In Search of Mozart Documentary 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. Without resorting to docu-drama or visual re-enactment, In Search of Mozart traces the composer’s life through his music and extensive correspondence. From K1a to K626 (Requiem), over 80 works are featured in chronological order, revealing striking parallels between the music and Mozart’s own experiences. Throughout, it is the music that takes centre stage, with the jigsaw of Mozart’s life fitting around it. With rigorous analysis from musicologists and experts such as Jonathan Miller, Cliff Eisen, Nicholas Till, Bayan Northcott and the late Stanley Sadie, a new, vivid impression of the composer emerges. It dispels the many common myths about Mozart’s genius, health, relationships, death and character, to present a new image, very different from Milos Forman’s Amadeus. Narrated by Juliet Stevenson and with Mozart voiced by Samuel West, the film features interviews and performances with over 70 of the greatest exponents of Mozart’s music including: Christophe Rousset, Sir Roger Norrington, René Jacobs, Sir Charles Mackerras, Renée Fleming, Magdalena Kožená, Sandrine Piau, Ian Bostridge, Gerald Finley, Sir Thomas Allen, Imogen Cooper, Pierre Laurent Aimard, Leif ove Andsnes, Lang Lang and Škampa Quartet. Frans Bruggen’s Orchestra of 18th Century and Ronald Brautigam perform much of the orchestral repertoire but the film also includes live performances from the Vienna Philharmonic, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Salzburg Camerata, Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln, Netherlands Opera, Staatskapelle Berlin and Prague Estates Theatre. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote: "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years".

• published: 07 Aug 2017
• views: 285