockwood (Norton 2003)

Beethoven by John Suchet (Elliott & Thompson, 2012)

The Ninth, Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs (Faber & Faber, 2010)

 

The Moonlight Sonata in 1909...